Catching Catfish and Carp by Leveraging Special Baits and Ground Bait Tactics

After a self-enforced period of around one and a half years of practically no fishing i.e. no hooking of carp at all many amazing realisations have come to me. I am back on the highly exciting verge of starting to fish again. One of my primary goals this year is to prove again just to what degree the correct design and application of bait for a variety of big fish and fishing situations can be, as an “equaliser” of results. (Against full-time and sponsored anglers and those with more time, bait, experience etc!) And also by this, I mean comparatively massive catches of big fish by an “ordinary angler” out of practice and with average skills, tackle and time.

But the leveraging of bait towards this purpose has to be part of a bigger plan. The fact is I’m out of practice so much; I’ve only carp fished twice in nearly 2 years! I still do not know what it will feel like to hook another fish much less see it on the mat. My thinking strategy, tactics, choice of waters, rigs baits and actual approach to fishing has got to be fresh extremely innovative attract all the “competitive edges” I can possibly achieve on my return to fishing. I will be returning to some very competitive fishing situations with very much sharper, honed skilled anglers and some very difficult angler-conditioned fish!

My real targets are those fish which are very rarely caught, if at all. Many of these fish have adapted to fishing threats by simply “switching-off” to anglers baits, attractors and ingredients and have turned to exclusively eating natural food items. Such fish get big of course just by eating these as the size of the legendary fish in Redmire before the time of heavy baiting schedules and its impact on growth and weight gains (and extreme global warming weather changes!)

It is my certain belief that if bait is presented in the correct format containing stimulators that fish essentially need and eat naturally in their environment, then they will always be catchable. Even if fish simply filter feed on daphnia and brose on algae for their needs, there must be ways to exploit this too… Time will tell regarding these challenges and my results!

Herein the UK we have just experienced a hard winter’s fishing especially for carp. The weather was not as mild as last winter of 2006 and 2007. Last winter produced fish from many waters tight through the winter which would usually have “shut-up shop” from around November to early April. I fished a whole winter a few years ago in order to get a “big picture” of fish catches and behaviours compared to presence of reduced angling activity and bait. Again it was a hard winters fishing as it was pretty cold. The lake froze over twice for long periods. March was high pressure weather systems and hard frosts all the way through.

These conditions made fishing very hard. That spring though, the fish were very easy to catch just about the third week of April through to early June. Catches at this time probably equally those for the rest of the year put together! It reminded me of one April when fishing Darenth big lake when over a period of about 4 weeks nearly all the big carp over 40 pounds were caught and the banks were thick with anglers and bivvies! Usually when such pressure hits fish after very little fishing activity, with all its leads flying everywhere, lines tight crossing every swim and a tonne of bait in the water every night; a fishery can often produce very few fish! But sometimes it is very significant in spring, that rising temperatures and fish metabolism and low fish energy reserves combine to create spectacular fishing often for a limited period in spring…

If you have been paying attention to your waters, you will very likely know exactly where most of the fish are situated now which is the fourth week of March as I write. If you have noticed which spots fish have been showing over or holding-up in like marginal snags etc, even though it’s very likely few fish have been landed yet, these spots are the places to start your spring assault. I’ve tried fishing various methods in spring and the application of bait can produce incredible results compared to the average angler who turns up with a bucket of pellets or hemp and a few kilograms of boilies with a popular flavor or flavors, on a weekend.

One particular year, I had great success fishing short sessions from early April through to early June. What I did first was “fish for liners.” This means that as fish pass through a swim, they brush the line which vibrates your bite alarm and indicates a fish in the swim. At this stage, while fishing, only tiny soluble polyvinyl alcohol “PVA” bags were used or single baits steeped in stimulators and enhancers. The primary aim at this stage was to identify the carp patrol routes in order to map them in order to more effectively intercept them in later sessions. If you can deliberately intercept fish as they start or end their natural feeding patterns and movements, you can really do well.

I located 2 spots in particular which to were obvious targets to focus regular bait on; each were not fished by the average angler because there was no obvious reason for them to fish there! (I.e. No island, no snags, no weed etc) But what there were hidden factors which made all the difference to results:

1. Lack of fishing pressure, no angler’s lines, baits or leads landing there etc
2. These selected had rarely produced fish within the past 5 years and were “un-favoured swims
3. Within just 10 metres were signs of fish feeding activity indicated by a significant “moon crater’ effect where loads of spots in the silt had been gradually scoured out by feeding fish over the autumn and winter and spring
4. It would be easy to bait up without anyone observing
5. It would be easy to cast to and then to put back-leads on the lines in order not only to pin line down but to change the line angles so if anglers noticed I had a take, they would think the actual fishing spots were elsewhere in more conventional spots!
6. I could fish these swims from the opposite line angles that most average would use for these spots, which to pressured carp can make all the difference in how they feed or if they will at all there with lines in the swim!

You can probably tell from this description that this was a competitive busy big carp water which was a day-ticket “commercial water.” On such waters the ticket cost add up and another is to make every minute count in fish caught per pound spent! (This is one very significant reason to make sure you do not fish conventionally as on many waters such as this, you will not necessarily get the kind of catches that are truly possible!

So I decided upon 2 swims and spots in them to fish which I could fish from the same area but at completely different line angles. (It always pays to have options!) I fished 2 or 3 short evening sessions with single baits over the first 3 weeks of April with no success, but then no-one else had any fish either. (I had yet to refine the winter and spring art of pulling fish down from the top layers by leveraging special ground baits and additive effects etc.) Having introduced about 2 kilograms of baits, (plus some highly soluble dough mixture baits) each session, into my chosen spots without success, it really seemed as if either the fish not feeding on the bait or other fish were eating it. It was also possible the fish just were not feeding on the bottom in these spots yet.

This particular fishery was around 20 feet deep in places and after a cold frosty March it takes time to heat up. (Night temperatures of at least 7 degrees to 10 degrees Celsius make all the difference. In the UK this often means a Southerly or South-Westerly weather system needs to warm the water up and also turn over the water layers to mix them effectively. The problem with such weather is that anglers can absolutely pack waters in spring, also being aware of these conditions too!

After many years working outside as a horticulturalist and when I was fishing so much, I got to know temperatures and “feel” them, including pressure changes and even sense or “smell” favourable weather when carp are going to feed. It’s real; this kind of thing also occurs when a blind or deaf person develops highly refined other senses to compensate for the loss of another.)

After fishing and baiting these un-popular spots each within 8 feet of the margins but in totally opposite sides of a swim I sensed the temperatures had risen just a fraction more over the last 3 nights. Added to 4 very sunny days things looked very promising indeed. (I do get excited at this period when the water temperatures are climbing back towards the ambient air temperatures with all those beneficial effects by raising carp metabolism!) I returned back at the lake at 11 pm luckily it was devoid of anglers, which underlined just how productive this day-ticket lake was at the time, (it being about the third week in April too!)

The air was filled with a dense mist; showing just how warm the water had become compared to the current air temperature. Things indeed looked good! But everything had come down to faith in my “alternative” bait design and I still had no clue if big carp were actually eating my homemade baits as opposed to it being scoffed by greedy diving birds (even mallard ducks) and pesky crucian carp which can feed well in cold temperatures! Casting to spots in a swim in the dark in a dense mist is really about practice and as I’d been practicing fishing to these spots for 3 weeks, this was no problem.

It had been my practice to both bait up a broad area surrounding the spots and then in the last week to bait up on the concentrated spots only, hopefully having given the bigger carp a taste or smell at least of the new bait. After baiting up with a very broad scattering of bait around the spots along with a concentrated baiting I settled into my sleeping bag knowing I had done everything I could do in my experience to prepare for this situation.

At 12 o’clock midnight precisely, the middle rod signalled a run and after a surprisingly hard spirited fight considering the still cold water temperatures, my first fish over 30 pound for that year graced the waiting landing net. I returned it immediately and I was simply “over the moon” that my bait worked and had not just been feeding the birds for the previous 3 weeks! An additional bonus was that no-one knew about my spots as yet, nor about this fish. I was well aware it was the first “30″ captured that year from the water; and few came out there at any time!

The biggest most experienced fish in this lake had evolved some very nasty habits when hooked. They would first rush at you, or act like a small fish, giving in and coming in response to any pressure on the rod at all. (So you think the rod-tip rattling is from a small fish, and then he suddenly rushes towards you like an energetic “double!”) What he’s doing is twisting around in the water going up and down in the water layers and swimming upside-down and aiming to roll on the line and tear the hook out.

I saw fish do things like this at another Essex water called “Shotgate” and the biggest fish used to hit the surface sit there and roll on the line although I did catch him, the first time I hooked him I lost him due to this. The second time I hooked what I suspected to be this fish I played the fish with the rod tip help down in the water and he did not get a chance to roll my line at the surface this time! (He went 35 pounds and was the lake record at the time – but “sour grapes” in many carp syndicates require that some catches do not get mentioned!)

The fish in my spring water would swim right at you and the next thing you know, he’s hit the bottom and is searching for your other lines in order to get your lines tangled and use this point as a fulcrum to get off the hook! These fish are crafty buggers for sure and these are just tricks I’m aware of on just this one water!

I catapulted out about 30 more baits gradually over the spots and prepared again.

The next fish took a bait about 2 am. This came in rattling the rod tip and generally acting as if it was a “double” running around in tight circles. So I knew this fish was something special, but how special? It came straight in towards me and before I knew it, he was actually hitting the bank at my feet trying to drill into it! This was one clever fish. I heaved on the rod as hard as possible but this fish had weight and strength which surprised me. Added all this was the fact I was using new rods and could not gauge just how much pressure I was or was not putting on the fish. (In the mist I could not see the top half of the rod anyway!)

The result was that in swam outwards on the bottom straight across my 2 other lines which each had 4 “back-leads” on to pin them down just to avoid such a situation – but from the opposite angle! With a sudden gap in the mist I realised the fish was wallowing over the other lines and probably tangled-up and the blaring noise from my other bite alarms across such a silent lake was really distracting! I recognised the fish at once, having caught it twice previously at around 37 pounds. (It was the sixth biggest fish in the lake and was landed about rarely, usually only once a year.) With the fish so close-in on the water surface, I could see it looked really big. It was wide and deep and was a beautiful orange colouration, just then the fish rolled again, the hook “pinged-out” and the fish sank just inches from the end of my out-stretched landing net!

This fish was lost, but many other big fish were to follow over the next 2 and a half weeks while my spots remained undetected by other anglers. The result was more big carp and catfish over 30 pounds in that period, than the rest of the anglers achieved for the rest of the year. It shows what the right “alternative” bait design with accurate timing and preparation really can do and without any exaggeration! It can take far above “average effort” to achieve far above “average results” but I believe that leveraging bait is one of the greatest advantages an average angler like me has. It takes a little bait knowledge about basic principles about how baits homemade and commercial readymade baits really work. Then knowing how to adapt them to suit your fishing situation or to “cover” possible fish dietary requirements is so worthwhile, and literally anyone can achieve catches they otherwise would normally only dream of…

Spring is here; so why not crack some eggs and get rolling!