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The Specialised Hookbaits are lovely but don't expect them to catch you carp from spots that other baits won't. None of those fancy baits will do that fella. If I was you I'd go in with any old half decent (but cheap) bait, put it about a bit, and work out the areas the carp are happy to feed. Once you've done that it's time to start chucking the good (i.e. expensive) stuff in to really get them going. Bait is just one part of the jigsaw. IMO (and I know some will disagree) it plays a lesser part than we carpers traditionally thought. I truly believe if you have feeding fish in front of you almost any half decent bait will work. It sounds to me like it's the rest of the jigsaw you should be concentrating on at this point. Your priority should be finding the areas from which they are catchable. The most expensive bait in the world wont catch owt if it's in the wrong spot bud.

Sort of right, a carp is constantly passing water through its nostrils, certain attractors dissolving into the water causes them to react and try and locate the source (IMO the best way to utilise amino's), I am guessing here but it would make sense that these baits have a highly attractive, highly soluble crust on them which achieves the above. Anyway back to talk about Bayeswater

Maybe this should be another thread, if I'm successful with the hookbaits I will start one, I've done a search but only a few mentions came up. Anyhoo, it ties in as using them partly because of the venue. It is heavily baited year round from what I've seen and I don't think there is an advantage of putting more bait over other that is probably there. The lake has definite feeding areas but I think this is created by popular swims and anglers always adding bait there. The chances of me getting in these swims due to when I fish is minimal, so I aim to target the quieter areas where the carp may just go for a rest and a cruise about. I'm not able to realistically prebait, so when it's warmer I aiming to use a scattering of soluble balls of bait, my bag mix mentioned above, squashed in a 20mm ballmaker, with either the special hookbaits or a meshed paste of the bag mix. In the hope I can find where they are cruising and have enough to stop them for a quick nibble I like the write up of the specialized hookbaits as it shows the makers thinking behind them which is that a carps smell is more like taste and that the baits "taste" go into the water well. Anyway all this is theory and no practice so will have to wait until I get lake side to see what happens !

First time I have seen anyone mention these they look interesting. But like yonny says these wont catch fish alone, the theory behind these sort of things is when the fish move over the bait the hookbait grabs there attention and ends up being one of the first taken rather than the last. I agree with most of this, there is a debate in the final bit but that really would be splitting hairs and I don't think its worth it, I think bait gives you so many options with regards to the feeding situations you can create, but you can't do that until you have a picture of what is going on

Absolutely Yonny, my best fish have all been on luncheon meat, bait does interest me, but I agree other aspects are far more important!! I've seen these baits on the web and always been curious, the only reason I got them was the wife wanted to attack my teeth with some extreme tooth pick thing she has, I only agreed on the condition she wouldn't moan if I brought these baits!! I've read a lot of tim Robinsons stuff and think he is spot on. bait can be made to be more attractive to than others, but he goes to great lengths to find the fish and present his bait well. I am under no illusion that it is me and how I fish that will get me bites or not