Currently carping

[ouchthathurt]

Depends on the venue mate, I sometimes fish over a bed of pellets, say 3-6mm with a pva bag of 1-2mm pellets to a 10-12mm home made boilie, but primarily I am a boilie angler, I make all my own bait, favouring a 12mm bait, I often fish a stringer 4-7 baits over a loose spread of baits catapulted over the spot. Dependant on venue, conditions and seasons, I’ll fish over as few as 10 loose baits up to 100 baits. I like a looser spread, get the carp grubbing around moving from bait to bait picking them, before finding a little clump (stringer) with my hookbait amongst it. I’ve spodded a mixture of boilie, pellet, corn and hemp in the past, then fished a bait over it, it worked well on previous venues, but not on my current venues.

 

[Ollieollie]

Depends on the venue mate, I sometimes fish over a bed of pellets, say 3-6mm with a pva bag of 1-2mm pellets to a 10-12mm home made boilie, but primarily I am a boilie angler, I make all my own bait, favouring a 12mm bait, I often fish a stringer 4-7 baits over a loose spread of baits catapulted over the spot. Dependant on venue, conditions and seasons, I’ll fish over as few as 10 loose baits up to 100 baits. I like a looser spread, get the carp grubbing around moving from bait to bait picking them, before finding a little clump (stringer) with my hookbait amongst it. I’ve spodded a mixture of boilie, pellet, corn and hemp in the past, then fished a bait over it, it worked well on previous venues, but not on my current venues.

Cheers. I’ve already settled on the looser spread as you say. Mainly because I’m not that accurate when casting
I used a method feeder for the first time last weekend to counter act this which I liked using but that was only for smaller mixed fishing.

 

[ouchthathurt]

The method can be a killer method on the right water mate, it seems to be a bit of a forgotten method now these days. I usually fish a helicopter rig with a 12” hooklink with a blowback rig. The waters I fish are very silty, so moving the top bead on the helicopter rig up means the lead can sink into the silt without dragging the bait in too. I sometimes fish a pop up over the boilie spread too, but never pop ups over particle or pellet, my thinking is that the carp are feeding tight to the deck and a pop up is a bit blatant, when fishing over a spread, several carp can browse the spot tipping up to collect each boilie, a pop up is less obvious, yet I think provides a slightly better hook up for the large carp I’m usually targeting. The average weight on the lakes I fish are usually mid 20s

 

[Ollieollie]

Lots to learn! Trial and error

 

[richtic]

Out of interest what are you guys using for ground bait, boilies, pellets and particles etc

It really is a mine field with bait, most products out there are to catch anglers not fish. On the lake that I look after orange coloured baits are working well at the moment tutti fruity being one of them. As the water warms up any high fish oil baits start to work well ie krill, depends on what species your after, all the above are on a low stock carp water, but simple baits still work ie sweetcorn, luncheon meat, bread, my advice dont over complicate things, we have been catching fish for years before all this pop ups, wafters and the rest of the bollox came out

 

[Trampster]

It really is a mine field with bait, most products out there are to catch anglers not fish.

Sounds similar to a lot of Salt water Lures Rich!

 

[Beach]

Out of interest what are you guys using for ground bait, boilies, pellets and particles etc

A stick of dynamite

 

[flappy]

I find on the hardest waters fish will avoid a big bed of freebies

 

[J Richards]

Its mad the difference regarding bait. I always use pops for 99% of my fishing, be it over pellet, corn, boilie etc.
All the lakes i fished in France, i was told don’t spomb, you wont catch…. So i spombed, in 1 week i went through 95kg of hemp & maise… caught 20+ fish upto 81lb. My normal mix is hemp, corn & chopped & whole boiles. Never let down.
But as others have mentioned….. Most are gimmic’s to catch the anglers.

 

[ouchthathurt]

My go to bait recipe hasn’t changed much in 20yrs, why change it? It works, it’s pretty unique, I catch on it wherever I take it, so the usual bait gimmicks just pass me by. For me it’s about confidence, I know my bait works, so I can forget about that part of the equation and focus on location, the most important aspect in any fishing scenario.

 

[richtic]

Ive closed the lake that i look after today cus the Carp were going at it like mad spawning everywhere. Its around 2 to 3 weeks early but seems alot of lakes local to me are spawning early.

 

[J Richards]

Sogns they might in Dorset, were following and shouling up yesterday evening when i was out.

 

[Had1]

Have been a few times since start of May.

. Was meant to do reports as they were happening ,so could descibe tactics and baiting due to a couple questions on here, but I didn't get round to that sorry . will catch up a bit though.
Firstly float fished a nice out the way venue and managed 2 nice lean commons and a big eel. Using a few pellets and sweetcorn.

Nice relaxed type of fishing only did few hours in the evening

 

[Had1]

Then may the 5th went for 2 nights at the big deep lake I fish . Finally numbers of fish moving as takes a long while for the water to warm on there .
Lots of carp in the upper layers so decided to fish tight to the margins on 1 rod , and found a raised plateaux of 12 foot depth with surrounding water of 30 foot plus , fished 2 rods on that around 10 yards apart but at the same range .

Baiting was done inaccurately on purpose....boilie only due to the masses of bream, 18mms and 22mms ,put pellet or particle out and you just catch bream after bream . Accurate baiting they will hammer you on here even with boilie.
Luckily the gulls weren't about taking the boilie , as they usually do as it hits the surface. Meaning I could throwing stick or catapult bait whenever needed. Often have to use a spod to get around that problem .

Anyway cracking weather for fishing not to cold not to warm. Wildlife around saw a few lizards bathing.

Had a handful of carp with 3 over 20lbs mark in the end including some stunning old fully scaled fish and mirrors which are as old as me.. including a deformed humpback character of a fully.

 

[Trampster]

Then may the 5th went for 2 nights at the big deep lake I fish . Finally numbers of fish moving as takes a long while for the water to warm on there .
Lots of carp in the upper layers so decided to fish tight to the margins on 1 rod , and found a raised plateaux of 12 foot depth with surrounding water of 30 foot plus , fished 2 rods on that around 10 yards apart but at the same range .

Baiting was done inaccurately on purpose....boilie only due to the masses of bream, 18mms and 22mms ,put pellet or particle out and you just catch bream after bream . Accurate baiting they will hammer you on here even with boilie.
Luckily the gulls weren't about taking the boilie , as they usually do as it hits the surface. Meaning I could throwing stick or catapult bait whenever needed. Often have to use a spod to get around that problem .

Anyway cracking weather for fishing not to cold not to warm. Wildlife around saw a few lizards bathing.

Had a handful of carp with 3 over 20lbs mark in the end including some stunning old fully scaled fish and mirrors which are as old as me.. including a deformed humpback character of a fully.

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Nice Reports & Photos Had1, lovely big old Carp in the 1st photo.

 

[richtic]

Then may the 5th went for 2 nights at the big deep lake I fish . Finally numbers of fish moving as takes a long while for the water to warm on there .
Lots of carp in the upper layers so decided to fish tight to the margins on 1 rod , and found a raised plateaux of 12 foot depth with surrounding water of 30 foot plus , fished 2 rods on that around 10 yards apart but at the same range .

Baiting was done inaccurately on purpose....boilie only due to the masses of bream, 18mms and 22mms ,put pellet or particle out and you just catch bream after bream . Accurate baiting they will hammer you on here even with boilie.
Luckily the gulls weren't about taking the boilie , as they usually do as it hits the surface. Meaning I could throwing stick or catapult bait whenever needed. Often have to use a spod to get around that problem .

Anyway cracking weather for fishing not to cold not to warm. Wildlife around saw a few lizards bathing.

Had a handful of carp with 3 over 20lbs mark in the end including some stunning old fully scaled fish and mirrors which are as old as me.. including a deformed humpback character of a fully.

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Great fishing, well done

 

[Had1]

Great fishing, well done

Latest trip on the 22nd for 2 nights had loads of bites upto 27lbs and a pb rudd of 2lbs 14oz . Although was on a boilie so still count my targetted 2lbs 4oz as proper pb lol .
Cold wind blowing into me had layers on and a hat at times ... all margin stuff using boilies over a loose spread again.

 

[Seaside Malc]

Nice fish.

Is that Stonar?

 

[richtic]

Latest trip on the 22nd for 2 nights had loads of bites upto 27lbs and a pb rudd of 2lbs 14oz . Although was on a boilie so still count my targetted 2lbs 4oz as proper pb lol .
Cold wind blowing into me had layers on and a hat at times ... all margin stuff using boilies over a loose spread again.

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Great fishing, well done on th PB Rudd that's a stonker

 

[flappy]

Nice work.