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As most of you will know, carp generally move around a lot less in winter than they do in summer. So the usual advice is to fish as close to them as possible, and keep your groundbaiting patterns, if any, very tight.
Sound advice, and fine if you know where the fish are. But what if you don't know where they are? I bet there are more people reading this who won't know where they are than will. I'm one of them. What I'd like to do in this article is to offer some alternative thoughts to the normal winter articles, but excluding the long session approach which, on most waters, will probably pay off in the end whatever you do. I'm not claiming vast catches of winter carp. If you want to catch many carp in winter, you'll have to fish the easier waters, and even then you'll probably have to put the hours in. The following may help put the odd fish on the bank. I think the odd fish is what most people are after in winter anyway.
First, try to make an educated guess at where the carp may be, taking into account conditions, local knowledge etc Cast into these areas, using stringers to concentrate the baits. When using stringers in winter, be aware that PVA takes quite a long time to dissolve completely in cold water. PVA must have a smell detectable by carp, and may well put them off taking the baits. It is best to use PVA thread, or the string, stretched almost to breaking point. I do have some PVA that dissolves immediately on contact with the water, and this can be useful in winter (if it's not raining!) Also, watch out for new products from Kryston which might prove a useful PVA alternative. Now, instead of trying to concentrate any free offerings tight to the hook bait, think for a minute. If you judge conditions are such that a carp isn't going to move far for a bait, then unless you have cast your bait close to the fish, any free offerings are going to be wasted. If on the other hand, you spread your baits out, there is a better chance of some of them landing near a carp. Spreading baits out may have another advantage, which I'll come to later.
There are several things the fish may do if a bait lands near him. He may eat the bait and go looking for more. He may eat the the bait and stay where he is. He may just ignore the bait, and stay where he is. Or he may go somewhere else and hide. For practical purposes we'll ignore the last two options. There's not a lot we can do about the carp that just won't feed, except find another carp. There are all sorts of variables in between, for example the fish may ignore the bait for 23 hours, and then eat it, then go looking for more 4 hours later. But you can't expect to cater for every variation in behaviour, so I will deal with the first two. In the first case, you are obviously in with a chance of catching the fish, which wouldn't neccessarily be the case if you had created a tight baiting pattern 25 yards from him. In the second case, the fish is possibly going to be catchable, but you have to get your hookbait near him. So how do you do that if you don't know where he is. I can't answer that one, but I can suggest something that may increase your chances. When you put out your free offerings, instead of spreading them at random, and then forgetting where they are, put them out in a fairly straight line, say 10 yards between each bait, or small group of baits, going towards your hookbait. Then after a reasonable period of time, say a couple of hours, retrieve your hookbait until it is near where you placed the next batch of offerings. Give some thought to how you retrieve the bait, as you don't want to spook fish that may be present. If the lake bed is reasonably clean, then slowly sneak it along the bottom.
Obviously the use of pop-ups will make this easier, preventing the hook from snagging, or picking up rubbish. If the bottom is very snaggy, or you are fishing over several bars, then it may be best to quickly reel the bait up to the surface, then let it drop into the baited area. Having done this, if nothing happens after a further 2 hours or so, then repeat the process until you have covered each spot. Then, reel in, tie on a fresh stringer and start again, either in the original area, or somewhere else. Doing this on two rods should help keep the boredom of winter fishing at bay. Obviously, the amount of areas you cover depends on how long you are going to fish, how far out you are fishing, and the nature of the bottom. On average, using two rods, you should be able to fish about 8 different areas quite efficiently during a normal winter's day. If you can use 3 rods you can cover large areas of water. Or you can leave one (or two) rods in position for the length of the session, and move just one rod. It's quite an interesting method of fishing, and I have had some success doing it. Of course, as in many things in angling, I'll never really know if I succeeded because of, or in spite of, what I was doing. But fishing in this way does keep up the enthusiasm, each move of the bait renewing confidence which has begun to ebb away with each minute since casting out.
I used to do a lot of fly fishing for trout, and when I first started I was fishing waters where you couldn't see the fish. Cast after cast would be retrieved with no fish taking the fly. One always assumed there were no trout there. However, when I started fishing clearer waters, where, if you kept out of sight the trout's reaction to the fly could be observed, it was seen that nearly every cast would bring some reaction from the fish, and though they would mostly turn away at the last minute, more often than not they would follow the fly right in to the bank. I think Tom Ivens, in his classic Still Water Fly-Fishing first mentioned the fact that he believed that trout could somehow communicate danger to one another, and stop other trout taking an artificial fly on which a fish had already been caught. I too, on occasion, have experienced days when I had to change the fly after each fish caught, in order to get another take. They don't do it all the time, but occasionally they do. What has this got to do with carp fishing? Well, I am firmly of the opinion that carp often pick up baits and eject them without giving the angler any indication at all. I think it is possible that a bait already sampled, and rejected in this way, is less likely to be picked up again. It may even be that carp can communicate this danger to other carp in the vicinity. If however the bait is moved to a new position, it could be treated as a new bait, and you may get another chance.
The other advantage of spreading the baits out is it makes it more difficult for the tufties to find them all! One thing that baffles me about all the articles on winter carping I have read is this. Do these people never get tufted ducks on their waters? I know it's generally accepted that you can keep carp active all winter so long as you keep the bait going in. But on all the lakes I've fished, and particularly on the one I'm fishing now, the tufties are getting virtually everything that goes in. As soon as free offerings are fired out, they home in on them, and clear them all up. Even if you put baits out in the dark, they still find them. The result is that no-one dares to put in any free offerings. The carp then don't see any bait, and become far less active. The more bait you put in, the more tufties you get. I've tried putting out enough bait to fill up the ducks, with sufficient left over for the carp. There is a possibility that heavy feeding activity from the ducks may attract a carp. So far it hasn't worked. The tufties seem to have a telepathic link with their friends and call them in from all the surrounding pits to help clear up this sudden glut of food!
I've tried big baits. The tufties still dive for them, but as my fishing at the moment begins and ends in the dark, I can't tell whether or not they are managing to pick them up. I've tried very small particles, hemp and dari. They still find them - they just try harder, and stay longer! The other thing recommended for winter fishing is that you hit virtually every movement of the bobbin. Fine - but when you've got tufties on the baits, the bobbins are up and down all the time. If I hit every movement, I'd be re-casting about 10 times an hour! Even if I haven't got any free offerings out, I still get liners from the ducks as they search the lake bed for food. All I can do is wait for runs. Not a very satisfactory state of affairs I know, as many winter carp are caught by striking at minute indications. If you find yourself in a similar position, then do give some thought to your rigs. You must make the carp run. On many waters they may pick up baits, then sit fiddling around trying to get rid of the hook. This is what produces the small indications that you should be striking at. But if the duck activity is forcing you to wait for runs, you have to do your best to ensure you get runs.
Most carp anglers will be aware of the bent hook rig by now (I'm writing this in late 1989). It certainly works in the right situation, and if carp are sitting there trying to get rid of the hook, it's probably the best rig around at the moment. To make it more effective when fishing pop-ups, make your bait very bouyant so it needs a fairly heavy weight to balance it. This will result in that weight constantly pulling the hook down in the fish's mouth while it is trying to eject the hook, and may make the process more difficult for it, especially if you use slightly more weight than is neccessary to balance the bait.
There is another alternative to striking at everything that moves. If the bobbin moves up a reasonable distance, and you're not sure if it's a fish or not, leave the rod in the rests, and pull the line back by hand. If a fish is on the end, you'll soon know about it!
Winter carping on the big waters can be difficult, lonely and uncomfortable. There are times when you really don't want to catch a fish, as it means you'll have to take your hands out of your pockets! And times when you are sure you'd be better off with a half herring or mackerel on the end. The rewards are there though, as winter carp are generally in excellent condition, and often heavier than they are in summer. Blimey! - all this talk of fishing has made me want to get out there. Now where can I get some
live-baits!
Alan Tomkins
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