What is the best carp bait?I use corn all the time.Any one got a dough ball recipes?Well lets have a good bait talking time.
Bass11

There doesn't seem to be a "best" bait for any species, but there are baits for each with high probabilities for success, carp included. Corn is one of them. White bread is another one, flavored or not. Paste baits would be another good option (the European boilie you read about so much is actually just an egg-based paste bait instead of using water or other liquid, either boiled or steamed to give it a tougher outside skin to help keep it on the hook). The single most noticeable variable in carp bait recipes is SCENT. Take simple corn. Open the can, pour it into a resealable container, and before you leave the house add a little vanilla, strawberry flavoring, even a few drops of hot sauce (yup, hot sauce) and mix it in a bit. Simple enhancement to a bait that is already proven to be effective on its own. Move over to feed corn (which is what I use by the gallon). Works just fine once you soak it and boil it, but if you add a couple cups of sugar or Karo syrup and some salt to it as it soaks, it's even better. Let it soak for 24 hours or so, then boil it to finish softening for about 45 minutes or so (until some of the kernels start to split), toss it and the cooking liquid into a container to cool with any additional flavors you might be curious about, and for the price of a large can of sweet corn you and you buddies have enough corn to fish to your hearts content. Paste baits are the ultimate example of scent for carp. You can make paste baits out of all sorts of ingredients, but when it comes right down to it their only purpose is to act as a carrier for the flavorings, which disperse in the water as the paste slowly dissolves, hopefully attracting a carp to feed on it before it disappears into the unknown and you have to rebait your hook. # Time to stop prattling on like an old gossip #
There is no greater fisherman than "the guy here yesterday."

wow that was alot.I will have to try past baits.I use corn all the time but never thought of puting stuff into it.
Bass11

Try combining the two. Take a mix of 2 parts corn meal to 1 part flour, a package of fruit flavored Jell-O (quite often cherry, strawberry, or black raspberry from the recipes I've seen) and add enough of a liquid (usually some sort of fruit flavored soda, but anything including water will work) to form a stiff ball. Mix in a handful or so of your corn ( or you could just use a can of creamed corn as your mixing liquid ). Now put a couple pieces of corn on your hook, wrap a small ball of your paste around that, and cast out. Even if the doughball dissolves completely, you are left with a baited hook and a small pile of the heavier pieces of corn there at your bait to continue the attraction. If you want that to happen even faster, instead of making the doughball paste, just use fresh bread crumbs (make your own in a food processor or blender leaving out the crusts), your handful of corn, and the creamed corn to make a packable ( and castable ) but reasonably dry mix. Form your ball around your sinker, then press your baited hook into the outside of the ball.


There is no greater fisherman than "the guy here yesterday."

Hey Bass11, got a simple dough bait recipe that works great for me and only takes a few minutes to make, compared to these crazy "set for 24 hour baits". This simple recipe has worked great for me and I've caught many monsters on it. Okay, to start off you'll need to get a block of CrackerBarrel baby swiss cheese, a pack of potato rolls, and some flour and milk (if you don't have any)...cut the cheese into 1 inch squares or so and put them in a microwaveable bowl, pour a cup of milk over the cheese and melt it all together, usually only takes a minute or so in the micro. Now rip up pieces of the soft, fresh potato bread and knead it into the cheese mixture ( cheese mix may be hot!) keep doing this until you have a nice cheese/bread ball. Now add in your flour  a teaspoon at a time, kneading it into the ball until your bait ball reaches a nice thick consistency. Put your ball into a glass jar, or any thing and throw it in the fridge to cool it down, (the cooler it gets the harder the ball will get and stay on your hook better.) Hope this stuff works for you, works great for me. If you have any more questions shoot me a email cressonaallstar@hotmail.com

happy carping!

Okay, no patience to wait for dried feed corn to soak up water in a bucket so you can get it on a hook without a drill. Throw a loaf of white bread and your rods in a car. Add driver. Go to lake containing carp. Dampen a piece of bread with water from the lake. Wad it into a ball on your hook. Cast. Easy enough. Don't even need the super high tech microwave-thingy. Still works to catch carp.
There is no greater fisherman than "the guy here yesterday."

Or how about this one...grab rod, grab bread, walk to fishing hole, cast.....eliminate the need for this fancy "vehicle" contraption.

Even easier. Send wife to pond with bucket. Put carp and water in bucket. Return home. Place bucket next to recliner, hand you a rod with bread on hook. Drop baited hook in bucket with carp before going to fridge for cold one. I think the only way we could make this any simpler would be instant carp and a glass of water.
There is no greater fisherman than "the guy here yesterday."

I like where you're going with this "Instant Carp" idea

Yeah, but it would be just our luck the wives would make it more expensive than it has to be and use Perrier water, or the kids would start experimenting with exotic flavors in the mix, next thing you know the DEA and Fish & Game are knocking on the door with a search warrant and over-zealous agents with Tasers........
There is no greater fisherman than "the guy here yesterday."

You guys got to get out and do some fishing. You've been coupe up to long. LOL   Have you noticed the beard stonecrusher. You said you found it hard to imagine. I'll leave it on for winter.
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I most certainly did. Knew it wasn't from hanging out with me, haven't seen you in the flesh in quite a while. Sure you don't want to really live on the "wild" side and stick your hand in the corn bucket before you shave it off?


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My wife tolerates me for awhile, but it will be gone in a month. Maybe it goes or I go. lol
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Well, can't blame a guy for tryin'. Figured we could start you out slow, get the beard thing going on, maybe sneak in a small coffee while we wait for the first run (I'll even let you go extra light, extra sweet so it tastes more like hot cocoa), then once the sun has been on it to warm things up a little in the bucket, I could wad up a fifty dollar bill on a stone and toss it in the the corn.

Can't wait for some reasonably warm water, I got some baits all ready to go sitting in the freezer, whispering during the night ... set us free, set us free, we need to swim. Got a few different ones that might go good for cats, too (like fish & garlic flavor). Then there's always the striper run going on at the beginning of the year. I've even caught legal size stripers on strawberry boilies, so you never know. 'Scuse me now, I gotta go polish my rods.
There is no greater fisherman than "the guy here yesterday."

Polishing your rods! Sounds personal. I don't think I'll make the striper run this year. Way to much going on this spring until June any way.
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I've seen guys catch small (12-16") stripers on shrimp that late in the year. Not exactly wall-mounters, but entertaining. Matter of fact, the morning I caught my big mirror carp there was a guy sitting there with me doing exactly that. That was the end of June.


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Exotic, mutant carp that tasted like strawberry and various fruits and hand tropical colors would be great. We should get together with a geneticist and make this dream a reality.We could be the greatest carp pioneers the world has ever seen! okay, not on a serious note you guys ever hook up with any carp in late february while its still a little cold? Thinkin about going out but i dont feel like walking for nothing.

Depends on what you want to call a little cold (I'm looking at 33.5 degrees in the Hudson River here in NY). I've seen them come up at the end of a line ice fishing, so given the opportunity they'll eat like any other fish. Might want to try finding someplace where there's at least a warm water inflow, or a concentration of fish in a deep hole so you can drop it on their heads (so to speak), so they don't have to move far. Might want to try using some extra scent in your bait to help get them interested, too.

On the genetics front, you might not have that long a wait. In Japan and South Korea, they have developed strains of fish that are see-through, and animals (kittens, if I remember right) and fish that glow in the dark (other than the usual extra deep sea species that use bioluminescence for attraction and identification), not to mention all the different fruits they've bio-engineered to taste like something other than what they look like. As for colors, there is already the Japanese koi, which is just a species of variegated carp.
There is no greater fisherman than "the guy here yesterday."

hmmmm...33.5 is about what the water temp is here in PA. I fish a local spillway that's about 20 feet high and during the summer months I almost always land 5 to 6 a trip, But I've heard conflicting stories about how the bite is when the water temp is low, guess I'll just have to suck up the mile and half walk and try it out! I usually use small prre-cut squares of baby swiss cheese, and a doughbait made with the cheese (the same bait we talked about before haha) Do you think boillies would produce a better bite then the cheese or dough bait? or maybe a boillie with cheese mixed into it?hmmmm decisions decisions.

Sorry I can't give you anything more definite, I usually run out of hot coffee long before I see any results myself. Just don't take the cold as well as when I was younger.


There is no greater fisherman than "the guy here yesterday."