Ian Grant
Senior Member & Supporter
I think a degree of digestability is always important in a long term food bait, but i wonder whether the digestibility thing can be taken to extremes, whereby we almost make it a laxitive, drastically reducing the time which the FOOD stays in the fishes gut long enough for it to gain any benefit.
Aiding digestion to my mind is from the point of veiw largely of reducing the time the food in it's solid state takes to become of a consistency in the fishes gut from at which point proper digestion takes place, by that i mean at which point the the gut is breaking down the raw material into it's separate nutrient properties by the use of enzymes, not so much - though it has a value - of useing predigested ingredients which if used excessively produces that laxitive effect i suspect ( something again i don't know but suspect may be true )
i'll use this analogy... I love strawberries ( and i mean love 'em
) but if i restricted my diet to soley strawberries, i'd quickly learn that i'd be spending more time on the loo than eating them, and would i guess start to dramatically lose weight, the strawberries though containing some very good nutrition, would not be supplying my body with it's essential requirements, and pretty soon i'd start feeling ill. Remember Chris' comment on the fish being able to recognise whats good for it, which i entirely agree with.It may be ( and i don't know this ) that with birdfood /seeds such as hemp there is an addictive property present, which though the fish eating large amounts of it start to show deficiencies in weight and general health continue to eat the stuff regardless.
I do think that seeds have a benefit in digestion with fish because of the grittyness of the husks, in much the same way that crustacseans benefit the fishes digestion by providing gritty matter that is used to grind up solid matter in the gut, and in the same way birds do i believe the fish actively eat grit from the river or lake bed, possibly this grittyness adds to the attraction of seed baits ( an old theory ) whether used on their own or in a bait mix.
But i certainly also believe that seeds have an inherant and appealing signal to fish ( cyprinids ) apart from any likeable ' crunchy factor ' which adds to their appeal, and including a birdfood into your mix may well increase it's appeal, but as Simon said will obviously reduce it's nutritional value, in the proportion of a boillie mix that would allow it to work i.e bind and roll properly, i really dont think it would be of such a level as to reduce it's long term effectivness nutritionaly, though if you were using seeds in large amounts as a bed of bait, especially for pre baiting could in the long term work against you - as attractive to the fish as they are. As a means of attracting fish to your bed of bait when fishing - well i don't need to elaborate on that do i
However as a strategy for targetting the bigger stamp of fish, seeds definatly are out as far as i'm concerned.
I believe like Simon if there is any value in seeds as a digestibility factor, largley it will be because of it's benefits from being excellent roughage.
As with the Savay bird food bait developed by those fishing there when god was a boy - Mike Wilson no doubt could elaborate on that
- which was pretty much duplicated by Solar with their Dairy Cream mix -(though i doubt exactly ), incorporating bird seed into the mix became a real winner.So you're definatley on the right track Darren, as with all experiments you've got to give it a real fair go to draw any useful conclusions, patience is the key
or you'll slide into that bait trap, i'd formulate your mix, and stick to it come hell or high water. One other thing is that to make a food bait work you must keep it going in on a regular basis, if that is just not possible, then going the attraction route, or an established bait like meat is your best bet, as you may well have a blindingly good bait, but just not the time to get the best from it.
Ian.
