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Rik started fishing at the age of four on his local tiny tidal river, catching eels and small wild trout on worm.
Not having had any angling family members, all his early fishing was solitary and this seems to have carried through to the present.
Like most anglers nowadays, he has a full time job so his fishing time is limited. He currently lives in the depths of Hampshire, and so is within easy reach of some excellent venues.
He has in the past, and still does, fish for most species, although his greatest love is for carp fishing, which is how the majority of his time is spent.
He now finds himself more thrilled with overcoming the intricacies and problems associated with catching carp, rather than the actual weight of the fish he catches and the so-called glory that goes with it.
River Carping
The question I’m asked most often about carping on rivers is – why do it?
The answer as far as I’m concerned is that the challenge involved is largely instrumental in my reasoning. Miles and miles of largely unfished water, attempting to catch virgin or mostly uncaught fish, without names and without a penchant for the latest fashionable bait.
Are there any whackers?
Occasionally, but that isn’t the essence of it.
The challenge lies in actually catching one and the sense of achievement in getting everything right.
The majority of the fish are low to mid doubles, occasional twenties and even rarer thirties, but size is not the issue, catching any carp from a wild river takes hard work, patience and a lot of courage.
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If you’re looking to up your PB or chasing thirties then forget rivers. If you enjoy pioneering, being different and a challenge then take up the mantle, prepare for some hard work and read on.
The most important factor when fishing for river carp is location. This is true of all carping but is particularly important when attempting to catch from a river. Any sightings, catches, hints or whispers need to be investigated.
Banks need to be walked, any anglers you come across need to be chatted to, as do boat owners, who always seem amazed when I get so excited when they tell me of the large bronzy coloured fish that they feed food scraps to.
Good places to try are the sort of places where you generally find pike. Bridges, bays, side streams and channels, back eddies, large creases, anywhere where the flow is interrupted by such as trees, snags and boats. Carp are not barbel and don’t generally inhabit the main flow, although they are sometimes caught from there.
Once a few likely spots are identified it really does help to pre-bait.
I normally fish an initial exploratory session to try to get a feel for the swim.Finding out ideal places for hook-baits, bottom make-up and contours, snags, weeds and gravel etc.
This first session will give you a good idea of where to start putting your pre-bait.
“I haven’t got the time or money to prebait” I hear you cry.
If you haven’t got the time to prebait then you’re not ready for the rivers.
“What about the cost?”
What about enough bait to prebait a swim for three months, but costing less than the price of a kilo of ready-mades boilies?
Ever heard of whole maize? A 25 kilo sack costs under £ 7.
It takes flavour and colour exceptionally well, it’s a reasonably dense bait, so sinks well in the flow, it can be left natural so it is highly visible or coloured for use in clear water.
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Preparation. Add a similar quantity of cold water, add flavour and colour at this point if required. Flavours should be added at 0.5ml per kilo for subtle and 2ml per kilo for strong. Colours should be added as required, e.g., loads for a dark or change colour, or a little to just take the brightness out of the bait. STIR WELL several times during the soaking. Leave to soak for 36 to 48 hours. Transfer contents to a suitable pan and boil for approx 30 to 45 minutes. Now transfer all the contents to a suitable bucket and add more flavour if required.Check the bait regularly as it still soaks up water as it’s cooling and you don’t want to let the maize dry out. |
Prebait the swim as often as you can.
Couple this with trout pellets and you will soon realise that you can mass bait, regularly for a fraction of the cost of boilies. You can always throw in a few boilies of your chosen flavour as well, just to get the fish used to whatever your hookbait is going to be.
I tend to use the larger 8mm pellets on rivers as they sink better in the flow than the smaller ones.
All river species will eat maize and trout pellets, so eventually you should have all species of fish queuing up in your swim, but the carp will push the smaller fish aside.
Rigs
Rigs are kept pretty similar to lake fishing and are dependent on water flow, snags, weed, etc, and are either tied up for fishing maize or, if other species persist, boilies. I tend not to fish the hairs too long or supple as in flows and eddies the hair can easily become tangled and offer poor presentation.
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Let’s say, for instance, I was fishing a deeper, slower section of an inside bend, offering some 8ft of depth, with the surrounding water being 6ft deep.
My initial presentation would be a flat sided, pendent lead of between 2 and 4 ounces, semi-fixed on a Korda type lead clip. To this would be attached a 10 to 12 inch hooklength of either braid, Snakeskin or nylon.
Technique
I would concentrate my prebait in two spots.
Spot one would be about 3 to 4 feet back from the front lip of the depression and spot two would be about two thirds of the way down.
My reasoning behind the hook placement is that the front hookbait should have the main current passing above it because of the lip and any foodstuffs carried by the current should drop down into the dead water below.
This reasoning is obviously incredibly flawed and will depend on many variables such as current speed, water depth, depth variation, angle of slope into the depression, etc, etc, etc.
But I like it and, more importantly, it works for me.
The rear hook is placed about two thirds down because this is where, I believe, that fish moving up river and down into the depression will initially stop.
This theory is flawed for all the reasons previously stated for the first one.
Bite indication needs a little thought and is largely dependent on the current strength.
Fishing into 8ft of fast water, forty yards away on the far bank will obviously need a heavier indicator than when fishing a near bank slack.
Swingers are better than hanging bobbins because they don’t move about so much and are more easily adjustable for the resistance, although I use bobbins because I find that I cannot add enough weight to swingers on the rivers that I fish.
Dial type swingers, such as the Gardner Sensa-dial and the Nash Wasp things are a viable option as they can produce loadings of up to 10oz, but I found them unreliable and the dial springs seemed to attract grit and needed constant cleaning.
Now, the next part is quite important.If you are a river angler who has decided to fish for carp you’ll know this already, but if you are a carp angler who has started to fish a river then imagine you have hooked your first carp and have played it out.
How are you going to land it?
A suitable landing place needs to be decided on before you hook the carp, not when you are about to land it and it’s wallowing on the top and you find that you can’t reach it.
One final point, take some spare undergarments.
Because you’re sure to need them after you hook your first one that thinks it’s Linford Christie.
See you out there….
