ouchthathurt

I fish mainly old disused reservoirs, clay ponds, drains and the odd river.

I think the most important thing to take away is to find a bait that you have confidence in, that’s the key. There are many reputable bait firms out there that can fill your needs, but as an angler you need that trust, faith and confidence that they will work. Whilst I will harp on for ages about premier baits, other anglers will love nutrabaits, or solar or Mainline, etc it all comes down to what you have confidence in. Sometimes the reasons for a base mix can be arbitrary, when I first started rolling bait in the 90s, I was on mainline grange, my mate was on premier aminos. Why? Because I lived in one town where the local tackle shop stocked mainline bases and my mates shop stocked premier. I could walk to my shop, yet to get premier bases, I would have to catch the train. My mates catch rates were better than mine, so I stopped using Mainline and jumped on the train... I’ve been using premier ever since and haven’t looked back. So my faith in premier is higher than that of mainline, I don’t feel as confident in mainline as I do premier, which is stupid really as my pb 42lb 8oz carp was caught on a red plum mainline pop up when I arrived at a lake without any bait... (muppet) yet there will be thousands of anglers that will argue the case for mainline as their bait of choice as it’s done the business for them, just ask Dave Lane and the lads from Korda... initially choosing a base mix can be a bit bewildering, there’s so much choice, but the reputable firms have produced very good mixes, regardless of company, my advice would be to look at your waters, see what the going bait is there, then use that to help narrow your search. Pick a base and stick with it. Build your confidence up in it through catches and soon you have so much faith in your bait that you almost forget about that equation! Don’t forget the most important element in carping, location location location! You can’t catch a carp that isn’t there, the best bait in the world can’t catch carp in an empty swim!

Good luck buddy. 🤞🏼

I’ve got fox rods mate, (torques 12ft 3lb test) and I can’t fault them for action or build quality pal.

The solar club mix is a proven bait with an excellent track record, as is the trigga base mix. I would be cautious about blending the two bases, (if I understand correctly) as they are specifically formulated with specific ingredients. I’d choose one and stick with it. For me out of the two would be the club mix as it’s got some good fish meal ingredients in it, which would complement the monster crab flavour. Maybe consider other little goodies to make the bait unique to you. The bait I make is on a matrix base mix with robin red, shellfish sense appeals, cream stimulant, betaine and salmon oil with a low dose of smoked ham or blue cheese flavour. With pungent flavours like monster crab I like to think that less is more so the bait isn’t completely overpowering smell wise, I think this is better in a long term foodbait, relying more on the inherent pulling power and the nutrition found in a food bait rather than short term “smelly baits” that rely on the scent in larger doses to attract. I do think that beds of strongly smelling bait can be off putting to carp. I reckon base mixes would work just as well as just a base and oils, relying on the inherent flavours and attractors within the base, the flavour is added for a “smell” which we can obviously detect, but can a carp “smell” as we do? Or do they detect the flavour as a taste? I don’t know, but I know adding a flavour makes it smell nice to me, it breeds confidence and that’s half the battle. Decent food baits get better with application, so pick a decent bait and stick with it mate.

Any decent reputable fish meal base mix should do mate, you’re best picking a brand and sticking with it, I’ve been using the same base mix company since 1996 (premier) I always found the monster crab flavour to be a good fish catcher (the original RH monster crab was awesome) but a word of warning... it does absolutely stink and the others in your household may not talk to you for a while. Check out the MC/addicted mix from Rod Hutchinson, give it a google and see what base mix (type) that was on, it was a winner.

A mate of mine used to be mad keen on carping, we were out virtually every weekend, he hit on a run of blanks, got convinced that it was all down to rigs and couldn’t accept it was probably down to the run of things, it wasn’t an easy water and a string of blanks could and did happen to us all. He started chopping and changing rigs all over, still blanking... he brought the underwater carp fishing dvd for some hints and tips, yet it just wrecked his head, he got so despondent that he lost all confidence in what he was doing and eventually hung up his rods.

In this case, I think it was down more to the cast itself, it required a low, hard punch to get it tight under the overhanging shrubbery and then stopping it dead so it didn’t drill into the clay bank that rose up immediately above the desired spot, if that makes any sense! The other rod fished to a more open spot where I could feather the cast went out sweet, the first spot was so tight it required maximum accuracy, a PVA bag wasn’t the one, as I couldn’t get the mark, with the long low trajectory needed, the PVA bag splashed down too soon, a PVA nugget would have been useful, but the bag was safely in my tackle cupboard at home... (perfectly useless!) as the water was gin clear, I opted to use a fluro combi firstly as it was nigh on invisible and whipping the existing braided hooklink to a fluro “boom” was far quicker that tying up new complete hooklinks. An important consideration when I had a carp show near the spot and I wanted a bait placed and waiting.

Part 3 is on YouTube now

He also said if you’re too drunk to cast, chuck them in the edge! Lol! The man was a legend, RIP the late great Rod Hutchinson

Maybe it’s time to retire the blue cheese flavour then? Lol! Ah yes, the premier range is awesome, yet I’ve been using premier base mixes, oils and additives since 1997 so I would say that! Aminos, Aminos 2000 and matrix bases are my favourites, with added robin red, the cream stimulant and betaine. I’ve a marked preference for meat/fish flavours over fruit flavours with these bases, although premier peach melba on the aminos base is a sure fire classic. I roll all my own bait, pop ups, bottom baits, dumbbells, chops etc, I haven’t used a shop brought bait in god knows when.

Well I’ve managed to get another bottle from the nutrabaits clearance line on their website. How about flavour “shelf life’s?” I’ve still got a bottle of richworth blue cheese flavour I brought in the late 90s, which I still use, I’ve got about 1/3 left and it still works, still produces fish. Yet I’ve got a much more modern flavour that is about 1yr old and it’s lost all its scent. I started using the UTCS smoked ham flavour from nutrabaits after I could no longer get hold of the richworth boiled ham flavour anymore. i think the Hutchinson shellfish sense appeals seem different to the older versions although I may be wrong.

I do wonder how much the 3rd lockdown is affecting the fishing this time of year, one of my local waters usually sees anglers and rigs and baits all year around which usually keeps them a bit more active during the colder months. Many leads hitting the water keeping them on the move, bait going in regularly to keep them feeding and supplying energy that can keep them active. (I’m of the opinion that carp will keep looking for food and stay more active during the winter as long as a regular food supply exists) but with lockdown, this same lake is not seeing anglers from one day to the next (even in winter there are usually between 6-12 anglers on this lake, since lockdown, I’ve seen maybe 1-2 max) with this lack of pressure and next to no bait going in, the lake has totally shut down making it more difficult than it otherwise usually would be.

On a slightly different note, I saw on the nutrabaits website that the UTCS smoked ham flavour is being discontinued... 😫 not sure why though.

That’s the question isn’t it? How much food can a carp expect to find in gravel as opposed to silt or weed or to a lesser extent clay? How much is fishing on gravel because it’s actually better than the other substrates? Or is it because it’s “convenient” for the angler? You get exact rig presentation, the “donk” feels awesome, the tap of gravel is addictive... yet are we as anglers more reliant on creating a feature on a gravel spot through the application of bait, how much have anglers educated carp over the years to feed on gravel by processions of anglers baiting up known gravel patches? Gravel obviously produces many takes, so that would suggest that carp must be finding some types of foodstuffs, natural and bait in the gravel to be aware of this surface being a potential food source.

That’s what it’s all about mate

I would prefer the larger of the two reels, I find them more versatile. You can use large reels in the margins yet smaller reels are less suited to long range work. I’ve got fox 12000 reels that I can use from 0-130yrds without any issues.

Gotta get a snow carp pic mate!

Tight lines mate

I’ve just spent a few (blank) hours on the local pond, I was using soft unvisited braid as hooklinks but after they came back tangled on two casts in a row, (I luckily reeled them straight back in as I wasn’t happy with the casts) I switched over to fluro hooklinks, fished combi rig style (using the soft braid hooklinks cut down and tied to the fluro) no bites, yet no tangles either. Checking them in the edge they looked good too, although it probably doesn’t really emulate what it was doing over in the actual spots!

I’ve not actually used my marker rod for quite a while, I took the handle off the reel so it doesn’t get damaged in the hold-all. (The spod rod comes out even less!) I will get them out if I feel the need too, but it’s not often - this could just be down to knowing the waters I’m on currently. I fished a pit that was a flooded fold in the ground that in WW2 made up a large anti aircraft gun emplacement/early warning site built to protect the nearby Lydd Aerodrome (I think) it has deep gravelly margins that gives way to silt and seems pretty featureless, besides several concrete bases/towers that sit proud of the water surface. Yet there is an old road that stretches from one tower to open water. When you run the marker rod over it, you can feel the lead bump over one kerb and then over the other. It’s a good place for a bite, I’ve had the majority of my takes from there, yet a lot of the other anglers all fish on the gravel. In my experience, placing a bait in the silt just beyond the gravel produces the larger fish too.

Or a dog sled??

I’ve found I’ve struggled with motivation since the start of the 3rd lockdown. I’ve got some time off from the ambulance and thought I’d be raring to go, I think the fact I can’t night fish is probably having a negative impact on my motivation. My water does not fish brilliantly during the day, but there again, I’ll catch naff all sat on the sofa at home! I only made bait yesterday because the darling wife insisted I made some as my bait draw in the freezer is totally empty. I’ve been walking my waters most days and was finding carp most days, especially in the smaller water all shoaled up and looking catchable, but the last few days they’ve drifted away from there, although they wouldn’t have gone far I reckon. If the rain holds off tomorrow, I will get the rods dusted off for a few hours, after all I’ll regret it if I don’t!

Well I’ve rolled the bait... may get the rods out on Friday...

There’s an idea!