Carp Fishing, a sport of what if’s?

I am commonly asked for hints and tips to help people catch carp.  Often crazy questions like what bait works best and what rig should I be using?  I find these questions a sure fire sign of people not really thinking about their angling or are so tied up in what they think they should be doing that they are not reading the signs when they are at the lake.

I could quite easily sell people a ton of bait by saying if you use this you will catch, or tie this rig and chuck it out into the lake and you will catch but inevitably you won’t.  The thing I try and get people to realise is that when it comes down to it each and every swim in every lake and river reacts differently.  Sometimes a bait placed on a gravel spot may be an absolute certainty, other times it can be a complete no go for carp.  Understanding the difference in these spots and how to fish them is often what provides the difference between catching and not.  Again, although bait is necessary it is often taken too far as being the “problem” if they are not catching.

Lets look at boilies for instance.  When Carp Fishing you want a good quality boilie providing the essential make up of a carps diet, this being Fat, Carbohydrate and Protein, if you sit back and look at what is available to us on the shelves and out of the freezers it can be pretty difficult to buy a bad quality bait.  Now while this has been said it is also what some of the top anglers do to their bait that gives them the edge in the right circumstances.  Boilies glugged in boilie dips, salmon oil, or even cured in salt are just some of the tricks used by the top guys to do the business.  Other ways of looking at things are high attract baits are often used better in a small baiting plan where as low attract for large beds of bait.

It is a mine field at times and I hear almost every day, yeah but if I was at the bank for as long as them guys then I would catch those fish.  However, I have seen many anglers spend long periods of time at lakes and still not really catch anything.  It is often these people who need to spend a bit of time with the marker float and a little bit of time looking at the rigs they use.  All to often people get into a rut of fishing one type of rig for all their fishing, which can often be their downfall.   It is things like this that can cost the angler the catch.  For instance, a pop up on a gravel spot probably won’t get you many takes, whereas a pop up fished on a chod rig cast to showing fish can buy you a lot more bites.

Trying to get an understanding of what to do in certain circumstances can be a complete battle ground as everyone has different opinions.  It is getting hold of the right material that will help YOU come to YOUR own opinion on what YOU should be doing.  What works for one will not always work for the other, another theory that has been proved over and over again.  One of the best resources I have found to help me come to my own conclusions was the Underwater Series by Korda.  The boys at Korda have developed the underwater filming series to show us what happens when fish are in the area.  Although they offer you their opinions on why things happen it really opens people’s eyes as to what really goes on that we don’t see..

A large part of my angling now is based on what I have seen on these films along with a little bit of common sense and taking the time to locate fish.  Another thing where people go so horribly wrong and another thing that I see people do all the time is turn at the lake, pull there car up behind the swim of choice and then set up camp for the weekend.  Now as far as that goes they are potentially as far away from the fish as they could be and have minimized their chances to a bare minimum by doing so.  And yet still so many people say but I like fishing there, it is a nice social swim.  If you are really serious about catching carp then get off your arse and have a good look round first, find the fish and stay mobile, be a bit stealthy and you will probably catch more.