PVA bags and mesh are both great products with numerous applications and both enable superb presentation and attraction, but imagine making them even more attractive to carp, well that’s exactly what I have done by making them fizzy and I’m going to show you exactly how to achieve this.
It was after waking one morning with a terrible hangover and dropping a soluble Solpadine into a glass of water that triggered this whole idea of adding fizz to my carp baits, I stood watching my glass of water fizz away feeling rather ill thinking wouldn’t it be great if some how I could add something to my stick mixes pva bags etc which would create the same fizzy affect, this whole idea of a fizzy carp bait played on my mind for weeks and weeks and the same question I asked myself repeatedly was how? I then remembered a little science experiment from my school days where by adding bicarbonate of soda to vinegar (acid) it created a reaction by fizzing up and giving off carbon dioxide and would literally blow the top of any bottle or pot if contained, exactly the kind of reaction I was looking for, But I obviously couldn’t use vinegar I needed a powder or something of crystal form which was acidic and soluble in water and my answer to this was citric acid monohydrate a crystallised acid which when mixed with bicarbonate of soda forms a pasty kind of substance perfect for stick mixes but has no reaction until it gets wet dissolves and reacts directly with the bicarbonate of soda “perfect”!
Put some fizz in your carp baits
So it was off to the supermarket and local pharmacy to purchase those two products in order to conduct my little experiment. As soon as I got home I added one tea spoon of each citric acid and bicarbonate of soda to a glass of water and instantly the water fizzed over all over the kitchen floor, oops I got told off for that but it worked. I made up two sticks one normal containing a wide range of proven carp catching ingredients including bloodworm pellets, boilies, hemp, tinned tuna all put through a blender to create the perfect stick mix, and the other with the addition of two teaspoons of the fizzy concoction mixed on a 50/50 basis, you can play around with the amounts you add to your stick or bag it all depends on how fierce you want the reaction to be and how big you make your stick or bag whilst fishing. I dropped the normal stick complete with rig in a bucket of water and just watched the mesh dissolve with nothing out the ordinary I then dropped in the fizzy one and watched in amazement has it hit the bottom of the bucket then floated straight to the top fizzing and spreading particles of bait and flavouring all around the bucket. I couldn’t wait to see what reaction the carp gave to this not only did it spread bait and flavouring around in the water it floated so If I was fishing over silt or weed I could be confident that my hook bait wouldn’t be buried when the lead hit the bottom it would be deposited nicely on the silt, weed or other type of lake bed once the mesh had dissolved along with a small pile of bait but with attractors flavourings and smaller particles of bait being pushed up and slowly sinking back down in the water hopefully enticing those carp to get there heads straight down.
Fizzing carp fishing method
The true test of the fizzing carp bait would be conducted at one of my local venues on a short evening session hoping for a quick response off the carp in a short space of time, a small lake called Hopsford hall which contains many double figure fish a hand full of 20s and according to many anglers home to one or two 30lb fish although I have only seen and caught fish to mid twenties, upon arrival the swim I most favoured down at the bottom end of the lake across the dam wall was unfortunately already occupied by a couple of carp anglers, but wasn’t to disheartened after spending a good fifteen minutes watching the lake and noticing a lot of fish moving within a small reed lined bay up the top end of the lake, so that was that fish found and straight back to the car to grab the carp tackle. once back in my chosen swim it was important to keep everything well back from the lakes edge and avoid any bumping or bagging around as the bay is quite shallow averaging three to four feet and wouldn’t take long for the fish to spook and move out if my presence was given away, I opted to fish semi running rigs on three feet of leadcore complete with flying back leads to insure every part of my rig was pinned nicely to the bottom and also allow me to fish slack lines but would still give a good bite indication. Both my rods were positioned within the margins at a depth of three to four feet with my right hand rod quietly placed down in front of a large bed of Norfolk reeds and the second across to a willow tree snag on the far margin but to position the bait with as little disturbance as possible I cast the lead so it landed on the bank opposite that way I could run around and just attach the rig via a stick clip and nicely place it next to the snag by hand and avoid the big splash. Once my baits were in position it was great to see the actual reaction between these two ingredients taking place within my swim I could actually see the carbon dioxide bubbles breaking the surface and a nice cloud of bait slowly appearing which looked very attractive and very carpy, everything was back leaded and set nicely so it was time to just sit back and wait but not for long as my second rod was away wow! I thought how quick but unfortunately I lost it trying to stop it burying its self within the willow snag gutted but it happens, I didn’t have to wait long before the next carp rod was away this time my right hand rod and resulted in a nice and much appreciated 12lb 4oz common not a huge fish but still an almost instant result on my fizzy stick mix, during the next hour or so of my session I managed to land a further four fish tempted by my fizzy sticks and both rods produced a quick bite none of them huge fish but this didn’t matter I got my result a quick response to my fizzy bait in a short evening session at least something good came from my very bad hangover, so get out there and give it a go. .
