Amino acids in bait, hype or beneficial fact?

Amino acid - responsible for smell/scent and taste.
Essential amino acid - one the animal can only acquire through their diet.
(Fish have a requirement for 10 different essential amino acids)

To attempt to demystify what amino acids are and their role in baits (food stuff), its first important for us to realise that ALL raw and unprocessed food contains amino acids that can potentially attract fish, they are simply the building blocks of proteins, their mystery lies in understanding how they work and why fish find them so attractive. A subject of great debate amongst course anglers.

So what are amino acids?

Imagine a string of beads. Each bead is held together tightly by the string. Its that string of beads that makes up a protein (Polypeptides and proteins are chains of amino acids held together by peptide bonds). The beads (peptide bonds) are the protein building blocks, break that bond and you release amino acids some of which have a slight negative charge and some positive and others neutral. Other categories relate to polarity, pH level ect.
The positive charge is generally what excites the fishes senses as they come into contact with them (L-amino types), some have no effect and some are repulsive.
When they are whole and complete they are simply too big a protein with little or no smell. Break them apart by pulverising, hydrolysing, mashing, crushing, chopping up and they release their flavours (amino acids) - solubility being the key.

When anglers talk about amino acids many immediately assume they're only important or relevant if your a carp angler for some reason, but what's so special about carp?
Sure, their anatomy is different to other fish but carp will eat almost anything that looks and smells edible. There's nothing so unique about carp when it comes to fish anatomy - all fish including carp will be attracted to smells and scents in the water to some extent and its the amino acids that are responsible for those smells. The exact same smell us lesser mortals might be able to pick up on in the air we breathe all around us, the difference is that fishes abilities to pick up scent are many hundreds (if not thousands) of times more sensitive than our own.

In order for amino acids to be effective as an additive for inclusion within our baits, they need to be soluble before they can be picked up by the fishes senses and they need to be of the right type.
Many amino acids are not soluble and a soup of amino acids doesn't necessarily make it better either, sometimes it causes confusion and is overpowering for the fishes receptors especially the so called; "nature identical" man-made artificial additives and scents or any combination that is incompatible with each other.

If anyone's confused then your not alone; even scientist cannot always agree and applying their research to angling comes with its own complications.

If I was to give just one piece of advice I would suggest; using a SINGLE natural water-soluble liquid such as molasses, CSL (corn steep liqueur), or solids like powdered seaweed, live yeast or any predigested foods/liquids that have been converted by natural enzyme processes - bruised and ripened fruit, bread (from the action of yeast), milk proteins (from the actions of bacteria) ect. these foods are microscopically tiny and have an abundance of soluble amino acids present.

I have learned after nearly 50 years in angling that no single food item (which includes many we use for bait) is complete. Nutritionally speaking; "Man cannot live by bread alone"! Its for this reason all living creatures need to eat a variety of different food stuff that contain the right amount of nutrients and amino acids which are essential for life. It may also be the reason why even the best baits in the world (maggot, worms and corn for example) may not catch all the time and why we need to keep changing the hookbait. You can fish with a bait one day and catch lots of fish. Go back the next day and they can refuse it as they often do.

What about groundbaits?

There's really nothing wrong with using a mismatch type of feed or an entirely different hookbait imo but I often wonder what sort of signal this sends out to the fish? Surrounded by a soup of amino acids is counter productive in my opinion but fortunately 99% of the time the groundbait contains macro sized particles which are far too big to contain significant amounts of active amino acids (mostly). However by adding a soluble ingredient to it, it may well send out the DINNERbell message.

I often use groundbait to keep fish feeding and rely on the inclusion of a soluble ingredient like CSL or molasses, a blitzed tin of sweet corn etc, as an attractor. My hookbait will consist of a natural food bait (by natural I also mean any real-food items) that has been subjected to a soak of natural extract; particularly a glycerite bait 'activator' which matches exactly the soluble ingredient in the groundbait.

I like to use a matching hookbait which compliments the soluble ingredients in my feed and when the bites are few and far between it pays to do all you can to entice them. Obviously when they're "avin it" they will have anything you throw at them and will feed competitively - but that's a red letter day and its not always so easy on some waters particularly in the colder months or on big waters targeting few big fish.

Amino acids are sensitive to adulteration from heat, acid, alkali and alcohol. Unfortunately most modern 'fashionable' liquid additives contain alcohol and are Ph adjusted with acid (you can usually tell which these are because they smell divine - to the angler) and pellets consist of several ingredients that are processed in a hammer mill using high temperature steam. All these things will denature amino acids to some extent. Then if we add these crushed to the groundbait which consists of several other ingredients, there is a real chance most of the scent of the amino acids will be masked - if they aren't already denatured of course.

Without the amino acids to attract fish, anglers need to rely on the visual appeal or trust an artificial flavour to arouse their curiosity - and then change it to something new once that particular flavour blows.

There are other ways to attract fish, but the artificial way is not the way for me.

As you may know; Laguna manufacturer bait made of only natural ingredients in a traditional manner. I'm very critical of the industry that catches anglers and make no apologies for using only natural ingredients and flavours.