hutch

Wont say which product this is analysis of but its from a lab test on a big bait companies product 25g citric acid50ml Water15ml Boiled Ham10ml Maple5ml E422 (Glycerol) Close enough for me, quantity is based around he amount of liquid tested. And the guy who tested does lab testing for a living, Cereals are bulking agents there is nothing in there nutritional profile a carp can process they simply do not have the requirements to do so, they are used in baits as they are cheap and although not directly bad for carp they just stinky winky it out because there is no gain in there. Nearly every ingredient in use has come from animal/aquatic feeds industry these industries are heavily regulated by DEFRA and any item used in feeds has to have a detailed spec sheet produced detailing exactly what is in that ingredient and the process that's been used to create it. From these sheets you can tell whether an ingredient is useful for a bait or not. CM is that you 😒

You taking your tablets this morning Dez Dont believe Vic stated what his ideal protein level is, I would guess its not above 50% as carp can only utilise around 38% in one passing, its not about protein % any way it about how well the fish can utilise the protein in a given product. No one mentioned halibut pellets Its on the BAG!!!, lab analysis can tell exactly whats in a given product. oh and Vic's lab used to be at Sparsholt College , before calling someone out do your ground work

Ok lets phrase it another way, how much of that £10 per kilo your paying is actually the bait ? , the cost of the mix has to be offset by packaging, marketing, cost of manafacture, supplying consultants. Not much of a margin left. There are better baits developed by better bait brains out there for half the cost. Companies like Essential and ABS have been built by 2 of the best guys in the bait business but I haven't seen B5 at £10 a kilo

So when you were listen you should have been told yeasts are mainly digestion aids well the one in Cell is, the key to the yeast type is in the name.

Hope they don't read the bag ;), bait companies send each others products for lab testing all the time mate, please don't think they don't If it works for you and your confident in it and happy with the price keep going with it Mufty, if you move between several waters on short sessions it could work out well using that sort of bait.

I really dont think it does, bites on my water have slowed right down, its designed attraction (its possible its an investigative trigger that it uses) will only appeal in the short term the base is minimal on the nutritional front but is digestable which might be another reason they keep picking it up, but they will soon work out there not gaining anything from eating it. That time frame though can vary from water type to water type, also how much of it a water is seeing might be a factor as well.

Looks like you didn't get the invite Nige 😂

Not rocket science but possible simple science which makes it effective in the short term as the base is nothing special.

Good job Kev doesn't come on here, he's had comments about his hooks and his baits bet it would have him reaching for the whiskey 😂

😲😲Nige cover your eyes 😂😂

Sometimes they are mate, but when some one knows some of the elements in the equation quite well your salt in take can be reduced Semolina is a [censored] for then to process as they can't absorb anything from complex carbs, makes a good binder though. Errr not sure about your last bit mate

Not the first time I have seen mentions of bait company loosing some important people recently, last time they didn't name the company but did say some of the folk had gone to baitworks.

I dont think anyone is mate from what people have posted, their just generalising about human grade foods

Tight lines fella

Just me mate there are no super hidden ingredients in the bait industry most are from the animal feed market, and there are no super veg protein ingredients in use (but there are a couple of good ones), Cell is mainly cereal meal the rest can be guessed as the ingredients are on the bag. Sticky are better at what they do for my money. In the 90's everything wasn't about hitting a price, fishmeal was a lot cheaper than it is now quality hasn't changed and so were high end refined milks which are now also super expensive, some of the best baits out there are still in there original form Essential B5, Premier Baits Fish Mixes, BFM, Trigga to name but a few, all still catch loads of fish a year. Dynamite went through a stage of using a lot of bread crumb in there mixes to cut them, Don't believe everything you read in the mags or see posted on bait companies catch reports a lot of them have not been caught on what they say they have, also alot of the Korda boys use Baitworks in there off screen fishing.

I wasn't directing at you personally fella, I was more generalising about the state of the bait market in general 👍 You might have seen Nick posting about some companies dipping there baits in glycerine which is essentially the above

Nope not all components in a flavours make up are attractive to carp, but certain elements in some are. Fair enough, its not for everyone mate and is very time consuming, which some people just don't have the old ready made debate is being covered in a another thread here, interesting topic for debate like i posted in there some ready mades are shocking and if I owned a water I wouldn't want some of those baits putting anywhere near my expensive investment in fish, even Gary Bayes says there is a slight nutrional hit with making readymades as you have to reduce the contents of the volatile ingredients (which are generally the ones you want more of) to achieve the a good shelf life, also what is shelf life couple of months to never go off. You are right there are a couple of people trying to do it right but that's just the preserving side of the argument. There is also an argument over how long if ever these baits take to breakdown, lake are being drained to find kilos and kilos of boilies on the bottom that haven't broken down, Mark Pitchers experienced this when he drained Wainstone down, he'd had a guy heavily baiting with shelf life tuttis when he was clearing the bottom in the areas he had been fishing there was kilo's and kilo's of non broken down tutti's, kilos of rotting bait will end in a water quality issue eventually. You say big names but I have seen a lab analysis of ready made against the frozen version of a well known companies bait and they are very different, and this company had done a magazine article to claim this bait had x quantities of an element and the lab test showed half of that in the ready made. Because of the competitive market you are sold the dream via the marketing hype but realities are sometimes different. The main thing is you have found a company that your happy to part with your cash for so all is good.

I should have put a specific boilie, not bait, bait expands far beyond just the humble boilie, so they may stick to one boilie but will bring other items of bait in to play as and when they determine it is required. the best boilie mixes are generally balanced these days rather than being 1 specific type. Over complicate how ?? a carp is a carp right still has the same dietary requirements how it gets those can vary from water to water, I never said all flavours were useful just a high percentage, there are still some out there that are pretty good and companies blending them to a high standard, a good flavour has many chemical components scopex has around 15/16 from a good supplier and JB Plum has around 20+ I think, some of which are attractive to our cyprinid friends

If its working for you that's great confidence is key element to successful angling. I was just highlighting the fact that in respect of giving the fish something from the bait you are feeding them fish/meat based products are king, some of the nut products in use have there place as well to an extent. But they don't have a sense of smell mate, so pretty much all detection of items has to come via gustatory or chemoreception its the only way they a fish can detect what is food and what isn't, even a nut or bird mix will have something that appeals to them on 1 of those levels either via ingredients in the mix or liquid attractants.

Like the others there is nothing like a good quality fishmeal to help the carp meet it's dietary requirements to keep them healthy. I have been on a water where they didn't really respond to fishmeals when I was there originally but I returned for a session last year and had 3 on a fish/liver bait. By flavour I guess you are meaning the overall smell of the bait ? , carp don't detect smell like humans do (some would argue they don't even smell as such but have a function is the equivalent), yes there some great mixes out there based on some of the above but they offer very little back to the fish in the way of nutritional value, there main function is for quick leakage of liquid based attractors. There greatest expanse of energy is when they feed so they will keep picking baits up that they think are food in hope it is giving them something back, but they wise up to the fact that they get nothing back from certain items eventually. Also fruit and nut flavours can work on a fishmeal bait, some of the best fishmeals have a fruit flavour added to them BFM with cranberry springs to mind. Never used these as they are not much more than glycerine and flavour with a dye added, just like the activators (before you ask I have seen lab analysis on the activators and there isn't really much to them unless you like paying for water). That word again smell, it is how they smell to you as a human not the fish (how baits smell to humans is like a bait company jedi mind trick 😁), on a giving the fish something back argument there is nothing in use in the bait industry that betters some of the fish/krill/squid based meals on nutritional value for the fish. Also although you seem to be doing well at the minute and I hope you milk it for ever fish you can, from my experience these types of bait can tail off alot quicker. Also its down to how much you feel flavours play in the great bait puzzle, most offer very little . Due to the lack of nutritional value in most of the above mixes they mainly disappear straight down the poop chute and end up getting crapped out all over your mat The best anglers on here you will find have 1 bait they have complete trust in and they keep to it, if your on 1 water and tend to stay on that water keeping to 1 bait and not over complicating it will work better than changing all the time to what is in vogue. That said if you are fishing multiple waters then a high attract bait can pay dividends. Was lead to something recently Nick that suggested that they really struggle with the complex carbs that appear in some baits and there main sources of energy come from lipids and certain protein conversion, was from a good source but left me scratching my head so make of it what you will.

This one could spin in ever decreasing circles for ever. People making bait expands to a massive circle not just big companies any more, the problem from smaller start ups will be pressure from there buyers to have a shelf life option the required finance to get it right will out way the quick fix fill it full of potassium sorbate option, bigger companies have invested a little bit of time and money to get this right (some will still cut corners to hit price though) looking at alternative methods of making it work. Some one mentioned dates on some shelf life's and im guessing these are using a process that just prolongs the life of the bait to a point where the buyer will have used it. There are companies that alter there mixes by reducing the amount of the volatile ingredients that cause it go off (are shelf life's different to freezer baits if your doing this they are), improving there system for removing the moisture and like Nick suggests a good dip in sugar would probably get long enough out of them. For every company doing it right there is probably 2 doing it wrong, there are some baits I have seen pictures of that shouldn't be allowed to be put in the water, stories of lake owners netting there lakes and scoping up kilos and kilos of none broken down bait is not a good place to be in, if the lake water can't break them down what are the doing to the fishes digestive tract. I have also seen lab analysis on company X bait, which is aimed at colder water and is said to contain a high lipid content than there fishmeal offerings but the lab report on the shelf life version showed percentages nowhere near what they had published in a mag. So the mag values must have been for the freezer bait option.

The buoyancy in krill meal generally depends on how much shrimp meal its been cut with, I have seen baits that are pushing towards 20% with the right quality meal, in a commercial bait I doubt there is any more than 5% in there, like Pete Springate I currently use it at 10% in my current mix.

I used to think this way and i'm sure some people/companies do it better than others but there are some scary baits appearing on the market that are not much more than a lump of cereal meals and being preserved using preservatives that are no better than the ones from yester year. As with tackle there are money men floating round in the bait industry for a fast buck.

Some really good posts on this one and covered a lot of what I would have put. But I will through this in although i don't believe they require nutritionally anything different maybe there feeding elements are more sensitive/acute to specific elements, so outside of what has already been mentioned like calcium and sweet based ingredients/liquids, possibly certain organic acids (original scopex & banana flavours were based on n butyric both known for catching out commons), aniseed EO is another one. Never knew that Vic learn something new every day, with that in mind maybe a bait that has a good balance of carbs and protein would catch them out more as oppose to one that is mainly designed for its protein levels.

Stretch your budget a little and read this. probably one of the most inspirational carp books you will pick up http://www.littleegretpress.com/index.php?action=viewbook&id=162