carpepecheur

In a recent thread about bait, I expressed my concern about the safety of using salt when carp fishing. It has been niggling me that I did not make my concern known very clearly. I set up an experiment to try and demonstrate my thoughts more clearly. I would be interested if anyone else shares my concerns.

I find crayfish a deadly bait for carp. Unfortunately, their use, here in France, is covered by complicated rules. First you have to catch them. Considering how prolific they are, it is less easy to catch them legally. As I understand it, the use of traps is forbidden as is also catching them by hand. You can only use rod and line (maximum of 4) or a drop net – called a “balance” (maximum of 6). A fishing licence is also obligatory. Once you have caught them, you must kill them (unless they are the very rare native species in which case you have already broken the law). They may not be returned alive to the water or transported live away from the water. From memory the fine is an eye watering 22,500 euros (the same fine as transporting live carp), However, having obtained a bucket of dead crayfish, simply mash them up as small as possible and mix it in with your ground bait. I have found this very effective. I am sure you could also extract some “juice” to put in your boilie mix. I believe crayfish make an excellent hook bait but the rules state that the use of a crayfish for such use is illegal. It does not specify live or dead. I would not be caught using one Alternatively, you can take them home and make crayfish bisque which is a dish to die for. I have a recipe if anyone is interested.

Planning to spend some time fishing a new lake next year on an abandoned estate. I need to install some stepping stones across the boundary stream so I don’t get wet every time, make the hole in the fence bigger but not so big it attracts attention and undesirables, hack a short cut through some very dense brambles and clear a swim to make it fishable.

I love that expression. Whether cooked maize is more attractive than raw maize is a different question. I have left piles of both side by side overnight. In the morning it has all gone. Whether they took the cokked before the raw, I couldn't say. However I am fishing waters with hardly any pressure from other anglers.

I totally agree with what you said Yonny but you seem to infer that it is therefore safe to send out a few spodfulls of pink Himalayan rock salt. I think you are wrong and will explain why I think that. There are three very simple experiments you can do to help understand my concerns. 1) Put a blob of that bright green goo stuff, that I have seen on UK web sites, onto the bed of a lake where you can observe it. You will notice that, because it is heavier than water, it spreads out along the bottom of the lake. (Actually there are youtube videos showing this to save you doing it yourself.) 2) Drop a couple of sugar cubes into the bottom of a cup of tea, without stirring, then drink it slowly straight away. You should notice that as you get to the end of the cup it gets sweeter and sweeter. (not rocket science is it?) 3) Get some live daphnia from a pet shop where it is sold as fish food and watch them swim around in a glass of water. Drop some rock salt to the bottom of the glass. You will see that the daphnia move towards the top of the glass to get away from the brine and then eventually die. What I think happens when you spod out a dose of rock salt is that it takes a finite time to dissolve. As it dissolves the water around the rock salt becomes extremely salty. This strong brine is heavier than water and sinks to the bottom where it spreads out much like the goo. The salt continues to dissolve adding more strong brine to that already on the lake bed. Eventually the salt completely dissolves and the brine solution continues to disperse in the lake until it is virtually undetectable. BUT by then the damage has been done. The strong brine first brings all the small organisms up from the silt and then kills them (a bit like catching razor fish that I mentioned earlier) . This is may be why rock salt appears to attract fish. The carp move in and eat all the small dead organisms and, if there happens to be a bait in the area, they take that as well. So each time a spod of rock salt is cast out, an inert mini desert is created where all food has been destroyed. It may only be a metre diameter but you can see how it won’t take many anglers to do quite a bit of damage without even knowing they are doing it. Unless you can prove me wrong I suggest we stick to our principles established earlier and avoid the use of salt.

That was an interesting article but it did not quite give the whole picture. Salt water at 0.3% concentration is only used to treat fish when there is a specific problem in a Koi pond. Even if the fish can survive, it has other effects. If salinity levels reach 0.10% or above - anacharis, water hyacinths and lotus will not be able to live in the water. If salinity levels reach 0.20% or above - lavender musk and water lilies will not be able to live in the water. If salinity levels reach 0.30% or above – the majority of other aquatic plants will suffer. This includes forget-me-nots, zebra rush, cattails and floating hearts. (Source of info :- https://www.allpondsolutions.co.uk) I remember reading an article where a famous name placed a salt lick in a lake and observed what happened. Eventually carp were attracted to the area and, over time, completely cleared the area of weed and even left a shallow depression where they had been feeding. His conclusion was that salt is a great attractor. My conclusion from his observation was quite different. If you have ever been out and caught razor fish on a beach at low tide you will understand. The technique is to pour a little bit of salt into their hole. After several seconds the razor fish comes up and sticks out above the surface to get rid of the irritant. (They are delicious to eat and make a superb bait for Bass). I guess something similar is happening at the salt lick in the carp lake. I suggest that as the salt lick dissolves it creates a very strong salt solution locally before being dispersed in the rest of the lake. This concentrated salt solution, being denser than freshwater, spreads along the bottom disturbing and eventually killing all the microorganisms that carp like to feed on. This provides a ready feast for carp who move in and make a killing while it lasts. This then leaves an inert cleared space which the name reported seeing. This is pure speculation on my part but just as likely as the explanation that the carp are therefore attracted to the salt lick. So using our established logic we should avoid salt. Coming back to your 24 tons of salt in a one-acre lake, I believe this to be rather misleading. Apart from the damage it would do to other pond life, if you are spodding out lumps of salt it will be in a relatively small area. This will cause very high concentrations locally and do damage before it is dispersed generally into the lake. In addition, salt water is denser than fresh water so will form underwater pockets of higher concentration doing further damage. Because the article appeared in a (presumably) respected carp magazine it is accepted without question. Using our established logic, we should avoid such practise.

Sorry Yonny there was no criticism intended of this friendly, experienced and often well informed forum. Perhaps I should have used the term “general consensus in carp fishing” instead. The logic being applied in the raw maize discussion seems to be:- although there is no direct evidence, one can imagine a situation in which expanding maize can harm a fish therefor it is better to err on the side of caution and not use it. To which I say, if that logic holds up, then that logic should be applied consistently. You asked for an example so I suggest the use of salt. Carp cannot exist without salt, so the argument goes that extra salt in bait or in the environment helps to replace that needed by the carp and is therefore attractive to them and beneficial to their health. I can find no evidence of carp in a normal lake suffering from lack of salt. Of course it has to be the right kind of salt and Himalyan rock salt seems to be de rigueur for carp fishing. However, there is plenty of evidence of too much salt being toxic to most forms of life. It is easy to imagine that too much salt can cause harm to a fish but how much is too much? Therefore, using the logic we have already established, we should avoid the use of salt completely.

There seems to be a clear implication on this forum that the use of raw maize should be avoided because, despite any clear evidence to the contrary, it can be imagined that the maize can expand in the gut and harm the fish. I do understand that argument but why isn’t the same logic applied to other aspects of carp bait?

I am sure Hinders are "reputable", whatever that means. I notice they sell raw maize described as effective and affordable for £1.35 per kilo (if you buy their largest economy pack) plus £13 shipping. I can drive to my local shop and buy it for 25p per kilo. I could drive to a local farm at harvest time and fill a trailer full of the stuff for a fraction of even that price but I can only store so much. If I wanted to proves that using raw maize was actually harmful to fish, personally I would not cite Hinders as a source of scientific knowledge. If I could not find experimental evidence that an expansion of 10% in the gut of a feeding and excreting carp transended the elastic limit of that gut, then I would expect to find at least some Bayesian inference to support that hypothesis. I have been unable to find either. I am simply asking for help in finding such evidence to justify changing my approach. Isn't that what forums like this are all about?

Yes I have investigated tiger nuts. They are a different animal to maize. I drive to Valencia where a lot of it is grown and buy sacks of the biggest and freshest "nuts" I can find. Here is a suggestion, Instead of soaking them in water, soak them in Tiparros fish sauce, available in bulk from chinese supermarkets. I found it vey succesful and yes tiger nuts do swell up a lot compared to maize.

That is exactly right, it is all about risk and, as you pointed out, you and I fish completely different types of water. I have assed the risk. I have actually measured the worst case scenario when using maize. I have scoured the imternet without success for any properly scrutinised, scientific evidence of raw maize causing damage to fish. If anyone has any links I am definately open to changing my mind. Since the day dot, people have been worshipping various gods. That does not make me religious. "Put and take" lakes are not my cup of tea but if someone has spent vast amounts of time and money establishing a fishery I guess they are entitled to make up any rules they want which they think will protect their investment.That does not make them right. That is a different argument. If you want to feed your fish then I guess HNV baits are the way to go but they cost money and , as an impovorished pensioner, I am happier with 25p per kilo maize. The fact that it does not quickly meet the nutritional requirements of a carp is a plus point as far as I am concerned. It means the fish need to eat a lot more bait to get what they need from it. Getting fish to feed and keeping them going is, in my opinion, a sensible tactic. I groundbait regularly and in quite large amounts but have never seen bait go rotten or witnessed distressed fish afterwards. I realise Yonny, that I am paddling a lone canoe. I am not trying to change anyone's tactics. I am simply amd constantly looking for information to test my personal conclusions.

I believe Hinders is a supplier of bait for carp. Would you not think that they have a vested interest in making baits seem more complicated than they need to be? You said “Unfortunately fish have died because of problems with swelling”. I have found no direct positive evidence of this (plenty of speculation). Do you have a reference? Just for the record, the owner of the lake where Benson died found some uncooked tiger nuts nearby and suggested Benson was poisoned. The taxidermist who prepared Benson for mounting found no trace of particles and suggested the cause was gravidity as he saw evidence of spawning. I am not aware of any formal autopsy being performed. I have no desire to encourage harm to any animal but I do like to make informed decisions.

Sorry Goldie, the stomach comment was an easy cheap shot and not germane to the discussion. I should explain that I used to be a surveyor and have a hang-up about measurement. I did a small simple experiment. I filled a glass with water then poured in some maize until it was level with the rim. I waited 17 hours and observed how much it expanded. I scraped off the corn which had expanded above the rim and weighed it at 56 grams. I then weighed the total amount of maize and it weighed 548 grams. I conclude that the volume has expanded by 10%. I also observed that most of the expansion occurred in the first 6 hours. Now if we assume that the carp did not grind down the maize with its pharyngeal teeth before swallowing and it ate the maize straight away before it had time to start absorbing water, and that it continues to expand during the feeding period as digestion takes place, the absolute worst expansion it can experience is 10%. I am no biologist but I feel fairly sure that any expansion of maize after a carp has swallowed it is not going to kill it or cause any serious problems.

I am afraid I disagree with this statement. Firstly, a carp doesn’t have a stomach. Secondly the carp has Pharyngeal teeth to grind down food. And finally how much expansion would kill a carp? My comments relate only to maize as I use raw maize a lot. I find it difficult to find out how long it takes for maize to pass through the digestive system. My best guess from what I have read is 24 hours. It is very simple to measure how much maize expands after a 24 hours soaking in water at lake temperature. In my test it is not very much. Do you have any evidence for your statement?

What I would like to do on one of the lakes you describe is to put out what you concider to be your best bait alongside some raw maize. If I saw with my own eyes that the best bait had gone and the raw maize left then I would be convinced. As you say, I am on waters that are hardly touched by other anglers so I argue that (for me) it is better to spend 25p per kilo than £10 per kilo on bait. I can then afford to prebait as much as I want without breaking the bank and that seems to work for me.

Yes that is a good point. I was wanting to ask if anyone had actually seen bait left uneaten after some time. What I would want to do, in the situation you described, is to put some highly attractive bait next to some ordinary bait and see which one was left. If both were left untouched then your comment about location holds (although they might just be overfed anyway), if only the attractve bait was taken that would clinch it for me.

I think that is a senesible approach and it is one that I follow. However, from my simple and rather crude experiment, it would tend to suggest that providing it is edible, it does not matter where you put your bait or what it is - it will still get eaten eventually. The question I ask myself is that although under test conditions some additives may stimulate a feeding response, how much actual difference does it have in the average lake?

If there is one thing that I have too many of and that is moles. The thought of transporting barrow loads of this freely available stuff that they create to my lake and catching loads of carp is very attractive. I have read a lot of posts on the subject and though those posts contain lots of scientific terms and reasoned speculation, I cannot find a shred of science that actually backs up any of the theories proposed. I have tried the following experiment. I chuck a bucket of bait into some shallow water at the edge of the lake where the bottom is clearly visible. I have tested cheap, expensive and even homemade boilies, cooked maize, raw maize, and various other particles. The next day, without fail ALL the bait has disappeared. I was hoping to prove that one bait was more attractive than another but failed miserably. Of course I cannot guarantee that carp are responsible. I am not sure what conclusion to draw but I remain to be convinced that amino acids, salt, attractors or other enhancements make a huge difference. I think the most significant thing is how long you leave your bait in position, but even that is just a guess.

This has been discussed before. https://www.carp.com/topic/3564-ive-learned-a-new-trickfrom-a-master/

I have to confess it that was me, although I was a few years younger then. I do have a bit of a reputation for eccentric ideas but very occasionally it pays off in spades. Here is an earlier version of the same thing. J

Yes you are right, I just enjoy experimenting. I use a cataplt for short distances and the fustibal for longer range. I have yet to find the need to fish at extreme range, even on big waters.

I use a slightly different approach to a throwing stick.

For me the weight of lead is not about casting. I use a lead for the bolt effect. My thinking is that as soon as a carp takes a bait it can eject it whenever it feels uncomfortable about something. Therefore you should minimise the time between taking the bait and the bolt effect starting by having as short a hook link as possible. To give an extra edge I usually fish my leads against a very tight main line. To enable me to put a lot of tension in the mainline I fit a steel washer to an inline bomb shaped lead. The washer catches on the bottom but the slightest movement, caused when a carp takes the bait, causes the lead to slip and to move in the direction of the tight line. This very small movement makes the fish bolt straight away and it virtually hooks itself. I find about 150 grams is about right for this.

The similarities between us Pelamid continue. I too have a “Tarpon that got away” story relating to a visit to the Republique de Guinea. I have copied and pasted the story from a book I am writing (but will probably never publish). Like you, I am no longer inclined to travel and look forward to making the best of the opportunities which surround me here near the Pyrenees SW of Toulouse. If you are ever down this way, make contact, and I will buy you une pression. As this is really a carp forum perhaps we should keep other hair raising fishing stories for then. My story:- One day, we found it very hard to catch any bait in our net. We went to the market but, because of bad weather conditions, there were no fish for sale. Someone at the fish market suggested we might ask at a fishing village a little way down the coast. We set off for that village and beached our modern survey launch alongside a motley collection of dugout canoes. We were taken to the head man and we explained, in the best French we could muster, that we needed some bait for fishing. Before getting into a discussion about fishing, we were offered some food which it would have been impolite to refuse. Their main sustenance was of course fish. This was preserved by smoking it on a wooden platform covered with banana leaves under which a fire was lit. The fish were smoked whole, complete with eyes and teeth and fins etc and served whole. The smoking process turned the skin a black brown oily colour and it looked most unappetising. The fish did not resemble any edible species we were familiar with. However we had very little chance of refusing what had been placed before us. The fish is eaten cold and pulled off the bone with the fingers but to our complete surprise, that fish was the best tasting food I have ever eaten, before or since. The head man said that all we had to do to catch fish was to make a lure out of a banana leaf. He then showed us how it was made. The final result was something that resembled a small imitation squid. In fact I had some plastic imitation squid in my tackle box and showed them to him asking if they were any good. He made a big joke of it and insisted that we must be professional fishermen to have such classy tackle and we would have no problem catching fish. I felt this was said in a rather tongue in cheek fashion but my linguistic skills were not up to the occasion. He told us how to use the imitation squid and where to go to get fish. We thanked him profusely, repaid his hospitality with some cold cokes from our cool box and started to take our leave. Before we did, he said he was sending one of his men with us just to make sure we understood what to do. He was so delighted with the gift of a large supply ice cold cokes that he wanted to offer us something more and apologised for being so poor. I asked him if I could take one of the many turtle shells that were lying discarded around the village. The contents had long since been eaten and there are just so many that you can use as utensils. I did think that it would polish up well and look rather nice on the wall at home. I was in for a shock as I will explain later! We set off with his man and followed his rather dubious instructions. Instead of heading out to sea, he insisted on sticking close to the shore at a steady pace. We were to let our lines out behind the boat and let the imitation squid just flap along the surface of the water. I remarked that it was a very unlikely way to catch mackerel or whatever bait fish it was we were supposed to be catching. My suspicions were confirmed when the motor of the outdrive started banging against rocks showing that we were only fishing in a few feet of water. I pulled a face and grimaced at our guide shaking my head. He returned with a grin and nodding of his head urging us to continue. It happened in a split second. A fish, that was much bigger than me, attacked the lure at speed. It jumped clear of the water and turned a graceful somersault before falling back on my line and breaking it immediately before getting away. When I recovered the power of speech, I asked him what type of fish it was. The answer was a Tarpon, a member of the herring family. Some herring! When I got back to the fishing village I asked my new friend, the head man, if that was the type of fish he normally catches and if so how does he go about it. He confirmed it was their preferred catch and showed me his equipment. It was simply a long piece of very strong monofilament wound around a piece of wood. At one end of the line was his lure made from banana leaf and at the other a simple loop. His fishing method was to paddle along in his dugout canoe with the loop of the line hooked around his elbow and the line streaming out behind with the lure flapping on the surface. As he paddled, this gave a certain jerking movement to the lure which proves extremely attractive to other fish. I asked him how big the Tarpon were that he caught. “Between 60 and 80 kilo” was the reply. “But surely catching a fish that size on a length of line looped round your elbow must be very painful” I suggested. “Oh yes” he replied and rolled up his sleeve to show deep scars etched into his skin!

Wow it seems that your fishing experiences parallel my own! I fortunately had a job that meant I had to travel to many different countries. In 1983, not wanting to miss a fishing opportunity, I had a travel rod made for me. It was based on a powerful Zipplex blank that people were using for bass at that time. It is not telescopic like yours but is four sections kept in a length of plastic drainpipe. It has caught me many many fish including a hammer head shark well into three figures taken using uptide casting methods. Although it is 36 years old, it is still being used. It makes a good spod rod and is just about to come into use on a new lake I have found where there are lots of submerged fallen trees. It has the muscle to bully a big fish away soon enough. I have attached a photo of the only souvenir I have of those days. The photo witnesses a fish that was bigger than the one caught by the “Extreme Fishing” chap who set out to catch one in one of his TV programs. I know on a carp forum people are squeamish about killing fish but this one fed several hungry Africans