Bait Additives off the Supermarket Shelf.
For those not familiar with using additives with the bait, the idea is to give your bait more attraction by adding additional flavour. The bait is soaked or shaken in your chosen liquid or powder and is then best left at least overnight, to give your attractor chance to soak in a little.
Just as there are good baits sold by supermarkets, such as sweetcorn and luncheon meat, there are also many additives that can be used to give your bait a boost. To give you some idea I will list a few:
"Worcestershire sauce, oyster sauce, chilli oil, hemp oil, milk shake powders and liquids, curry powders, spice powders, garlic in it's many forms, maple syrup, cake flavours and colourings, sweeteners, yeast etc."
I think you will agree that's quite a list, with plenty of scope to experiment with different things. When you consider the number of different spices available, the list almost becomes endless.
Some however are much better fish attractors than others, so I will list a few of the more popular and proven ones below.
Worcestershire Sauce.
There can't be many households that don't have a bottle of "Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce". Many supermarkets sell their own branded version, but they all smell about the same. It's got a very spicy smell and taste, almost like HP or Daddies Sauce, but not quite.
Not many people realize this, but once the bottle is opened, it gets better with age. It goes darker and smells and tastes better.
It can be used to flavour sweetcorn, luncheon meat, or added to pastes etc.
Oyster Sauce.
Another favourite and often mentioned in angling magazines is "oyster sauce". It is found in the Chinese sections of supermarkets.
It has a salty taste and contains monosodium glutamate. This is a taste enhancer, which means it helps to make savoury things taste better. It's similar to soya sauce, but with a more fishy smell.
It's great for adding to sweetcorn and luncheon meat, but I would suggest adding less than Worcestershire Sauce. It can also be added to trout pellet paste etc.
Chilli Oil.
It's sold by a number of bait firms for adding to boilies, pastes etc., but it's available from the supermarket.
Carp seem to like hot spicy food. I've done very well on the "Red Hot Peperami", in fact it caught my biggest carp from one water.
Being oil based it's no good for adding to sweetcorn as it wouldn't mix with the sweetcorn juice, which is water based. Oil and water don't mix together.
It is however good as a coating for luncheon meat, pellets etc. or adding to a paste made with eggs. Without going into to much science, it you add say a teaspoon full of chilli oil to 3 eggs, beat the egg and oil mixture up with a fork, the eggs break the chilli oil down into very very small particles. This means the egg mixture is evenly flavoured with chilli oil. Try it with water and the chilli oil just won't mix properly with the water.
So the simple rule is, if your adding oil to a paste, always make the paste with eggs. The eggs act as an imulsifier and break the oil down.
Hemp Oil.
The pulling power of hemp is very well known, fish love it. Some say what attracts the fish to hemp, is the oil it contains.
It is available from some supermarkets, but don't expect it to say hemp oil on the bottle. The last time I got some it was being sold by Sainsburys as "Good Oil". So you will have to have a search on the oil shelves and read the small print on the label, to see which is hemp oil.
It can be added to luncheon meat, pellets, groundbait, paste, in fact the list is almost endless. It's not bitter to the taste at all, so you can't over do how much you use, as far as taste is concerned anyway. If you adding to a paste, don't add to much, as to much oil will stop the bait binding together.
Spices.
There are numerous spices on the supermarket shelves. The most common ones used in angling are curry powder, turmeric, paprika and chilli.
Curry powder can be used to flavour maggots, paste, meat and boilies.
If your flavouring meat put the meat cubes in a plastic bag, sprinkle your spice powder onto the meat, blow the bag up with the meat inside, blow it up like a balloon, shake to coat the meat and leave overnight. Curry is especially good at flavouring meat. There are many types to choose from, you could also use curry paste, that's the sort that comes in jars.
To flavour maggots, they are best riddled to remove the maize or sawdust, they come in. Turmeric is very good for keeping maggots in, once riddled add a few tablespoons of spice. If using curry use less, you can even add a few teaspoons to the maize the maggots come it. But it's better if you riddle them again and add fresh maize.
You buy maggots from some tackle shops and they smell like god knows what. Taking a little trouble to riddle them etc., can catch you more fish.
How to Flavour Sweetcorn.
The above video shows just how simple it is to flavour sweetcorn, in this case I'm using Worcestershire Sauce. It could of course have been other liquid additives.
Notice that I have used quite a lot of sauce. Worcestershire Sauce is quite a dilute additive, it can be tasted straight from the bottle without seeming bitter. Stronger additives would need less adding.
For those not able to see the video, sweetcorn is added to a container or left in the opened tin. The additive is then added, shaken and left overnight in the fridge. If possible just keep giving it a shake.
Try and make sure that all the corn is covered by the juice.
How to Flavour Luncheon Meat.
The cubes of meat are then placed in a large plastic bag and the Worcestershire sauce added.
Don't add as much as when flavouring sweetcorn or the meat will go to soggy. About 2 teaspoons is OK for a small tin of meat.
Firstly cut the luncheon meat into cubes. If you don't fancy cubes you can of course make the pieces any shape you fancy. I very often use a meat punch and produce pellet shaped pieces.
Finally the air is let out of the bag.
This is then best kept in the fridge overnight to ensure that as much of the sauce as possible is drawn into the luncheon meat.
That's all there is to it, you are now ready to go fishing.
The plastic bag is then blown up like a balloon with the meat still inside and the top of the bag twisted around to keep the air in.
It is then given a good shake to ensure the meat gets a good coating of sauce.
To Sum Up.
There are many additives available from supermarkets that can be used to "boost" your bait, giving it extra flavour and possibly more attractive to fish.
Some attractors work better at attracting fish than others.
Some additives are "stronger" than others. In general the stronger the additive, the less you should use. You may need to experiment to find the best levels.
Use the "container" method to flavour baits such as corn, or just add your attractor to the juice in the tin.
Use the plastic bag method to flavour meat type baits. If to much liquid additive goes into the meat, it may well make it to soggy and difficult to keep on the hook.
Oil and water don't mix. For a detailed look at bait soaks look at fishforcarp.com. It goes into more detail and is well worth reading.