Speaking on HNV Baits

from Alan Kowaleski on Carp.net Wed. 07 Mar 2001 20:49:51+0200

Although I believe that animals do seek for a balanced diet through the hunger mechanism, it needs to be understood that they are usually able to obtain all they need in the environment. How in need a fish will be for a particular nutrient is dependent on the forage available to it.

Here is a bonus required additive right off the bat. A little table salt in your bait. Carp being a freshwater fish has a higher concentration of solutes within it compared to the freshwater he is in contact with. To prevent loss through the gills, or skin which is not entirely intact, nature has given it an oversized kidney. The kidney of a carp requires most of the space containing it's viscera, because it is so large. The kidney works hard actively recovering salt from the urine. By biofeedback mechanism, carp recognize salty things and ingest them. And for you ionic lovers, it is a purely ionic molecule. NOW WE'RE HAVING FUN!

In most waters there will be adequate forage. In portions of waters, such as the massive Lake of St. Lawrence which is formed by the Iroquois dam and Robert Moses Saunders dam, carp have an abundance of forage and they grow large and numerous. The lake was once miles of farmland and timberlands. In other portions of the river the substrate is a large granite walled channel where carp do not proliferate to the amazing degree that they do in the 'lake'.

In the UK the carp are inhabiting shallow eutrophic lakes which resemble American ponds and numerous municipal waters. Americans have had these waters stocked with king carp for a hundred years before the stocking campaigns in the UK. In general our American carp grow to good sizes but the carp receive such care in the UK, that these fish attain to trophy weights, I believe owing to the chumming campaigns of HNV baits.

I wish some of the American entrepreneurs keeping captive carp in our paylakes would give it some thought. I have said before that I subscribe to HNV theory. What I subscribe to is that anything the carp finds as food will become readily accepted if it provides the fish with satisfaction of it's nutritional needs.

I found that to be a sound concept in Ken Townley's "Carp Baits" by Beekay books. He also discusses what he believes will cause a bait to 'blow" meaning to eventually become rejected by the carp, and that included inferior nutritional value and the overuse of scents and attractants. I have also said before that I believe in the use of flavorings and attractants. I use from time to time 'Secret Agent', 'Nash Whiskey Extract' and 'Obsession for carp'. Scopex will always be a hit with me and carp.

I like Ken's description of 'Monster Crab' for the reasons he stated and would like to get some of that.( Ken from ko baits) The attractants I have tried are easy to use liquid, which can be OVERdone without caution. I also use the supermarket flavors in the form of extracts and have for years. They too can be overdone. Very natural flavors like anisette toast reduced to flour and mixed into cornmeal or cereal flour are superior flavors and scent attractants, as well as Strawberry Quik and jello, Big Red and soda pops as liquefying agents; all are helpful and cannot be overdone. All these I recommend to my friends to experiment with. Super baits, to coin a phrase recently used on the list.

Yeah, my boilie budget is higher than most carpers spend on their entire carping budget. Twice a year I buy up to 30kg of the 'now hot in the UK' boilies, which my friends bring over when they visit. Often they are custom mades, incorporating the mystic potions that are the rave in the UK carp mags. I would profane the mix if I added to them. Do they magnetically pull the big fish to my hooklinks. Maybe if they were in mielie bom form, but boilies are boilies and the best place for them is the St. Lawrence and not my home waters and not the Conowingo hydro plant where I spend my time.

My advise is don't spend all your money on what don't work, (as I often do) or better yet develop a couple 'good ol baits" that do work. Don't fall for the flavoring hype, or the claim that there is a super bait. Use the proven products. Chemoreception is a proven fact, but that also goes for natural scents and flavorings, too.

Top brand names are involved in super bait development on the highest level, so stick with them, not the bathtub concoctor. You can concoct as well as the next guy.

Carp are unique among most other fish in that they are gluttons. They play, rest, and eat the rest of the time. Researchers have noted the carp will often eat beyond it's capacity to utilize all it ingests for energy. A carp will gobble a large number of corn, boilies, and sediment, venting most of the boilies undigested as it goes. This undigested portion goes to benefiting the overall fertilization of the water and the benthic animals on the lower food chain. The carp has no stomach and has a poor enzyme system to aid in digestion. So they pack their digestive systems one end to another, absorbing as they can.

To aid in this constant passage of nutrients the carp requires a certain amount of detritus which is rich in nutrients itself, and provides bulk needed for the process. At any given time detritus comprises the largest percent of stomach contents, and may be the only forage during the winter seasons in Northern latitudes. A good deal of plant matter is ingested also providing micro nutrients and fiber needed for the passage through the GI tract. So after they eat your wonder bait, they have a little detritus for dessert.

Now let me inject what many will find against their thinking. We develop a bait and worry about the color, although it may be fished beyond the range of light penetration, or at least be nearly invisible. Most of us fish cloudy, muddied, or algal stained water. Even in gin clear water, light doesn't penetrate very far. We make the rig look natural as we can. Good idea, especially since we may be throwing into a non feeding area.

We scent it up to attract carp in a feeding mood, but it is not in the feeding area. We see carp jumping or porpoiseing the area. The fish are there. Joe Blow pulled a thirty out last week. I got my share of carp out of this swim, even my personal best. This swim has the best trail leading to it, with easy parking nearby. This is my favorite spot, I'm lucky those bullhead fisherman aren't here yet. I like this spot, I don't get snagged much.

Then, you have a concept in your mind that the carp has smelled the attractive bait, swam in the direction of it, has determined (fish do not determine) it is attractive sitting on the bottom appearing so natural, that it is unable to resist sucking the bait in. Your lead is painted like a natural stone, your line is nearly undetectable, the bait waves naturally in the current. (you believe the carp thinks the boilie is an aquatic ova, or something).

What happens? Your going to catch some fish but you aren't in a feeding area used by thousands of hunger oriented carp. Feeding fields,are acres of area known to large numbers of carp. The water can be somewhat deep where light doesn't penetrate. The current is slow moving, not like the current which proceeded it, which deposited the suspended organic matter which has settled out here. Metric tons of foliage from previous autumns blacken the bottom. A lead buries itself completely in the softness. Gaseous bubbles of methane arise and carp poke into the bottom sensing the movement and electrical discharges of tiny animals, sending bubbles to the surface. Chummed baits resting on the bottom of this layer activate the bacteria to begin releasing proteolytic chemicals and they begin to reproduce exponentially.

Afterall, the specialty of this layer is the breakdown of organic matter into the most basic nitrogenous matter, from carp bait to fertilizer. The chemical frenzy of the microorganisms set up a chemotaxis recognized by the sub sediment life of insect larvae and crustaceans. Mulloscum migrate to the area if they are close enough to the chum or bait. Higher crustaceans such as crayfish, and crabs find the area by the explosive disturbance of electrical activity.

A true ionic disturbance is created by the dissolution of cellular walls and the release of ions once stored to maintain electrical polarity between the structure of living cells. Animals able to detect these chemical changes become curious from bottom to top of the food chain. Carp which are able to determine the movement of forage animals beneath this layer,but may first become aware of the activity in this area from the many forage animals it attracts, including smaller fish. Arriving on the scene the carp at this time will root the area surrounding the chum or bait, and if anglers luck prevails become hooked.

Thousands of large hungry carp require a lot of food to hold them. Does your bankspot qualify as a feeding grounds. Feeding area used by carp exist separately from rest and play areas. Get the depth charts out and speculate where they are. Is the bottom rocky or sandy. Nope, that aint it. Lots of weed, nope that wont feed them natures HNV. Then most good baits will work to attract carp and set up that 'ionic' storm we like to speculate about. Then your bait will work like never before. Al- HNV advocate for a different reason