Do big beds of carp food work?
What's the most bait you've caught over and how long did you have to wait?
Question
Shaun Harrison asked: Out of all the waters I’ve fished, few have responded best to big beds. The Mangrove was a bit of an exception but even then I never went silly. When conditions were right, two gallon of dry hemp cooked and 5kg of boilie would catch me fish the first night turning up and casting around 10pm. What’s the most bait you’ve caught over and how long did you have to wait?
f I’m using a lot of bait then it generally means I’m fishing a quiet water, and I’m likely to have already put it in two or three days before starting to fish. Being honest, I’m struggling to think of occasions where I’ve put out several kilos of bait and then started fishing over it straight away. Maybe I’ve cost myself in that sense, who knows, it’s just not the way I normally fish. Obviously it stands to reason that if there’s say several thousand food items out there then it’s going to be a while before I get a take, and so rather than sitting through that time, I like to leave it be and return just as I think the swim’s prime for action. Sometimes they’ve eaten it all the first night I was away, in which case it’s odds on that I’m going to get action even if I don’t turn up for another 24hrs, and other times there’s still lots of bait left out there, evident by the lack of action and the amount of diving birds.
Obviously a lot of this depends on the type of water. On the River Thames for instance, I remember one year where myself and my friend Dave would put in around fifteen kilos of boilies and nuts, and then we’d head back 24hrs later and get action within minutes of casting out. When you get a bite straightaway after pouring in fifteen kilos only the day before, then you know it’s likely to be the first of a few bites.
Like I say, a lot of it is dependEnt on the venue and the stock, but even when there’s a big head of carp and I’ve got three or four days ahead of me, I’ve always been shy of putting out too much simply because I want action right away, not in a couple of days time.
