Carp Catchers Blog

Well the new Carp Fishing season is well and truly upon us and the carp are feeding hard in readiness for their upcoming spawning duties. So how can we ensure that we catch more than our fair share? A good quality bait, correctly applied, thats how!

Quality Baits

What constitutes a quality bait then? Basically we are talking about boilies. Boilies are speciffically�designed to fulfill all of a carps nutritional requirements, the idea being that the carp will actively seek them out in preference to other food items and believe me they do. I would suggest using frozen baits as opposed to shelf life for a baiting campaign as they do not have preservatives added which may put the carp off in the long term.�Frozen baits�are also likely to have active enzymes added which kick the bait into life, sending out powerful food signals�once they are defrosted. There are many different makes of frozen boilies, the majority being very good. Some good examples are Mainline Pulse�,�HBS Supa Stench , Richworth KG-1�and Baitcraft T1 there are plenty of others too.

Correct Application

To get the best out of your boilies they need to be�applied correctly. The first thing to do is pick a particular frozen boilie and stick with it!chopping and changing your frozen�bait is a big mistake. The carp need to come across your bait and�its’ particular flavour label�frequently so that they can recognise it as a superior food source and then�they will actively seek it out�. How much should you put in? That depends on the situation in front of you, it is better to err on the cautious side to begin with. I would suggest scattering 20 or so baits in the general area of each of your hookbaits. This will get the carp moving between baits making a hook up more likely. If you start to get consistent action start to put more in as even a double figure carp can eat an awful lot of bait.�This is only the fishing side of things though, the baiting campaign side of it is what is going to hopefully give you consistent success.

Baiting Campaign

If you blank don’t worry too much, that’s why its called fishing and not catching! Even the very best carp anglers blank. The positive side is that the carp will eventually come across your bait and will get a free meal without any angling pressure and this will make them less suspicious next time they come across it. Now you need to give them more free meals so that they will recognise your bait as a safe highly nutritious meal, this is the idea of a baiting campaign. Pick three or four�areas of the lake that the carp visit on a regular basis and put some bait in each after your session,�as long as you don’t interfere with other�anglers. Try to pick areas that are not too close together as this gives you more options if the lake is busy when you turn up for your session. It will be even more beneficial if you can bait up your areas during the week as well. A lot of top anglers like to bait up after dark so that other anglers can’t benefit from their hard work so that is something to bear in mind. Now is the time to start your baiting campaign so start getting those boilies in.

I hope this has been of some help

Best fishes,

John