from experience, most river carp can fall to really simple tactics, they are as a rule not any near as pressured as their lake cousins. even the "pressured" ones, however there are cases of lake fish "holidaying" in flooded river systems when rivers burst their banks in winter floods, and the carp move into river systems, whilst i have no doubt that this is sometimes the case, i am not convinced this happens as often as we'd like to believe, most fish heading to their established shelters and "safe areas" during times of hardship - i would like to think that a big ole carp would rather hunker down in his favourite snag during the floods, rather than face the raging torrents of a flooded bank,to head into an area that is fast flowing, shallow with no possibility of knowing whats at the end.
however smaller carp must have done this journey, willing or otherwise, in order to have ended up in the river system, indeed, it is documented that a Colne valley lake lost approx 1/3rd of its stock during floods into the river, but i hope this is a rare example!
there are documented sightings/catches of carp in my local river Stour, in Dorset, we are talking the upper reaches around (and above) Blandford Forum, now we are talking low deep, wide meandering reaches up until you hit the weir in Blandford which is shallow, fast, clear grayling/trout/chub territory. its a very strange set up, above the weir, Crown meadows area is bream/perch/carp/tench territory, water goes over the weir to fast shallow grayling/barbel ground, i've seen carp anglers and fly anglers mere metres apart, one fshing below the weir, one above it!
as for the bream, they love fishmeals/pellets, so prebaiting with those will attract them, they seem to ignore tiger nuts, so these can be fairly selective. however, the point is this, why do you want to avoid attracting them? a large shoal of feeding fish will surely get the carp moving in to investigate, if you think to the "baiting pyramid" theory where the larger fish are attracted by the feeding signals of smaller fish and move in over the feed, pushing out the smaller fish in the process.
you say you know the area well and can see the carp in residence? then yu can spend some time watching them, work out their resting areas, where they feed, where they go if they feel threatened, etc. learn their habits and things (should!) get easier. once you have established feeding areas, then you can begin to target them using precision baiting and tactics, negating the need to prebait - reconnicaince is never wasted.
as for rigs, well they need to be strong and simple, a good decent braid and strong hook is a good start, river carp spend their lives working n and against the flow, so they are often more tuned and lean than their (more flabby(!?)) lake counterparts. so they can fight like tigers, especially if they can use the flow to their advantage. good strong tackle is a must to help you counter this.
many rivers have snaggy/rocky/gravelly/zebra mussel infested bottoms, so good strong abraision resistent lines and leaders are important.
river carp are a good challenge, i'm currently hunting a particular mirror that haunts the crown meadows...
ouchthathurt.
