My Baiting Approach

People often ask about baiting and how I change it as the season progresses. This is a go too for me, on Coron and elsewhere. Carp are carp at the end of the day and the principles are the same on 99% of waters.

The main difference is that I want to give them a food source now. When it's colder it tends to be snatching bites with a few small bits, maggots maybe and brightish hookbaits. As the water warms and the silvers are more active I tend to take the small bits out of the mix and concentrate on giving them wahat they need and want, which is food with value, especially after spawning. On here they see a lot of the Coron Specials and they have caught everywhere I've used them, so that's always my boilie of choice. When I'm here for a day or 2 I'll also add the Blue Mussel, the other bait we stock on site. That gives me 2 signals and 2 colors and keeps them guessing a bit. Because I can feed the spots from the far bank I prefer the chops instead of whole boilie, I've moved away from the crumb and gone for halves and squashed baits. It is a great method for a couple of reasons. 1, the bait is releasing and working from the minutes it in the water, 2, it readily absorbs the liquids I like to use at this time of year, 3 it stays where I chuck it, if the fish are wafting it or your fishing a slope it won't roll down as much and 4 it makes your bait go further. In addition to that I will always have pellet in the mix, there isn't a fish on earth that doesn't eat a pellet. We stock 2 here, the dark, slightly oily Coppins feed pellet and the lighter quick breakdown cereal feed pellet. This gives me a proper food signal and gives them a substantial meal when they do arrive.

The other important factor is how I feed it. I'm not one of these people that likes to get everything on a dinner plate. The rig yes, I put a lot of effort into getting that inch perfect, but the bait I want them to browse over and pick up with as little fear as possible. So for me I will always scatter my freebies a few meters either side of the rig, especially when fishing tight under trees on the far margin, I want them to come along, pick a bit up, move again, pick another bit up and then they are in a little rhythm, eventually one of those bits is my low lying pop up or bottom bait.