Maximise Your Potential…

Lots of things influence how carp feed. From the water temperature, to the intensity of the light (whether its sunny or not) to the amount of wind on the water, and the barometric pressure. As I explain my approach, you will realise it hinges on maximising my ability to catch carp - whether they are actively feeding or not. However, being aware of the conditions is essential. If it s a mild day, with a breeze on the water you might want 100lb to win. If its cold, with a stiff frost and bright sunshine, 30lb might be enough. You must always let your peg tell you what to do, but it does no harm to have in your mind a target weight to help you make the best decisions through the day.

On most winter sessions I set up two rods, which gives me three approaches to work between. I’m going to start with the most negative, and work my way through. First up- my ‘dobbing rod.’ This is a simple running inline bomb set up, with a 12 inch hooklength and a size 16 Guru SLWG hook. This is used primarily to cast at showing fish, with the intentions of bagging a quick bite. If you see a fish roll, its always worth having a cast towards it. The fact that it is moving tells you that the fish is active, and its amazing how often a fast bite follows. This tactic has bought me loads of fish over the years, and its often on the hardest days -when you most need that valuable extra bite that it comes up trumps.

On some days a sinking bait like a piece of corn can be a brilliant choice on this ‘dobbing rod’ - but more often than not I want a pop-up. I have three baits in my armoury that I will work through, the first is a simple Fjuka pop-up on a spike. The second is one of the Fjuka Floating Neeonz - these are softer than the pop ups and often bring a fast bite. The final one is bread - though I have recently had my thinking changed on this. Tank testing has shown me it doesn’t always pop up as well as I thought! So now, I almost always use a couple of discs of punched bread, along with a floating Neeonz to ensure buoyancy.        

The next approach is the one that I would expect to spend the majority of my session on. This is the hybrid feeder. Ive explained my take on this deadly technique an awful lot, both on the pages of this magazine and on YouTube, so I’ll not dwell too much on it.

The crux of my approach is a free running Guru Hybrid feeder with the holes glued up. This runs down to a Korum quick change bead, and I fish a four inch hooklength. Hook choice is a size 16 Guru Super LWG. Hookbait is generally a 6mm Fjuka hookable wafter, though I will also try corn, or a 7mm Fjuka Carpo or Pop-Up if I can’t catch on a wafter.

Fishery micro pellets go on the Hybrid feeder. I prepare these by soaking them in Fjuka Sensate Fish Accelerant liquid the night before I use them, then keeping them in the fridge so they soften throughout, and break down properly, even in the icy cold water that you are often faced with in winter.

Unless I see any showing fish, this is generally the tactic that I start on. I begin the match by casting my hybrid feeder towards wherever I think the fish might be, then its about keeping a close eye on the tip.

1. Small liners, and I will generally sit on my hands until the tip goes around, as this means that there are fish around my feeder. Big liners can mean the fish are closer to you - so a closer chuck might be in order. And no liners at all, means it might pay to cast elsewhere until you can work out where the fish are sat. 

   In fairness, this is my banker method in most conditions. I think it offers the perfect cold-water compromise, a small pile of bait with a hookbait neatly presented in the middle of it. One question that I get asked regularly is about the colour of hookbait to go for - generally I feel a pink or yellow wafter is best, but the key is to keep changing until you catch on a colour on a given day, and then stick with it.

So thats the two more negative approaches out the way. As anyone who knows me well will tell you, I like to fish to win - and the last part of my three method attack is about giving myself the chance of a run of fish late on in the day. Literally, this line can see you go from zero to hero in the last couple of hours of the match, and it also affords me a completely different style of feeding to the other two styles - so Im really covering my options and working out how the fish want to feed on the day.

The crux of this corn line is loosefeed - I fire corn over an area of around three metres square somewhere in the swim, then fish a bomb over the top of it. This corn swim generally takes a while to build, so I’ll feed it for at least two hours before I go on it. I just trickle bait in little and often, maybe eight pieces of corn every ten minutes, to pull any feeding fish into the area and get them competing.

In terms of what I feed, its just supermarket corn, which I again soak in Fjuka Sensate Attractant. This gives it a pink tinge, and of course that distinctive Fjuka smell!

Tackle wise for this swim its the same as the dobbing rod - and generally I simply hair rig a single piece of corn, then let the tip tell me how the fish are responding to it. 

Obviously, bites speak for themselves - but another good way to gauge how the fish are responding to your loosefeed is to fire some bait in while your bomb is in the water, if you get liners, then you know the fish are moving around and responding to the bait that you are firing in.

If this happens, try firing some corn in then casting straight over the top of it. This can bring some savage bites as fish follow the loosefeed to the bottom, then instantly pick up your hookbait.