Adam Reed's spring tips

As we know, spring is often seen as the ultimate time to be on the bank when fishing for carp. The fish are coming out of their winter slumber and making the most of the beautiful spring sunshine and becoming more and more active by the day. With that, the carp’s metabolism is obviously rocketing and that means their appetite goes into overdrive and bait becomes a weapon that can give you amazing results.

Over the years I’ve had some incredible results in the spring with multiple fish hits and bait has always been the key. Unlike the winter, when small food parcels or single hookbaits are catching you roaming single fish or inquisitive carp, the spring certainly brings that pack mentality and lots of hungry mouths. 

With that in mind, I like lots of small food particles to keep large amounts of carp in your swim and maximise your results. 

I’ve found using a mix with large amounts of small food particles will keep the carp coming back as they never completely clear you out. Just using boilie can often get you a couple of bites and then the fish are gone as they’ve cleared you out and simply move on, unless you keep baiting up which can obviously risk spooking the carp. My mix of choice has been the same for the last three or four years and consists of the following:

2kgs of Cell in 10mm
1kg of 15mm Cell chops
2kgs of Active-8 Pellet
1kg of Cell Groundbait or crushed Cell boilies
A good helping of Cell Smart Liquid

Depending on the stock and situation, I will often start with the above all mixed up in a 17ltr bucket and if I’m fishing three rods on a spot that will all go in. That may seem a lot to some people but believe you me, when that’s all mixed and in the zone, it takes no time for three or four carp to work through. Coming back to the small food particles, that’s key to keeping the carp both grazing on your spot and keep coming back sieving through the silt and gravel for all that goodness.