Solitary or shoal fish?
Are large carp solitary or do they shoal up with other, smaller carp? And do you think they feed all over the lake or just in a couple of places? If so, have you any examples of this? Toby Warwick, via e-mail
Peter Kingsbury says: “This question has a multitude of answers. Firstly, large carp can be solitary and this will mean that generally they are harder to catch being that they feed on their own with no competition.
“Generally, when they do slip-up it’s in the same area of the lake each time, so if the fish that you are targeting on your lake is like this, you might need to set your stall out in this general area. This will come at a cost, as you might see fish elsewhere on the lake but you know you need to stay put to try and catch the elusive big one. In some cases large carp do shoal up with smaller fish and this can give you a greater chance of catching the bigger fish due to competitive feeding.
“I was after a famous fish called ‘Shoulders’ for a few years; on numerous occasions I’d find him on his own in the edge and once I had two critically-balanced tigers placed on a clear spot that he had been feeding on two feet from the bank. I threw in four tigers and a pinch of hemp and watched from up a tree as he visited the spot on his own five times. Every time he’d go down and feed slowly on the spot without any indication on my rod. It wasn’t until he was joined by two other carp that he got more aggressive and I had a screaming take which turned out to be a sought-after common of 33lb. Eventually I caught Shoulders from the centre of the lake fishing over lots of bait, but also in the 24hrs caught eight other fish including three other 40lb fish, indicating that he was happy to feed in a shoal.”