Small irrigation pond
Small irrigation pond

Carp on Simple Baits

One thing that puts people off carp fishing – especially the occasional angler – is the bait side of things, so I’m going to do a day session using only the sort of bait that is easily available in any tackle shop – namely groundbait and pellet.

Easily available
Available in any tackle shop
I’m only going to have two approaches, method fishing and pva bag pellet fishing, and I’m going to try and use a more ‘match angler’ little and often plan of attack. The only thing I am doing a little bit different is making small ‘boilies’ out of the paste mix so it can be left out a little longer if needed, but still wrapping paste around the boilies. This is because I’ve often had aborted takes when fishing paste, so it gives a ‘second chance’ if the fish manages to get away with the paste.

I make them like this:

  • Crack an egg into bowl
  • Drain tuna oil into tub (we’re going to use that later) and a bit of the flesh to the egg
  • Add paste powder until a stiff paste is formed
  • Roll into sausages, and chop into small pillows
  • Boil for a minute, drain, and place into small bags to air dry for a day or two

This will give enough hookbaits for a few sessions.

Mixing
Mixing

Add tuna
Add tuna
Before fishing, add a third of the tuna oil, and a quarter of the flesh to the remaining paste powder, mix well, and then slowly add water until a very soft paste is reached. This will be just right by the time we need it.

The rest of the tuna oil and the tuna flesh will be added to the groundbait. I’m not going to be fishing very far out, so the groundbait is going to be wrapped around the lead.

I’m fishing a smallish irrigation pond near my dad’s house, plenty of carp and bream in there but today there is a chilly wind blowing and the sky’s really cleared over – even though it’s July! Not ideal conditions but Jay wants to go fishing with Granddad….

The right hand rod is fished against the margin with a trickle of mixed sized halibut pellets going over in, an 11mm HaliHooker pellet on the hair and a Snak Pax pva bag attached. The middle rod (Jay’s) is as big a method ball of a mix of the two SonuBaits’ groundbaits as I can cast with his 6ft rod and one of the ‘special’ boilies I made with a paste wrap. The third is a small pop-up with a pva bag. Dad’s fishing just the paste in the margins over halibut pellets, and it’s his rod that picks up the first couple of fish. I then get a succession of bream on the pellet rods.

Special pellets
Special pellets

Dad then starts getting ‘unmissable’ takes where there’s nothing on the end – this can be the problem with paste as sometimes they can pick the bait up and it can be masked by the paste, stopping the hook pricking. Switching to one of the ‘special pellets’ that Jay thought looked like Goose poo(!) seems to cure it, and Jay picked up his first ‘proper’ carp on his rod just as we pack up. Still won’t pick the fish up though!

Pretty much any groundbait will make a boilies, and you have a bait that perfectly matches the groundbait at a fraction of the cost of real’ boilies.

Give it a go!

Jay
Jay, still not touching the fish!

Jay and his first proper carp
Jay, and his first ‘proper’ carp

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