Boilies in USA/NC

[psychodiagnostik]

I've seen it discussed in several older threads, but I figured I'd start a new one since I'm going to give boilies a serious try.  I've just started carp fishing first of the year, &  I've not had a ton of luck with boilies here in USA.  From Luke's Cats&Carp channel, it seems that USA carp may need to be "trained" to take them.  I have had modest results from combining my method feeder pack bait with boilie crumb, on top of piles of boilie and crumb, then a hair-rigged boilie hook bait.  I use a pretty plain pack bait of instant oats, sweet corn & grape soda.

What's worked better for me is corn hook baits fished on a pack bait method feeder, on a scattering of more pack bait & corn.  I use both fake corn & boiled, bulk feed corn as hook baits.  I've found boiled feed corn to be tough enough for a hook bait & also to work better than fake in late winter/early spring, but the catfish and turtles will absolutely worry me to death on feed corn in warmer months.  They'll pick up fake corn too but not as much as the  feed corn.

What I am planning, is a long pre-baiting campaign with boilies on my local big river in the interest of helping the area hold some bigger carp.  I'm going to go out every morning and bait one area with boilies and crumb then fish after several days or maybe a week.  I ordered a spomb I'm going to try with my surf rod, I'll report back how it goes.

[yonny]

6 hours ago, psychodiagnostik said:

What I am planning, is a long pre-baiting campaign with boilies on my local big river in the interest of helping the area hold some bigger carp.  I'm going to go out every morning and bait one area with boilies and crumb

Imo crumb will just wash away on the river buddy, I think you're better off sticking to whole boilies.

Edited October 10, 2019 by yonny
typo

[psychodiagnostik]

As soon as I got my spomb I starting baiting several pounds of Mainline Grange boilies I rolled myself each morning, plus boiled  feed corn each morning.  Today I fished the first time after a couple of days baiting.  I caught two small carp in four hours, one maybe three pounds on the same boilies I'm using to bait and other little one of about one pound on feed corn. 

These are the first carp I've caught at this spot after about three blanks, and these fish are typical for carp in this river system, carp are common but rarely do you hear of one over 10 lbs.  I'm hoping that I'll get some bigger ones to hold in the area with continued baiting.

[psychodiagnostik]

After baiting all week in the mornings before work, I headed back to the spot Saturday morning before daylight.  I only had time for another 4 hour session, but I caught six carp.  The catfish worried me until atter the sun was up so all my carp were caught in a relatively short period of time.  A snowman with Mainline New Grange and Mainline popup were the combo that worked, again with packbait method feeder.  Still no big carp, I'm thinking there may be some big ones but 7-8 lbs seem to be the common size for this water.  Indeed I caught my smallest ever, about 10 inches long.

Work and home remodeling has been busy for a while, as soon as I get time I'll start another cycle of making bait/baiting and fishing.   This session was definetely great as far as numbers of fish...  then again, we've had a major drought, and this session was following a few days of overdue rain that raised the river by a foot.  The water had been slow & dark, maybe the fresh current caused the fish to feed, or maybe a combo of that and dumping several pounds of bait per day for a week.

[NC Angler]

What lakes are you fishing in NC?

[psychodiagnostik]

On 10/08/2020 at 08:39, NC Angler said:

What lakes are you fishing in NC?

Hey sorry I just got around to checking this forum.  I'm fishing High Rock lake system mostly.  Sometimes in the lake at the boat ramps, but I prefer the smaller creeks that become wide and deep where they feed into the lake.  Abott's Creek mostly.