Bacteria B1: What It's All About
It’s a war zone… In an industry full of marketing hype, where baits with only minor tweaks and changes are continually pushed as being ‘unique’ and ‘innovative’, it becomes increasingly difficult to try and effectively put down in words just how truly groundbreaking a product is when it really does push development forward. The Bacteria B1 is just such a product, and thus words such as ‘unique’ and ‘revolutionary’ don’t even come close.
The B1 is the culmination of an incredibly long journey, arriving after many, many years of painstaking research and development in the laboratory, not to mention blood, sweat and tears in the unit, and thus it’s incredibly difficult to try and compress several years work into a few paragraphs; especially ones that won’t leave you bored to death, or bewildered and confused!
The B1 story started many years ago. With an absolute passion for bait and bait technology, there was rarely a moment when we weren’t thinking about new ways in which to create the perfect carp food. For us, this was always focused around creating a bait that does everything you want it to straight out of the box – with no waiting involved. If you could find a way to get the bait to release all of its goodness straight into the water the moment it goes in – irrespective of conditions or temperature – then you had to be onto a winner.
There are all manner of ingredients you can add to a bait in order to aid the way in which it breaks down and leaks all of its goodness into the water, but whatever you add, and however you add it, it still comes down to a waiting game once the bait has been introduced, and it can take anything up to seven or eight hours for a (good quality) fishmeal based bait to leak the bulk of it’s attractors and food signals into the water. What was needed was a way to actually force the attractors and stimulants out of the bait… Forget the slow process of leakage through the absorption of water into the bait – what if you could cause a reaction in the bait that would force it to spill out all of its food signals the moment it entered the water?
We quickly turned our attentions to mother nature, as this kind of breakdown occurs naturally within the ecology of our lakes and rivers everyday, with live bacteria breaking down just about anything that drops on the lake bed – it just happens at a much slower pace. We then worked tirelessly to try and isolate the specific bacteria that aids this breakdown and might just hold the key in allowing us to get a bait to release all its food signals. Eventually all the research paid off and we managed to successfully identify our source of bacteria – one that is naturally occurring and common place within any underwater ecosystem.
As hard as the endless lab work was to come up with the suitable live cultures to do the job, it was nothing compared to the task of getting the bacteria to feed and multiply on the bait. Endless ingredients were tried including fishmeals but in almost every case the bacteria would just drift off the bait and into the water column. However, we eventually found a mix of ingredients which suited the bacteria and thus we were able to complete the matrix of the bait. The finished bait itself easily meets all the carps nutritional dietary requirements, but arrives there in a totally unique way in terms of the profile, with a blend of plant proteins, various fibre sources, complex carbohydrates, plant matter and plant extracts, green super foods, cartenoids, along with a vitamin and mineral premix with extra water soluble vitamin c and antioxidants – all in all, creating a very digestible bait with a potent natural aroma – and all that before the bacteria has even kicked in!
Once we had found a way to keep the bacteria happy and feeding on the bait, we just needed to find a way to speed up the rate at which it did it. After what could only be described as a ‘Eureka’ moment during testing, we managed to get the bacteria to compete for nutrients, and in doing so, got it to colonise on the bait at a staggering rate in order to repel the perceived invader, which in our case was a microscopic algae superfood contained within the bait. The rest, as they say, is history. To see the results under magnification as the bacteria on the bait raced to colonise was nothing short of spectacular.
The way in which we actually prepare the bait during the rolling and drying process is the key to its success. An amount of cultured bacteria – which we grow ourselves – is added during the mixing process, and then, when the finished bait reaches a specific temperature during cooling we add a further coating of bacteria, before finally adding the coating of microscopic algae. When the bait is dry or frozen the bacteria is completely dormant, but the minute it gets wet, away it goes! And boy, does it work fast – we’re talking seconds here – not hours!
So, to the science bit – what’s actually happening here?
Well, in laymen’s terms, as soon as the bait gets wet, the dormant bacteria comes to life and starts to feed on the bait. At the exact same time it also senses the microscopic algae superfood, and on perceiving it as a threat, then feeds, breeds and colonises exponentially on the bait in order to out-compete the algae for the nutrients contained within the bait. In doing so, the feeding bacteria release all the natural food signals from the bait itself at breakneck speeds, pumping out bucket loads of natural food signals – and the more the bacteria breed and feed, the more food signals are pumped out…
In a normal fishmeal based bait, it’s only the slow ingestion of water into the bait that releases all the food signals out into the water column – whereas with the B1 you have a war going on between the microscopic algae and an ever growing army of colonising bacteria; which are actively breaking down the bait and pumping out an ever increasing amount of food signals as a result. In terms of applying a quality food source that’s screaming ‘EAT ME!!’ to the carp, it really could not be any sweeter…
What you also have to remember is that this bacterial reaction and breakdown is 100% natural and already occurring in the underwater ecosystem, so it’s something that the fish will already be finely tuned into – it’s the natural equivalent of a dinner bell!
To be honest it’s little surprise that the bait has often thrown up fish very quickly after the bait has gone in. Don’t get us wrong, you’ll still have to apply it in the right place at the right time, but with the attraction levels pumped out so quickly, the carp can’t fail but to home in on it.
Another plus is that when the natural lake bacteria dies off in low winter and early spring temperatures, our bacteria keeps on working as it’s been bred to withstand such temperatures, so not only will there be a very attractive and digestible bait on the lake bed, you’ll have natural bacterial activity on and around the baited area that wouldn’t normally be there.
In the flesh…
1. As a coated bacteria B1 boilie straight from the bag is dropped into water (below), the superfood coating immediately disperses into the water column.
2. Just 20 minutes later (below). The same boilie in the same tub. You can now see a total colour change in the water all around the bait as the bacteria goes to war!
Under the microscope…
A few dormant bacteria cells are added to water…
The cells immediately start multiplying and spreading out, searching the water around them for nutrients. A small piece of boilie is added to the colony…
Just twenty minutes later and the group has latched onto the boilie fragment and is at war; feeding and multiplying in order to out compete the algae in the bait for nutrients, and in doing so, naturally unloads all the food signals from the bait straight into the surrounding water column…
It’s a warzone – a section of boilie under the microscope shows the structure breaking down and releasing all the nutritional signals into the water column quick and consistently, drawing in any naturals and fish to the baited area.