Leaderboard

Rod Hutchinson and Ken Townley have both made the point, coat a stone in a sweet flavour and it will be picked up, it is down to the rig whether you hook it or not. Carp don't have hands, to inspect an item physically they have to take it into their mouth. An item may taste like food, that can possibly be tested before they eat it, but to physically check hardness, they have to suck it in, or pick it up. A hard food item has to be taken to the back of the mouth to be crushed by the pharyngeal teeth, where smaller or softer items are often passed straight through the mouth, no additional crushing; although how a carp can consume a whole swan mussel and pass it through and out, and the flesh in the shell is eaten I don't know. Constant sucking and blowing, intake and ejection whether the food is attached to hook or not. No end of videos on YouTube or whatever channel you watch on showing that, be it boilies, maggots, sweetcorn or other particles. I have mentioned the 'super' high attract pop-ups, there are some attractors or flavours that almost force the take; N-butyric acid was one, Bromelain, (look up pineapple-n-butyric as a pop-up), but there are other attractors that at higher than standard levels will work in attractor baits, or in low levels in food baits. Incidentally, the high attractor level may cause the low level food bait to fail or blow. The attractor becomes a source of danger, and while carp don't think, continued hooking on the same flavour will get them to avoid it, for a period of time or permanently, or to inspect it carefully, at which point we have to look at the rigs again. Other attractors, may be a mix of enzymes or amino acids, could be flavours, chemical or natural, could even be something as simple as sweeteners like sacharrin. Sacharrin did cause cancers in tests on animals, but in the low levels we use, have not been considered a risk in humans. I have mentioned an attractor blend I love, Garlic Spice. Stinks, but catches.

Never heard of them! Not being funny, but 'getting good press'; advertising now is more dissipated as social media takes over. I used to be very up with knowing bait companies, but when even long time companies are falling by the wayside. I keep making this point, if you have a cake of 30centimetres across, with 5 companies taking a piece, each has a decent slice. Now the same cake with 10 companies taking a piece, the slice is smaller. That is what is happening to the tackle and bait trade.