North West Carp Blog

I've moved this blog and renamed it the 'North West Carp Blog'. Here are some of the best entries on the new site, please feel free to pay a visit as all my new work is published there.

Basic Carp Hair Rig

D Rig for Carp

Line Aligner Carp Rig

Leadcore Carp Rigs/Leaders

Making Lead Fishing Weights

Tiger Nuts for Carp

Maize for Carp

Chick Peas for Carp

Groats for Carp

Finding Winter Carp

2007 Winter Carp Diaries Start Here

2008 Winter Carp Diaries Start Here

Fishing for River Dee Carp

Fishing for River Weaver Carp

Capesthorne Hall

Richworth Linear Fisheries

Yateley Sandhurst Lake

Acton Burnell Carp

Walton Hall Park

Selby 3 Lakes

Moon Phase Peak Fishing Days 2008

Viper Icon Bait Boat

JRC Stealth Brolly

Insect Repellents for Fishing

Tackle Box for Carp Pt1

Carp Tackle Box Pt2

Kryston Silkworm

Bankside Entertainment

Trakker A-Lite bivvy

Keeping Warm in Winter

Carp Hooks

Mark

Carp Baits - Maize

I first started using maize as a carp bait in the early 90’s, it was cheap and convenient and at the time I was hard up for cash so it was ideal. The carp seem to like it too and over the years no end of big fish have fallen to this simple and easy to use carp bait.

I’d recommend buying maize by the sack and preparing it yourself. I do use the dynamite maize now and again purely for convenience but overall, maize by the sack is a lot cheaper. Today, maize is still under £10 per 20 kilo sack and it doesn’t take a genius to work out how cheap that is compared to your average kilo of rolled boilies, if your fishing on a budget maize is the perfect bait.

How to prepare maize for carp fishing



As with most particle baits maize requires soaking and boiling before use. I soak mine for 24hrs then boil it in an open pan for around 20 minutes or until some of the grains begin to split open. That’s it, preparation is literally that easy. My normal routine is to put as much maize as I need on soak two days before I go fishing. The day before I head out I’ll boil it up ready and if for any reason I can’t go fishing, I bag it up and freeze it ready for next time as maize will freeze without any problems. You can always keep a few bags of maize in the freezer too, if you find yourself with a few spare hours to go fishing then your bait is already waiting for you.

Soaked and Cooked Maize ready to use


Presenting maize on the hook is very easy too, I fish mine as a miniature stack rig with two grains of maize on a knotless knot hair rig with a small piece of yellow foam sandwiched between the grains. You can use a larger piece of yellow foam to create a popup bait, or a smaller piece to make your bait critically balanced so it just sinks with the weight of the hook, or you can use just one or two grains of maize straight on the hair rig and fish it as a bottom bait. My preference is for critically balanced or if I’m fishing in weed a popup.

Knotless Knot Maize Stack Rig


Waters like linear fisheries and horseshoe lake have been turned over on maize, not just once but many times over, I did exceptionally well on maize at linear in the late 90’s long before it became a popular bait on there. Today, a decade on, maize is still recommended as a bait on waters like st johns and hardwick. Its been a hugely successful bait that has stood the test of time and there aren’t many waters that won’t respond to this cheap and convenient bait.

31lb 2oz Linear Hardwick Mirror, this former PB was caught on the Maize Stack Rig shown above.


On the back of the popularity of maize, companies like enterprise tackle have produced fake/rubber maize and whilst I’ve used fake maize as a bait and caught, my preference is still for a couple of real grains and a piece of yellow foam on my rig. The yellow foam is cheaper and with only 5 pieces of fake maize in a packet I think the enterprise fake baits are far too expensive.
With fuel and food prices on the up, sticking to the cheap and simple options can keep the cost of your fishing right down, as a carp bait, maize is very good, very cheap and well worth considering as a bait.

Tight Lines
Mark.

Carp Baits - Groats

Mention ‘mass’ particle baits and the first thing any carp angler will say is ‘hemp seed’. Hemp is probably the most effective mass particle baits of all time but there’s another one that’s right up there and that’s ‘naked oats’, more commonly known as groats. Groats are an incredibly successful mass particle bait for carp yet you rarely see carp anglers using them nowadays. What I like about groats is their ease of use. For a short session carp angler like myself this bait is perfect because it doesn’t require any boiling to prepare. All I need to do is tip my groats into a bait bucket and soak them in cold water for 24hrs before use. That is so convenient, not only do I not need to waste any time cooking bait, I also avoid stinking the house out and getting moaned at every week!, on top of this, they are ideally prepared on the bank so if you’re a long session carp angler, again, you simply add water and leave them to soak in a bucket outside the bivvy for 24hrs. Groats, convenient and very successful mass bait for carp! If I travel to a water like the carp society's horseshoe lake or linear fisheries then this is the particle bait I take with me, I usually take a 20k sack and I can prepare as much or as little as I think I will need whilst I’m on the bank and I find that extremely useful for a number of reasons. Firstly, I don’t need to prepare all my bait at home, secondly, I’m not tempted to go piling bait into a swim as soon as I get there because I’ll only soak a small amount prior to travelling and thirdly, I can prepare as much or as little as I want depending on how the fishing is at the time so all in all I’m happier taking groats to a water than I am taking hemp seed which requires boiling.

Preparing Groats for Carp Fishing (Click below to watch)

Groats are a nice visual seeds, being a creamy off white colour I’ve always found them ideal for fishing in clear waters. I find visual baits attract carp, they are curious creatures and they will usually come and investigate anything that stands out and a nice bright bed of small seeds definitely stands out!. On top of the visual aspect of groats, carp do find them attractive, they go nice and milky when soaked and the carp certainly go for them in a big way. Like hemp, I’ve witnessed carp literally ripping the bottom to bits to clear every last seed and you can certainly achieve the same level of pre-occupation with groats that you can with hemp. Nice bright bait and attractive to carp. Groats also take flavours very well, I have to say I’ve never been a big fan of flavouring particles myself, anything else you add to them just helps increase the expense of using them and as these baits are attractive in their own right I tend to fish with them as they are. I do however take advantage of groats’ ability to accept flavours, not by adding anything to them but by soaking them in the water I boil my tiger nuts in and by keeping my tiger nuts in the same bucket, as the tiger nuts ferment and the water they are in goes sticky, so the groats soak this up and I’ve found the combination of tiger nuts fished over a small patch of groats to be outstanding. This is the combination of baits I used to turn over stoke water capesthorne hall in Cheshire. Like every particle bait, groats can’t be introduced at any kind of range, I’m pretty much against spodding so where possible I’ll introduce them to margin swims or I’ll use a pair of thigh or chest waders to put my bait in, if I need to spod then I’ll change baits to something more suitably sized rather than risk spooking carp with a spod. The bridge area of capesthorne hall lent itself perfectly to fishing my groats and tiger nuts combination, I was able to introduce small beds of bait very accurately and this paid big dividends for me during my time on the water, half of my carp from the water came to tiger nuts fished over a bed of groats whilst the other half came to single hookbaits. 23lb 8oz Capesthorne hall carp caught on a tiger nut fished over a tight bed of groats near the bridge. I did well on the river weaver with groats too, when I found myself running low on hemp I found I could use a combination of one third hemp and two thirds groats, again due to groats ability to soak up liquid attractors, I’d boil my hemp then add groats so they would soak up the water my hemp had boilied in, this proved to be a very cost effective method of fishing big beds of particle baits as groats were and still are cheaper than hemp!. If you’re a particle angler then groats are well worth a look, I’ve been using them on and off for close on 15 years now and they come in very handy when I find myself in a position to be able to fish the margins of a lake or river. I know I can rely on them to pull carp in when I’m fishing margin swims and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to other north west carp anglers. Tight Lines Mark.

Carp Baits - Tiger Nuts

I first started using tiger nuts around 1995. At the time I had no idea they were such an outstanding carp bait, in fact, it took me quite a while to pluck up the courage to actually use them. It was a chance happening on a local north west carp water that convinced me to give them a go. I just happened to be sitting talking to a carp angler when his rod screamed off and after a good fight he netted a half decent carp, it was then I noticed the tiger nut hanging from the carps mouth. After chatting to him and enquiring about the tiger nuts, he convinced me they were worth a go. I look back now and laugh, even when I cast out my first ever tiger nut rig I still wasn’t convinced they were any good for catching carp!. I reckon I waited about an hour for my first ever run on a tiger nut, I couldn’t quite believe it when the rod actually screamed off, for me, that first session success began a long association with this superb carp bait, a bait I'm still catching carp on today!.

If I could choose just one carp bait to fish with for the rest of my life it would be tiger nuts. I'm not sure why they are such a good bait, maybe it's their sweetness, or that carp like to 'crunch' on them, probably a bit of both, one things for sure, I'd put tiger nuts up against any boilie you can think of, and they will perform very favorably.

If you’re planning to use tiger nuts, you should make sure that you prepare them correctly, as they are very hard. When you buy them, you will notice that they are dehydrated, they need to be soaked for at least 24hrs. During this time, they will take on water and swell to their normal size. Once soaked, they should be boiled for at least 30 minutes, this is to soften them a bit. I don't think they will soften any more than this so there's not much point in boiling them any longer. Once boiling is completed, they can be left in the same water to cool. It's just a case of take them to the lake and use them once they are prepared!. Some people prefer to leave their tigers at this stage, as, after a while, they will begin to ferment. They do smell a bit when they reach this stage, some people swear by their effectiveness when left to ferment, personally, I like mine fresh and will use them within 3 days of preparation.

Dry Tiger Nuts, Soak them for 24 hours then boil for 30 minutes.



For presentation, I like to fish tiger nuts on a hair rig using a knotless knot set up. I cut a piece of cork to the shape of a tiger nut and use that as the top half of a snowman hook bait, that is, the cork sits on top of the tiger nut to pop it up. It's then just a case of balancing the rig with a bit of putty, so that it sinks very slowly. This has been a superb presentation for me over the years and I've taken many carp using it. You should not worry about the cork being on top of the tiger nut, the fish can't tell one way or the other. I usually put a few pieces of cork in with my prepared tiger nuts, that way, they soak in some of the juices from the nuts.

Tiger nut carp rig, fish as a pop up or trim the cork to size so the bait just sinks with the weight of the hook.


22lb 6oz Capesthorne Hall Carp caught on the snowman tiger nut presentation, this carp is an upper 20 these days.


The last word on tigers goes to bait application, this bait should be used sparingly. Usually just a pouch full or two along with your hook bait is more than enough whilst fishing. I tend to put more tiger nuts in when I’m actually leaving the lake, not many though, on most waters I won’t introduce more than a pound or two of tiger nuts in any one go. On rivers like the dee and the weaver I use a lot more as river carp can be very nomadic and I know there is no chance of over using tiger nuts in an open river system. Over-use of tiger nuts can be a bad thing and can cause what's known as 'tiger nut syndrome'. These baits contain very little in the way of nutrition for carp yet the carp can become totally pre-occupied with them to the point were they will just eat tiger nuts and nothing else, neglecting both natural food and anglers boilies. This can result in weight loss and in extreme cases death for the carp so please use them sparingly. I believe this is why they are banned on some carp waters, because some people don't have the common sense to use them properly!. Thankfully bans are not necessary on most waters and if you use them correctly, they will work for years with no ill effects for the carp.

Still catching on tigers, last weeks river dee carp fell to one!


Should you wish, you can always buy tiger nuts that are already prepared, bait companies like dynamite sell tinned tiger nuts and these are ideal if you are a first time user of this excellent carp bait.

Tight Lines
Mark.

Carp Baits - Chick Peas

Chick Peas are very much a favourite carp bait of mine these days. They have made a good change bait from the usual boilies, maize or tiger nuts that I've been using for a long time.

For preparation I soak my chick peas in cold water for at least 24 hours then I boil them for around 20 minutes in order to make them softer, this process also kills off the seed and prevents the chick peas from sprouting. Its important to soak and boil them as dry chick peas expand a lot when they are put in water and a bait that's not been soaked and boiled properly could be dangerous to the fish so its vital they are prepared correctly.

Preparing Chickpeas for Carp Fishing, click to watch

Chick Peas...carp love them!


Chick peas take both flavour and colour very well although I never really bother doing this myself as they work very well in their natural form. I like the fact that they are very visible in the first place and to be honest, I don't see the point in spending money on flavours or colours when it's just not necessary, the carp bait companies might think its a great idea to shift some additives but chick peas really are a superb bait just as they are and theres little point in making things more expensive, carp fishing costs enough as it is!

Presentation wise, I like to fish my chick peas snowman style, rather than fish two of them on a hair I use an Enterprise fake dog biscuit as the top bait. I trim the fake biscuit down with a knife so that it looks just like a chick pea, the cut down fake biscuit is similar in colour to a chick pea and being a pop-up it makes for a superb 'balanced' presentation. The picture below shows my simple knotless knot presentation.

Snowman chick pea rig, a well balanced presentation!


Using a cut down fake dog biscuit also helps keep the bait on the hair, chick peas are quite a soft bait, generally they stay on the hair but sometimes they can be soft enough to come off on a stiff cast, or they may come off when winding in giving the impression you've been fishing without a bait, the fake enterprise dog biscuit prevents this and acts as a buffer for the real pea underneath. I've used this presentation to very good effect when fishing single hookbaits at long range, in fact the picture of the mirror accompanying this piece was caught at 120 yards plus on a single hookbait snowman presentation.

Chick peas are an extremely under rated bait for carp fishing, I've taken them onto some of our most pressured cheshire and shropshire carp lakes and they have never let me down. They make a very good and very cheap alternative to the standard boilie approach that the majority of carp anglers use these days, the only real draw backs with them are that you can't fish them much further than 30 yds without spodding due to their size and weight, and they are not what you would call 'small fish proof'. If your water has a large head of tench and bream and you're targetting carp then chick peas might not be the right choice of bait. If theres no problems with tench and bream on your water then I'd give chick peas a go because the carp love them.

A stunning 23.08 cheshire mirror in full winter colour, caught on the single/snowman chick pea presentation above.


Tight Lines
Mark.