I was reading another national forum and one of the moderators was giving advice on how best to catch carp.
I thought it was cool that they have a forum dedicated to carp, gar and catfish, but he said something I had never heard on this site and that was that carp have a sweet tooth and the sweeter your bait is the more likely you are to catch them.

Is this true? Has anyone here ever heard this?

Hmmm..Webmaster Corey..your thoughts? I know they like canned corn, that works best for me.

For the most part I would agree with the sweetness idea. I know the doughball I make is pretty dang sweet and when there are carp in the general area I get into them consistently after a little chumming. If you look on sites devoted to Carp fishing(sell carp stuff) you will see a ton of flavorings and oils, etc.... of the sweet nature. These are obviously meant to be added to your doughball or mixed in for your boilies. The hard part is figuring out what you want to mix in!

-Will

I would have to agree that at least at certain times, they seem to have a sweet tooth. Many times I will take the juice from a can of corn, mix a packet of cherry/strawberry/etc Kool-Aid into it, then poor it back over the corn and let it absorb overnight (in the fridge)

Mulberries, when they are in season, are one of my favorite baits. I also use kool-aid or jello mixed in with my corn. Works pretty well. So, yeah, I think they have a sweet tooth.

It would make sense then that the corn would work. I know that as a diabetic I do not eat a lot of corn because it raises my blood sugar more than any other veggie except potatoes which have a higher rating on the glycemic index than pure glucose…mmm, wonder if spuds would work? (jk)

Or perhaps you could chum with a can of Coke... They'd love that high fructose corn syrup!

haha..lol..chumming with a can of Coke would be funny...poke a little hole and throw some cans out...wait that's littering...bad idea.

My favorite doughball is pretty sweet ... and the English Carpmaster taught me to soak feed corn in sweet strawberry syrup for groundbaiting.

SuperFrog wrote:

QUOTE:
I Many times I will take the juice from a can of corn, mix a packet of cherry/strawberry/etc Kool-Aid into it, then poor it back over the corn and let it absorb overnight (in the fridge)

Pretty much my standard approach, hence the board name. There's no sweetener in the Kool-Aid packets that I use, so I reckon it's mostly the smell of the strawberry. Strawberry anything is really bordering on pungent and one has to wonder if it's just plain easier to detect in the water.

Strawberry corn is also my favorite channel cat bait of all time, hands down over liver for chumming possibilities alone. Fiddlers do get in the way when one is hoping for carp, but it's something easy to live with, especially on slower days.

Perhaps it's just Indiana channels, but folks'll get that surprised look when they see what I'm catching all these cats on. Good dual-purpose bait, man!

kernel j wrote:

QUOTE:
Strawberry corn is also my favorite channel cat bait of all time, hands down over liver for chumming possibilities alone. Fiddlers do get in the way when one is hoping for carp, but it's something easy to live with, especially on slower days.

When I was a kid running trotlines with my grandpa, he would bait up with strawberry corn, too. It works, especially on those little "eater" cats. Small cats, and most cats in small rivers, will eat just about anything... so your mission is just to get your bait noticed. Jello and Kool-aid help.

I frequently add vanilla extract or some strawberry jello to canned corn, some of the boillie recipies I've goofed with (haven't made a whole lot) have plenty of sweetness (karo, sugar, jello/koolaide, molasses etc).

last season, late last season when it was getting cold enough to want a hat and gloves, I hair rigged some Dots candy (the kind you get at the movie theater) and caught carp in the mississippi. They held up well and caught fish..... cheap as heck too. SKittles......... not so good. I have wanted to try fishing dots and some other things, primarily sweet corn, head to head and see what happens, but maybe I'll get to it next season.

From what I understand, different times of the year a carp's nutrition requirements change with water temp, metabolism etc. (I suppose just like any fish) and so do their food cravings/preferences. Some of the real hardcore carp crowd have baits for every phase of a carp's mood/metabolism/freudian stage and..... you get the idea. Pretty specific recipies with protien levels and all that good stuff taken into account. Some are sweet, some are savory (or carp equivalent).
To be honest, I kinda get the urge for a snack when I read the flavors of some of the bollies and baits offered in carp specific catalouges . If they weren't so dang expensive I might pick some up for snacks to eat on the way to go fishing with oatmeal or corn.

Also, I hear carp love mulberries and other fruits that become water bound. I have yet to find a carp hole with overhanging fruit trees, but have a real good idea where to plant one, and a good lead on some small mulberry trees that could stand to be relocated.

Yesterday during lunch I was feeding (attempting to tame the buggers) some super spooky carp bits of my lunch, which happened to be bread with cherries and cranberries. They didn't seem to complain.