Do Carp Like Garlic? Best Carp Flavours Available!

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Do Carp Like Garlic? Except boilies, garlic can be a great addition in your bread or corn bait mixture. To find out more about this bait, read this article!

To a complete beginner this may come as a surprise, but garlic is widely used for carp fishing.

Its strong and distinctive smell and taste attracts fish from far away.

This flavour is usually added to boilies, both those available in stores and in home made versions. Depending on a location, anglers use it year-round because it is relatively cheap, effective and easy to use.

Except boilies, garlic can be a great addition in your bread or corn bait mixture. To find out more about this interesting bait, read the following chapters:

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Do Carp Like Garlic? And Why?

If you have ever wondered do carp like garlic, the simple answer is yes, they do. But why is that?

Garlic is not a natural part of their diet and its smell and taste are distinctive and different from any food source available to fish. But garlic is not the only “weird” bait used. Flavours like strawberry and similar sweet fruity flavours are common when using boilies.

Garlic has a strong smell that can be sensed from far away. Because it is quite different from anything else in the water, it will attract curious fish.

When used in boilies, together with other attractive ingredients, it makes an excellent carp bait.

Carp likes smelly baits, especially in summertime, so garlic is a great option during warmer seasons. Some anglers use it in winter too, mixed with other, usually sweet, ingredients.

Sulfides in garlic are actually those molecules perceived as smell by fish (and people). Garlic releases those molecules rapidly, in large amounts, especially when chopped (when the insides are exposed to air) and when thermally processed.

This smell can travel great distances under water, much larger than any natural food. This is very similar to other baits with strong smell, such as certain boilies.

When this smell is sensed by fish, it will trigger a response. Because garlic is not perceived as a threat or something to be avoided, the natural fish reaction is to go closer, see what it is and eventually try to et it.

Some other fish species will also react to garlic, such as small catfish or trout, but most commonly garlic is used for carp fishing.

How to Use Garlic as a Carp Fishing Bait?

Garlic is used as an attractant, and it is used with other baits, as an addition.

You can’t simply attach a garlic clove on a hook and hope for the best.

Garlic powder, or liquid garlic scented attractants are frequently added to boilies. Except liquid and powder, garlic is available in other forms, such as paste and oil. Depending of your preferences, you may add any of those into your boilie mixture.

This attractant is great for prebaiting too, as it will attract fish to a desired location from a distance.

Except in boilies, garlic can be used in bread or sweet corn mixtures.

Sweet corn is great for colder months. When combined with colourful baits, it is even more effective, because colours make the bait highly visible.

GARLIC BOILIES

To keep it simple, you can just go to the nearest fishing store and buy garlic boilies. If you want to prepare them yourself, here is a simple recipe …

Keep in mind that you can buy the ingredients from a desired manufacturer.

You will need eggs, base mix, garlic powder and liquid additives. To get a distinctive garlic taste, other ingredients should be those with flavours not so strong.

To make approximately 1 kilogram of boilies, mix 1 kilogram of base mix (suggestion: pacific tuna flavour) and 50 grams of garlic powder. In a separate bowl mix 10 eggs, and 100 millilitres of liquid additives, with the same flavour as the base mix. If you wish, you may even combine 2 or more liquids but the amount should not exceed 100 ml. Mix the dry ingredients with the liquid mixture, roll the dough an let it sit for at least 20 minutes. Cut the rolls into smaller pieces, make small dough balls using your hands and boil for 2 minutes. Let them air-dry for about 12 hours and your bait is ready!

These boilies make a great bottom bait and they should be used in the same way as any other boilies.

GARLIC AND BREAD

Fishing for carp with bread is quite common, but to make your bread more appealing you can spice it up with some garlic.

Because it falls apart quickly and parts are swept away by currents, bread is a great flavour carrier.

Also, the bread, especially dry one, like bread crumbs, soaks up liquids very well. When flavouring bread, use liquid garlic flavoured attractors.

To prepare this mixture, simply add small amount of liquid into your bread and bread crumbs mixture. Gently mix the bread while adding drop by drop to make sure it is equally distributed in the mixture without soaking up the bread.

This flavoured bread is then used in the same way as a plain and unflavoured bread.

GARLIC AND CORN

Corn is one of the cheapest carp baits, and it can be highly effective.

Some anglers like to prepare it by themselves, instead of buying canned sweet corn or flavoured/coloured one made specially for carp fishing.

To add garlic flavour, you should either buy a canned sweet corn or dry feed corn which you will cook. This corn should be soaked for at leas 8 hours and then cooked between 45 minutes and 1 hour.

Some anglers add natural ingredients like honey, others prefer colour and flavour attractants from fishing stores. Those additives are usually added after the cooking process.

Garlic powder can be added together with a sweetener (or without if you are using canned sweet corn). This process is quite easy to do, for 1 can of corn, add 1 spoon of garlic powder.

When prepared, garlic flavoured corn is used in the same way as any other corn.

As you can see, using garlic as bait does not require any special skills. It is simply an addition to other common baits, to make them even more efficient.

But do not overcomplicate things. Carp really do like strong flavours, but don’t mix a lot of extremely strong flavours together.

What Other Flavours do Carp Like?

Carp likes a variety of flavours and as already mentioned, flavours should be chosen according to a season.

Carp boilies are baits that come in different sizes, colours and in many different flavour options. And, of course, there are endless options when it comes to flavour mixing.

A lot of anglers use very efficient fruity flavours like strawberry, pineapple, banana, and similar sweet options. Those are possible to mix together too.

Other sweet flavours car like are honey and molasses. Vanilla is often added into sweet mixtures, and all those can be combined with garlic too.

Except for sweet flavours, carp like flavours like shrimp, crab and fishmeal. Those flavours are frequently used in boilies.

In addition to the above, carp can be caught using boilies with exotic flavours like cinnamon and mint.

But the flavour is not the only thing that will attract carp. Other ingredients are important too.

Depending of a season, and even on how old the carp is, protein content should vary. Young carp, which are still growing require more protein year-round, while older carp prefer less of it. When it comes to seasons, protein content should be increased before colder seasons because carp is eating to prepare for prolonged food shortage.

It is important to know that there is no “best recipe” and it depends greatly on a location, season and the carp itself. What worked today may not work tomorrow.

Preparing boilies is quite simple and you can play with the ingredients and test different kinds to get the best mix for your favourite fishing location.

Conclusion

So, do carp like garlic? As you can see, they really do, especially when mixed with other attractive ingredients or baits.

If you never tried fishing with garlic, test any of the versatile garlic flavoured baits and you will see the positive results. If you wish, you can even get garlic flavoured pellets if those are your preferred carp food, or even better, prepare them yourself.

And remember, over-flavouring may have the opposite result, so use reasonable amounts of garlic!

You are viewing this post: Do Carp Like Garlic? Best Carp Flavours Available!. Information curated and compiled by Kayaknv.com along with other related topics.

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