Bait - Pop ups

[dizidave]

Im still pretty new to the carp fishing that i seem to be doing alot of recently (mainly because the venues that our club goes to are carp lakes) but im finding it very inteersting and fun.

 

My question is about bait presentation. Whats the real diffference with a pop up bait?

 

Does it get more bites or does it just depend?

 

I have noticed that frozen sweetcorn floats!

[Hereford_angler]

Popping a bait off the bottom makes it stand out from the freebies. The carp will not have to stick its nose in the silt and the bait will be seen from further away. 8 out of 10 trips a pop up bait will work better.

[dizidave]

ok then that said.....what do i need to do?

 

which is the easiest and best way to pop up a bait...

 

the baits i will be using will be corn, meat and paste.

 

thanks for the info

[Gaffer]

Hi all, I think H.A. has hit on something there, something that I've only recently come to realise.

I've watched carp waft particles up off the lakebed as they've fed, never actually touching the lakebed.

 

 

The carp don't always hoover particles up off the lakebed like we think they do.

 

Pop-ups are then at the perfect height, which is the same height as the particles that have been wafted up off the lakebed.

 

You can just picture the pop-up being wafted about by the vortices(sp?) caused by the Carp.

 

This theory is proven by the use of the unflavoured pop-up (foam) sweetcorn, which I used at night with real sweetcorn as free offerings. The Carp couldn't see the popped-up corn, nor could it taste it, but it sure as hell managed to swallow it!

 

IMO pop-ups have a better hooking potential as well.

 

Thanks to Enterprise Tackle they now do pop-up Sweetcorn, Tiger's, Trout Pellets, etc.

 

Just hair-rig the pop-up sweetcorn on a braid hooklink (Snake-bite or the like would be better) and place a shot (heavy enough to sink the pop-up) at the desired distance from the hook.

 

For paste you just hair-rig a cork-ball and mould the paste around it.

 

Standard bottom baits (boilies) can also be popped-up, shown here in this Carp Clinic question/answer.

[Bream Boy]

Good drawing and good point, unfortunatly I know nothing about carp fishing, or as nugg say's I'M NOT A CARP FISHERMAN MORE OF A CRAP FISHERMAN.

[DMCA]

As above...I'm not a carp fisherman (or at least not much of one) but I seem vaguely to remember that one of the reasons (maybe the main one) for pop-ups when they started being used was that they could be balanced by means of using just the right amount of weight to sink them very very slowly.

Then, when the carp came along taking baits it would naturally give each one a certain amount of suck - enough to lift it off the bottom adn into its mouth. When it sucked like this at a balanced pop up the bait, neutrally buoyant or thereabouts, would whizz up into the back of its mouth, both ensuring the hook was well inside the mouth and presumably spooking the carp and casuing it to run (both leading to the better hooking rate)

This is all more or less what Gaffer said, just with the addtion of the bait being 'balanced'. Have I got this right or am I talking arse again? Do people still use balanced pop-ups or are they just for some specialised situaions?

[Gaffer]

DMCA:

As above...I'm not a carp fisherman (or at least not much of one) but I seem vaguely to remember that one of the reasons (maybe the main one) for pop-ups when they started being used was that they could be balanced by means of using just the right amount of weight to sink them very very slowly.

Then, when the carp came along taking baits it would naturally give each one a certain amount of suck - enough to lift it off the bottom adn into its mouth. When it sucked like this at a balanced pop up the bait, neutrally buoyant or thereabouts, would whizz up into the back of its mouth, both ensuring the hook was well inside the mouth and presumably spooking the carp and casuing it to run (both leading to the better hooking rate)

This is all more or less what Gaffer said, just with the addtion of the bait being 'balanced'. Have I got this right or am I talking arse again? Do people still use balanced pop-ups or are they just for some specialised situaions?

Spot on DMCA!

 

I love using pop-ups and use them most of the time, even on a clean lakebed, especially over a bed of particles.

 

I once went to a Terry Hearn slide show at Billing Aquadrome (it was brilliant by the way!) and during that slide show he said that he prefered not to use pop-ups over particles and his catch rate seemed confirm this, to which at the time I totally agreed.

His thoughts were that once carp get their heads down on freebies and particles they miss the pop-up hookbait, which is at their eye-level. This could still be true, or he may have changed his views since, I dunno, but as I've said, I've changed my mind. I think that pop-ups perform well over particles and on a clean lakebed because of the way in which I've seen Carp feed.

 

I've also caught lots of bream on non-flavoured, popped-up, Sweetcorn at night. This suprised me as I always thought bream were browsers on the lakebed.

 

Other pop-up uses are as single (glugged) hookbaits in the winter, a pop-up with a PVA bag or a pop-up on light or heavy weed with or without a PVA bag.

 

[ 06. August 2002, 07:55 PM: Message edited by: Gaffer ]

[Ray Larkin]

Good drawing Gaffer :cool:

[Mally]

What youve said DMCA is the exact reason len arbery gives for using pop ups in his brilliant book, in persuit of big tench! They are lighter so when the fish sucks and blows the bait to test it the bait actually ends up in the back of the fishes mouth!

[Hereford_angler]

I notice nearly all pike anglers like to pop up their mackrel tail or other bait with foam or corck balls. I understand this is just so it can be seen better. Or is there more reason for getting it off the bottom? Pike anglers, can you shed some light on this?

 

P.S. Another nice diagram there Gaffer