Close quarter carp fishing

There is very little to rival the excitement of watching a large carp approach your hookbait in inches of water. In a day and age where advanced distance casting rods and reels are all the rage, you’d easily be led to believe that all the carp are somewhere out on the horizon - yet this couldn’t be further from the truth!

One of my favourite styles of fishing nowadays is to take full of advantage of the lightly fished marginal areas. Even if in some cases, there is barely enough water to fully cover some of the fish I’m targeting!

One of the things that can take some getting your head round is just how close you can fish to the bank. Big carp will only too happily venture into extremely shallow water when the water temps rise, even if this means that their backs will be well and truly out of the water. In these situations it is of course paramount that you pay extreme caution when approaching the water’s edge, as the even the slightest heavy footstep could quite easily send the carp bow waving back into the lake.

Not all marginal spots will be visited and it can take a bit of working out which areas will be productive and which ones won’t. Generally the gravel pits I fish are gin clear and have shallow progressive margins, which makes them ideal when looking for areas to place a hookbait.

Invaluable equipment for my style of fishing includes a good pair of either thigh or chest waders, plus a set of good quality polarized glasses. Armed with these tools I can easily wade around and find some likely spots that have seen carp feeding over them.

Many margins will be extremely rich with natural food due to the shallower water and extensive weed growth that they produce. The fish know this only too well and make the most of this available food source whilst it’s there.

Setting-up well back from the waters edge and being quiet and stealthy is of paramount importance

Choosing your spots

When I’m deciding on a spot, I like to do my homework prior to my actual fishing session. Areas where weed has been completely cleared and gravel has been exposed are obvious places where the fish have visited, although sometimes this can mean that the fish have already been in and harvested the spot.

Generally though, I’ve found that areas in amongst weedbeds, whether they’re silty or not, are great areas to place a hookbait in the margins – I suppose it’s effectively a table for the fish to eat from.

When walking around a lake looking for areas to target, if I am lucky enough to find fish tails up in the margins I will jot down exactly where I have seen them feeding and make a note to return when the conditions are the same.

One thing to remember is that more often than not these areas will be exceptionally good daytime spots, but come nightfall when the water cools, the fish will move out into the deeper, warmer parts of the lake. One bonus this brings is that it gives you plenty of time to get your traps set in the margins before the fish arrive back in the swim some time the following day.
If I’m struggling to find any signs of fish feeding around the lake, I quite simply look for the spots that appear to have been fed on and then prime them with a few of my favourite margin baits of all time – tiger nuts! I never go too heavy to start with, but I will make sure that I return and check to see if they have been eaten the next day.

One thing to bear in mind is that water birds can often get through a bit of bait – especially in the margins! So, if these are a problem it can be well worthwhile baiting under the cover of darkness when they are not active and watching your every move.

Some spots can also be out of sight. Take for instance over hanging bushes, these can often cover blatant feeding spots that would surely be missed if you didn’t gently pull them back when out with the waders. With this in mind, it pays to really dissect the water in front of you and really look hard for an area that may present you with a good chance of a bite.

Some excellent feeding spots can often be hidden from view

Bait tactics

As previously mentioned, my number one bait without a doubt is tiger nuts. These are just the ticket for this style of fishing and the carp just can’t get enough of them. Their size and texture mimics the ‘crunch’ that a water snail would give the carp perfectly. So in actual fact, even though the taste will be different, there is a certain element of trying to ‘match the hatch’.

The only other bait I will sometimes add when baiting up, is a little hempseed. This fantastic seed bait compliments the tigers perfectly and adds a little extra attraction giving the fish a little bit extra to home in on.

So, in an ideal world you’ll be placing your hookbait during a period when the fish are not resident in the margins, but unfortunately this isn’t always the case and sometimes the fish could be all over the spot when you arrive. This can be very frustrating, as you know if you had a bait placed at that moment a bite would surely be forthcoming, however casting one into the feeding fish will undoubtedly spook them.

This is when you need to make a decision – do you sit it out and wait for the fish to move out? Or do you try and get a bait lowered in as quietly as possible? This situation has caused me dilemmas on a number of occasions, but one trick I have found to work very well is to simply flick the odd freebie tiger nut discreetly as possible in amongst the fish.

The effect this has is usually a lot less drastic than a lead falling through the water and will more often than not simply push the fish out into the lake just long enough for you to position your rig.

A small handful of mini tigers may be all the bait you need

Line lay and end tackle

Line lay is something that I am very conscious about when fishing in these crystal clear margins and where possible I will make sure that I have prepared an area to lay my line prior to the fishing.

When the depth of water I’m fishing in can sometimes be less than two-foot, you really need to make sure that everything is pinned to the bottom as much as you can. My rod is fished well back with the mainline set very slack so that it doesn’t give the fish anything to be concerned about.

I like to introduce a few free offerings once my hookbait has been placed and will scatter a small handful of tigers around the area to give the fish something to home in on. If the fishing is slow, I will quite happily introduce a little hemp as well, but I will only do this if the fish do not appear to be dropping on the bait. Although this is obviously where fishing in shallower water comes in handy, as the fish do not really have to drop before the bait is in their vicinity.

Rig-wise, this is something that I have come to use over a period of time. I spent a lot of time on the notoriously difficult Frimley Pit 4, and during my time there, this was the rig that really did the damage for me.

During a season I managed no less than forty carp, which at the time was a far greater yield than many others on the same lake. Not only this, but my tactics also tripped up a previously unknown common weighing in at a massive 46lb 2oz!

Now I’m sure a lot of you can imagine how big this fish would have been, so you may be amazed to hear that the bite actually came in less than two foot of water! If I had been watching there would have been no way I’d have not seen the fish approach!

So over the years I have developed this rig that I’ve found perfect for my marginal approach. Short, sharp and effective that I’ll fish in conjunction with a light lead, set on a lead clip, so I can discreetly swing my hookbait into position with minimal disturbance, providing the ideal presentation for my ‘balanced’ mini tiger nut hookbait.

I’ve been using this rig on a large, relatively untapped southern stillwater where bites aren’t overly easy to come by. Luckily, on the day of this feature the carping gods were smiling down on me as I received a run just before the cameraman turned up, with this resulting in a stunning mirror carp of 27lb 8oz.

This immensely coloured creature had never to our knowledge visited the bank before and it couldn’t have picked a better time to slip-up to one of my marginal tiger nut traps!

The stunning 27lb result of my ‘Close Quarter’ tactics!