Changing Times

This Year marks the 40th anniversary of Nutrabaits, yes 40 years of bringing you only the highest quality and most effective baits available. But what’s changed over those 40 years in the carp fishing world ?

Carp fishing has changed massively, with the advancement of media and marketing for one. Starting out carp fishing in the early 80’s, information on bait, rigs and even tackle was through shared knowledge on the bank and later with carp magazines. But with the advancement of time the way we see carp fishing has changed beyond recognition over these years, everything you need to know about fishing is one tap away on a phone. With social media, YouTube and websites all promoting products, along with the latest wonder rigs, tips and even lake maps showing depths and in some cases known hot spots.

But sadly for most, it all becomes confusing, far too much conflicting information is now available and we see anglers caught up in constantly changing tactics, rigs and bait almost by the hour in some cases, after following what’s purely marketing in most cases.

So let’s break it down, what you need to be successful when fishing, first of all and most importantly is to enjoy the journey. Don’t get caught up in trying to be famous for catching fish.
Respect your fellow anglers, friends are made through most sports that last a lifetime, respect comes over time with being a good person and being consistently successful makes you a good angler, but not always respected. Respect is built up over time and can be lost at the blink of an eye by cutting corners and trying to catch at any cost.
Always respect fishery rules as breaking these spreads fast from water to water on the carp fishing grapevine, you don’t want to miss out on a golden ticket by something you’ve done elsewhere.
Also and most importantly, help others who are struggling.

We’ve all seen anglers burst onto the scene, jumping around lakes, disregarding rules and fellow anglers in desperation to catch the known carp before moving onto to pastures new. Also swapping tackle and bait brands every couple of months, only to disappear as quick as they arrived by moving on to the next sport. Were they ever fisherman like the rest of us.
My daily thoughts are family and fishing. All week working hard to provide for family whilst fishing is always on my mind. Getting the balance right between family and fishing is essential, so look after both if you want both to last.

So let’s take a look at what’s changed since I started carp fishing back in 1981 at the young age of 12. 

I remember being shown the hair rig for the first time and not being overly impressed at first, but latter results proved me wrong. I was catching carp before the hair rig and I’ve been catching carp ever since on many of the so called wonder rigs that hit the scene almost annually.
Rigs have changed massively over this time and something I thought I’d never see is pre-tied rigs. Tying your own rigs was and to me is still a massive part in who we are as anglers. All part of the journey in getting it all right by our own success and failures.
What’s important is understanding how a rig works, balancing it out perfectly is essential in my opinion and where more consistent anglers excel, by spending hours perfecting the weight of rig components, against buoyancy of hook baits. It’s vitality important you understand how every rig / hook bait type performs best in certain situations.
In my own angling I like to keep it simple now and use only 2 rigs for the majority of my angling. A simple D rig for wafters or bottom baits and a stiff hinge rig for pop ups. If you said choose one approach I’d have to go with D rig and wafter as the pop up approach on many pressured waters in my opinion spells danger even though carp are caught on this approach time and time again.

Rods

Finally Bait

Now the big one is bait, we have seen over the years marketing has played a big part in many brands success. Personally at Nutrabaits we put profits back into having the finest ingredients and upgrading machinery when the time is right, rather than blowing vast sums of money in trying to convince you to buy our products. We’re old fashioned in that we let our baits do the talking, take one look at our social media platforms and you will see the amount of big carp and barbel getting caught daily on our baits.
Are we right in our approach, we’ll let you decide, but pride comes first over profit at Nutrabaits and this will always be the case.
Back in 1986 when Nutrabaits open its doors to the public the ethos was producing only the highest quality and most effective baits available and nothing has changed. The profit margins we make are extremely low due to the high costs of ingredients we use. We always smile when we see the latest bait companies pop up with claims of producing the highest quality baits available and selling at between £5 & £7 per kilo. Well to put it straight it’s simply not possible to produce and sell quality at that price regardless of what marketing is sold to you.
We purchase ingredients in bulk direct from manufacturers which carries a cost saving like many of our big competitors. Small to medium companies don’t have this luxury as ingredient manufacturers don’t sell by the sack, they sell by the pallet and in many cases wagon / container loads only. So companies buying ingredients in smaller quantities buy from wholesalers at prices upwards of 40% more so simply doing your maths, if we make tiny margins producing quality bait then how is it possible to produce a bait similar when buying ingredients at 40%+ more expensive?

Bait choice is like rigs and tackle, finding the one that best suits your chosen waters. Personally I don’t like change in my personal fishing, but over the last few years I’ve noticed changes from water to water. Looking back at my fishing until the last 5 years, I’ve mostly focused on one water at a time, but over the last 5 years I’ve amassed several tickets and in my opinion no longer fish effectively by jumping between waters. Never knowing what’s happening between my sessions and never being able to establish a bait. Having given this lots of thought, I’ve always stuck with one bait for all my fishing needs.
I used Big Fish Mix for over 20 years with great success where ever I used it, then moved over to Trigga Pineapple & N-Butyric Acid for 10 years again with success everywhere I used it.

But over the last 5 years I’ve seen different waters respond to different baits.

Grenville’s 

First up Grenville’s, a big water at 72 acres and being a gravel pit, deep with depths to almost 40 feet in places. This water sees lots of bait from many of the best anglers from across the U.K. Paul the lake owner also monitors water temperature and oxygen levels on a regular basis and has a feeding programme when the water is quieter with anglers. We also provide ingredients and machinery for Paul to manufacture his own bait which many of the anglers fishing the lake now use. I plugged away with my Trigga Pineapple & N-Butyric Acid approach on the water with limited success for 3 years, this being a bait that has served me well everywhere I’ve used it and still my go to bait when targeting new waters or for overseas adventures.
Sadly I don’t get to fish Grenville’s as often as I’d like with it being a 200 mile round trip from home, so the best I manage is 6 to 8 sessions each year. What I did pick up on with supplying Paul ingredients and helping Paul create a protein rich and balanced diet for his carp, being both nutritious and highly digestible backed up with natural spices.
It became apparent that the carp in Grenville’s now love a spicy bait. A friend had a guest session on the lake and chose to take Big Fish Mix, as you know, this being a premium quality, spicy red fish meal and the results were fantastic with a long list of carp and big ones thrown in. That got me thinking, which in our range would give the similar spicy attraction as the house bait but with our premium quality exclusive ingredients and additives. The answer for me was Trigga Ice, well it didn’t take long for the action to come and it’s been consistent ever since.

Goncourt Complex, France 

I’ve been fishing these beautiful waters for the last 15 years, all hold big and beautiful carp, but the lakes are far from easy to crack. The lakes have full bookings for most of the year and see 100’s of different baits throughout the year with varying levels of success.
Up until the last couple of years we always had an end of year exclusive lake booking for close friends in November. Anyone that knows the Vitry le Francois area of France will know winter comes in fast. Usually by early to mid November hard frosts arrive and the fishing slows down on these shallow gravel pits which are plentiful in the Vitry area.
The rewards are still there for those sticking it out and the big carp do put in an appearance for the angler getting their tactics right. Over the years we’ve taken numerous baits on the waters with good success but the bait that stands head and shoulders above all on these waters has been Trigga Pineapple & N-Butyric Acid. The results on the waters have been amazing with a long list of 40’s, 50’s and 60lb+ carp along with big hits of big carp.
Why is this ? First up being a food source bait that gives carp everything they need, but also with the waters being shallow and silty the PH change given by the Pineapple and N-Butyric Acid in my opinion is the big game changer.

Osprey Lake

Now it’s a Yorkshire water that’s also a tough nut to crack, I’ve fished this water for almost 8 years, had several of the lake’s beautiful carp on Trigga along with friends and customers alike. Trigga was out fishing all baits used on the water but I noticed something with the release of Co-De. Myself and good friend Derek Pye used the Co-De the first winter on the water we released this bait, the lake having very little winter form. We started baiting regularly from October onwards, not massive amounts, only 3 to 5 kilos each week between us. Derek fishing mid-week and myself weekends. Well the results were fantastic and consistent throughout winter until water temperatures dropped below 5 degrees, whilst other anglers struggled.
Come the spring we reverted to Trigga and carried on where we left off catching along with friends and customers alike, continuing to catch on a bait the carp readily accept as a food source. But what I’ve noticed over the last couple of years when anglers try the Co-De the results are quick to arrive regardless of time of year, for example, this year the action has been slow with the heat wave, low water levels and heavy weed growth. This giving the elusive carp hiding places all over the lake with little way of fishing for them when hiding away in the weed beds, with a larder full of naturals on offer.
Derek and Nick Goodhand chose to get back on the Co-De and the results have been instant with big hits of carp and dominating captures once again.
Why is this, many of us have focused our spring to late autumn campaigns using protein rich fishmeal baits with fantastic and consistent results. But with the advancement of time and different strains of carp now being stocked, do we need to experiment with our choice of bait to suit the water or stick with our tried and tested.

Take a look at the last 30 plus years and the old originals we set our fishing around catching, now in most cases sadly no longer with us. The fisheries with foresight who in some cases were ridiculed for stocking carp back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, fishery owners who could see a change being needed as carp don’t last for ever now having prized waters. These being stocked with quality strains of young carp that are reared fish on fish farms before being stocked. Carp that have been fed on a daily diet of pellets up to being stocked at anywhere from 5lb upwards and left to grow naturally in waters. Many of these growing upwards of 5lb a year on anglers baits as opposed to slowly growing on naturals. I remember back in the 80’s and talking about carp growing 1lb a year and seeing this as a big increase, how times have changed.

So looking at this and how these type of carp were reared with type of feed and feeding situations with pellets and timed pellet feeders is there some link to the type of food and feeding situations they were reared on that gives them a preference ?

It’s a question we will never know, but one that keeps us coming back over and over again to try and solve the carp fishing puzzle.

Tight Lines

Rich Hughes