So I've just been reading about how much more sensitive a carps smell is compared to ours...
( I did already know this )

I wonder if like us they can smell or taste too much of something it can put them off or makes them not want to feed.
Just like if something was too sickly we wouldn't be able to eat too much or it?

Maybe with some of today's tactics of high attract bait liquids etc could we actually be making them avoid the baited areas till the smells have died down a bit due to them being too potent?

Apologies if this has been asked before, this is just my midnight thinking.

In reply to Post #1
You can definately do too much and deter them with concentrates. Such as flavours and essential oils etc

With hydrolysates etc I don't think you can physically put enough in to do that, they will drink it with a straw if you give them a straw lol

In reply to Post #1
Years ago I was fishing baits and carp were coming near but then I think the additives repelled them and it overloaded there sences
I was young and stupid, I kept seeing Jeff kemp and he put me straight, Hutchinson first book has stuff on this, now I'm just old and still nod, but lesson learnt

I tend to think you can definitely over do it and I prefer a more subtle bait personally. But you try selling a subtle pop up and see what reaction you get !

Many years ago one of the first batches of bait I ever made was flavoured with Crab, looking back I put in WAY too much. I kid you not you could smell them about three swims away. But I still caught in them, and not just once either. Frank Warwick talked a while back about having success with N-B Acid at levels that would stun an elephant. Yet he caught on them.

Don't think I'd want to fish with a bait like that all the time. I've mentioned on here that last winter I played around with a hookbait absolutely loaded with DMPT due to its solubility I thought it might be an edge in really cold water. They stank. I caught **** all. They went in the bin.

So my conclusion is. Who knows? Probably only the carp and they aren't telling.

Go back to the late 80's and early 90's and any carp book would show how to much flavour could attract carp but then when they got close it was too strong and they would be repelled. Move forward a few years and suddenly high-attract baits became all the rage.

A more modern view I guess is that on there own an overloaded bait can still work but 'fill a swim in' with them and they won't work until the levels in the area have dropped.

When I roll bait I become nose blind to the smell until the next day. Does the same happen to a carp? Do high level flavours saturate the receptors in the fish? If this does happen does it make them easier to catch (can't smell/taste anything so eat everything) or harder (can't smell/taste anything so don't eat anything)?

I stumbled on to a John Baker interview that's lasts an hour and a half and it was most interesting, well worth a watch.

In the mid 90s I was using M Crab and Lug worm amino compound plus others smelt great whilst pre baiting fish literally came to the margins and took the bait open season and we struggled until we dropped the levels right down.

You can use base mix on its own and catch fish, we or at least I like adding flavours for my sake not the fishes.

Frank Warrick fishing the Walthamstow Reseviours with washes out baits 2/3 decades ago.

One of the most consistent catchers that fish accept anywhere is bread, hardly any smell, sweetcorn catches and hardly smells. Love a stinky blue cheese and many foods that don't or have very little smell, they say we eat with our eyes but never really understood that. Have also been told coffee is almost tasteless and it's the smell that stimulates, who doesn't love the smell of bacon cooking? Maybe it's a combination of sight, taste and smell that we and carp enjoy.

I've caught a lot of carp dunking a pop into a bottle of butyric before. You need to be careful though a single drop on the swim will have you wondering where the vomit is!

In reply to Post #7
Interesting you mention sight I'd also bring to the table shape I've been squaring my baits for several years partially to remove the skin and to give the fish a slant on how to mange the bait.

In reply to Post #7
Great point about bread, sweetcorn etc. I've got right into natural "flavours" and when you look at anything cooked it's always a better bait like tinned corn being better than frozen. I'm now a firm believer that the mailards reaction is a big key to taste and attraction. The family of alkyl pyrazines are responsible for the smell of most baked or roasted foods and being soluble and detectable at levels like 30ppb in water.

In reply to Post #10
Huge can of worms you've opened there, cooked to what level rare or cremated or anywhere in between, how I like mine may be very different from how you like yours, would carp be the same? Some foods smell great when cooking others not so much, I'm not fond of the smell of fresh sprouts or spring greens cooking but like eating them.

In reply to Post #11
From what i can gather most things cooked at around 140c will yield the best "flavour" take a roasted peanut, much more attractive to carp than a boiled one imo..lighlty toasted and bursting with natural flavour

In reply to Post #12
So would the naturals found in the lake being fish benifit from cooking and be a better bait? We all know they love Swan muscles, crayfish etc. Long time ago I could buy cockles dirt cheap by the bucket full, tried in a heavily weeded lake throwing them in the edge by a Reed bed and into the reeds. Took a while for them to feed on them but they did eventually.

In reply to Post #13
No I don't think so, those naturals have they're own attraction which carp are obviously very adept at finding. It's a bit of a leap of faith but it's possible that some compounds have the potential to be somewhat addictive or at least have an umami effect. As ever it's all trial and error.

In reply to Post #5
Think Rod Hutchinson mentioned possible overloading of receptors with regards over flavoured baits, so difficult to know about these theories.