THE MIKE WILLMOTT BAIT ADVICE COLUMN

COMMERCIAL HOLIDAY VENUE BAITING
Q: I’m heading to France this summer to fish a well-known commercial holiday complex that is extremely pressured, so the carp have seen everything. Because of this, should I change from my usual baiting approach—a spod mix (boilies, crumb, hemp, corn)—with two or three rods fished tight over it to something different, just so my approach differs from the ‘norm’? Should I fish over a big spread of boilies or just a solid bag, for example? It’s worth noting that bait boats are allowed on the complex. Steve, via Instagram

A: Having fished at home and abroad for more years than I care to remember, I have no doubt whatsoever that bait application and different strategies play a major role in determining success. I would also say that this becomes even more important on pressured venues, such as the commercial holiday complex you mention.

The key is trying to be different to the norm, which means doing a little homework in advance if possible, particularly in relation to what the majority of anglers are doing. For example, it’s quite common for anglers to fish over beds of bait on such venues, but the carp can become very wise to that after a while. Of course you will need to take so many other factors into consideration. For example, low-pressure conditions are more conducive to feeding than high-pressure, particularly in France, so try to bring that into the equation as well.

I can remember a classic encounter some years ago on a busy commercial French venue. I knew boats were allowed and anglers were using large beds of bait, simply because it was easy to do so. However, for the amount of bait being used, the weekly catch results weren’t particularly impressive, which in turn gave me the impression that the fish had got wise to this stereotyped approach. I’ve seen it before, and they tend to get more confident when much of the bait is gone because they have learnt that large areas of bait can spell danger.

I was travelling over with my son, Lee, and suggested to him that we should spend the first few hours just looking around and trying to find out where the fish were showing following the previous week’s assault. Location is key on such waters. After a few hours, we saw quite a few shows in one particular area, so decided to set up there. Our two other friends set up on the other side of the lake and proceeded to put out markers with boats and fish over large beds of bait.

Lee and I decided on the opposite approach. Despite having a mountain of bait with us, we decided to just fish singles, which takes some doing when you have all the equipment and bait at close hand! However, my mantra has always been that you can always add more, but you can’t take it out. Besides, I wanted to avoid all the disturbances from boats, markers, heavy baiting, etc., that they were subjected to on a regular basis every week.

The lake was quite weedy, so we would cast to areas we saw showing fish and feel the lead down through the water for that satisfying ‘donk’ to know that the baited rig was presented on clean spots and not caught up in the weed.

I remember that I hadn’t even got my second rod in position before my first one was away, which resulted in a lovely 42lb mirror! Then, within 30 minutes, Lee was calling me and had two bites in quick succession, resulting in a 37 and a 41. Later that evening, I caught a massively long mirror of 45lb, and this is how it continued. We really did hit it off, and the method worked a treat. Three days later, our friends on the far side were still sitting being their motionless rods over big beds of bait.

Yes, location was obviously a key aspect of our success, but I was convinced our tactics played a major role. The fish just weren’t used to that approach and were quite confident feeding on singles because they deemed them ‘safe’. After all, most of the time, baited areas spelt danger, but as the bait disappeared, their confidence increased, and I doubt they had ever been subjected to the single bait approach before.

To be fair, the disturbance of catching quite a few carp over the first 48 hours did push them away, and that’s always going to happen. But after that point, we started to introduce bait and caught a few more, but nothing like that initial hit where we just caught them off guard by employing tactics that they just hadn’t been subjected to in the past. This further emphasises my point about trying to adopt a different method to what are used on these heavily-fished commercial venues.