Would you dare use hookbaits THIS big?

Ever wondered just how big a hook bait would have to be in order for you to ONLY catch carp? Well, one man who’s actually researched it is Mark Bryant! When the time’s right, he uses hook baits and freebies of a size that most sane anglers wouldn’t dare use. Why? Because he doesn’t want to waste a single piece of carp food on so-called ‘nuisance’ species such as bream or tench.

He measured the mouths of these critters to work out the size of bait that he’d need to make sure that ONLY carp were able to dine at his expense. Here’s what he found. Tench could take baits up to around 24mm, but not much bigger, but bream (big ones… like double figures) were able to eat baits up to a whopping 30mm! Baits that we think are likely to only be eaten by carp, can in fact be hoovered up by bream!

To get round this, Mark started making bigger baits, and we mean HUUUGE! What he found was interesting. Because bream and tench couldn’t eat these gobstoppers, he didn’t need to introduce anywhere near as much bait to ensure that the carp got used to finding food on his spots. Bigger baits actually meant less expense!

On waters that have really big, ravenous bream stocks, Mark teams his huge freebies with bloomin’ massive hook baits too. Not content with making round ones that bream can push around, he made great big cylinders that would prove bloody tricky for even a carp to eject when they sucked them in. Think about it, when sucked in, end-on, one of these huge cylinders would be almost impossible to spit out, because they simply can’t turn back on themselves in the carp’s mouth.

Worried that your baits might be too big, even for Mr Carp? Take a look at Mark with his mug (which is similar in size to a big carp’s mouth). Even a twenty pounder would have a mouth capable of dealing with one of his cylinders! So, next time you’re wasting bait on bream, tench and birds, why not make some huge baits and make sure the carp get ‘em? Makes sense really!