Which liquid to use in the Spring?
Liquid additives can pay a huge part in angling and will often help get quicker bites especially throughout the months of Spring but choosing the correct type of liquid for the situation that’s presented is definitely a key part of upping your chances of getting those extra opportunities. Pumping your free offerings to the max with added flavour and attraction can often entice them into feeding, even if they aren’t looking for a meal.
Thick or Thin?
There is a whole host of liquids available nowadays with various different viscosity levels. When it comes to choosing a liquid, take into consideration what you’re going to be putting it on. If for example if you want to add it straight to boilies and want a slow release of attraction opting for a thinner liquid is key, this is so it can penetrate into the bait. One thing worth mentioning when soaking baits is, leaving them for a minimum of 24hrs to really draw that liquid into each individual boilie, giving them a shake about a couple of times during the process. This will provide a slow release of attraction over a long period of time. If you want an instant intense release of flavour, giving the hookbaits or PVA bags a dip in a thicker liquid like Roasted Nut Compound, although this will breakdown quicker, it will give a much more potent release of food signals. A good thing about using more dense liquids is you can actually water them down, If you want to coat the free offerings in it, adding a small amount of warm water to the liquid which will reduce its density, enabling it to soak into the baits outer skin.
Oils
Oils can be a very touchy subject in cold water conditions, a lot of people won’t use them, because they ‘congeal’, but if you use the correct oil for the time of year than can be a fantastic edge. When the water temperature dips below 10 degrees Celsius, try and avoid using fish oils in high doses because these will start to congeal when entering cold water, but also with the carp’s metabolism starting to slow down it also takes them longer to digest these oils, which in return makes them feed for a shorter period of time. A perfect oil to use in cold water conditions is Hemp Oil, this is a great additive to use at any time of year and can serve a number of purposes. When including it into your bait mixes or injecting into solid PVA bags, you will get a slick on the spot, this will then fade when all of the bait has settled. But, once a fish comes and feeds on that baited area, it will often move that bait around and kick up some of the oils sat in among the bait giving you a slick on your spot, this is a fantastic indicator that you have fish feeding on you and hopefully a bite won’t be too far away. The inclusion of Hemp Oil can often help draw fish down to your spot too, as the oils start working up in the water column, a passing fish will come across that scent trail and drop down to investigate what’s going on. So, even if the fish aren’t necessarily looking to feed, the slick of oil coming off the bait may stimulate them into doing so.
Matching the offerings
When soaking bait, try to choose a liquid that compliments that specific bait, whether it be boilies, pellets or bag mixes using something that really compliments that bait will help, so for example Pacific Tuna boilies, using a meaty/fishy liquid like the matching bait booster or the Hot Chorizo Compound. Whereas with the Live System, use something a lot sweeter like the Amino Blend 365. Using a liquid that matches the bait of choice can really enhance those flavour levels hopefully leading to more bites.
Hook baits
It can be a huge edge making your hook baits stand out from the crowd, but a lot of people can go about it the wrong way, especially when boosting pop ups. Making sure that when you boost your pop ups you use a dedicated hookbait booster. These are a lot thinner in consistency but are extremely pungent to the smell, a lot more so than a liquid food would be. The reasoning behind using a hookbait booster serves a couple of purposes, it will help penetrate the hookbait easier because its thinner, which will give you a strong release of flavour over a long period of time, glug these gradually, adding a little bit at a time and then allowing them to dry out with the lid off to avoid affecting the buoyancy levels of the bait. Whereas with a thicker liquid food, it will barely penetrate the outer skin of the pop up/wafter, and if it does manage to, it will affect the buoyancy of the bait because the liquid is so dense. The hookbait booster liquids are also PH balanced, which can often stimulate the carp into feeding and often really focus in on the baited rig which definitely helps get extra pickups over an out the pot hook bait would.
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