amout of bait

[in-line]

hi all

just wanted to ask a quick question about how much bait you would put in a average 24hour session.

ive seen people putting in mountains of the stuff but often they wont catch much more than me, and i only use small pva bags each time i recast a rod.

i know that the larger quantities of bait will attract more fish and hold them in the area but surely they wont compete in the same way and also there is a smaller chance of the fish picking up your bait in amongst the large number of other freebies?

 

cheers

in-line

[Oldfellah]

It really all depends on time of year, water temperature, size of water and how pressured the fishing is. On my lake I usually recommend a big bed of pellet and cooked maize (10 kilo) fishing one rod hard on the bait, one on the edge and the third rod as a roamer with just a pva bag or stringer. If the fish get their heads down then regular baiting with mainly pellet will keep them in the area if they are feeding but will not create a problem if they are being fickle. Always remember that pellet will break down in a short while so if the fish are not on the feed you will just be left with a food signal from the dissolved pellet rather than a pile of uneaten bait. We had an angler last week who in not ideal conditions had 82 carp (lake record capture) but used 75kilo of pellet and 50 kilo of maize along with 15 kilo of boilies. Another time he would have caught far better using a fraction of the bait used but when the carp are on the munch heavy feeding will keep them in the area.

[in-line]

hi

thanks for your reply oldfellah

im off for the day tomorrow and ive decided to test two methods.

one with fake corn and a small bag of dusted corn and a full on carpet of bait with a trimmed bolie over the top.

just hope the weather takes pity on me and i get a sign of a fish this time

 

cheers again

in-line

[Dick Dastardly]

I dont reckon its as simple as that! I would say that like baiting up for any species you need to know/estimate how many fish are likely to be actually feeding in your swim.Also remember that all species will have to be allowed for and not just your chosen target.

 

I have always based my aproach using the matchmans style of feeding "on demand" as well.By this I mean putting in more feed as and when I think its been mopped up and trying to keep a competitive situation rather than create an "easy gorging" situation.This isnt easy but I try to judge this by the amount of fish activity in my swim be it observed or by captures.

 

If you are in doubt then once again the matchmans aproach of "little and often" can be a safe bet.

 

IMHO over feeding is far more often achieved than not feeding enough.Can always put more in but you cant take it out!

[RobStubbs]

IMHO over feeding is far more often achieved than not feeding enough.Can always put more in but you cant take it out!

 

Totally agree with Budgie above. I bait slowly, enough for a just a fish or two and top up as the situation dictates. Some people do do very well fishing over very big beds of bait, but I personally seem to do better keeping it slower.

 

Rob.

[BigFishNut]

I tend to take 4 things in to account when I start on any water, 1: how big is the water. 2: how many carp/bream/tench are stocked in the water. 3: how much angling presser is on the water. 4: what time of year it is.

 

EG no1: Lets say your fishing a 3 acre lake with a stocking of 200 carp, the same of tench and the same of bream and its summer time and threes not been many people fishing the past week or so then I would be more than happy to start off by putting in about a kilo of large baits over each rod, say sweat corn, boiles, pellets ect because threes a good chance that its not only the carp that will be feeding over your baited spot, therefore you have to feed the bream and tench aswell as the carp.

 

EG no2: Lets say your fishing a 7 acre lake with only 50 carp, very little bream and tench in it then I would go more along the lines of only 20 or 30 free offerings round each rod and a small amount of small food items such as hemp, mini pellets, sweat corn because your not trying to feed all the tench and bream aswell so I would want a grater chance of a carp picking up my bait if one moved on to my small baited spot to feed.

 

EG no3: Lets say your fishing a 5 acre pit with only 20 carp in it but lots of tench and bream, I would be more than happy to start off by feeding lots of small food items such as hemp, pellets, sweat corn, ground bait and lots of chopped boiles lets say about 5kg in total and about 1kg of hole boiles because I would want the bream and tench to move in over my baited spot in the hope that the carp would come in and join the feast.

 

This dose not always work but it’s the way I look at things, tweak this to suet the water your fishing and I don’t think your go fare wrong, just remember the three no1 rules to carp fishing LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION, because there’s no point in fishing where the fish ain’t.

 

Hope this made sense as I'm not the best one for explaining things in text, my brain says one thing and my fingers type something else, that and the faceted I'm big time dyslexic and end up using other words to explain things because I cant spell the one I want makes what I type hard reading at time's hence why I'm a fisherman and not an author

 

 

Tight Lines

Gav

[in-line]

thanks bigfishnut

and dont worry it makes perfect sense

fished darenth terrapin lake today, couple of fish came out(not to me)

i put a about 1/2 a kg of bolies under a near tree and saw fish jumping there all day but still nothing!

the other place was about 25-30 yards out where it leveled of from about 4 1/2 to 6 ft of water put out about 10 spodfulls and fished a rod tight to the far bank but once again nothing.

 

talked to the boys who had the fish and yes they had them out on pineapple bolies, what a surprise( dont worry you'll only understand if you have read my other post on darenth)

 

o'well atleast i saw signs of fish this time

 

cheers

in-line

[RobStubbs]

One thing I will add is that I bait the margins differently than deeper water. My feeling is that in the margins you're fishing for a single fish and not pulling in lots - because of the inevitable bankside disturbance. In those situations I fish a handful of boilies, most of which are broken into halves and quarters and fish over another couple of handfuls of particle or pellet. Depending on what I can see I may well introduce some more crumbled boilies or particles during the session, if I can see some of the bait has gone. As above the key is location and then subsequent observation.

 

Rob.

[Oldfellah]

A lot of good and interesting advice given but one point often overlooked is how water temperature effects the feeding process of the carp. It is common practise when we are feeding our lakes that water temperature really dictates how much pellet we put in at any given time. Below 15c the carp become far less active and consequently require less food for energy whereas at the other end of things when we have water temperature in the mid 20's the carp are likely to be feeding hard throughout the day/night so food is in great demand. When I am fishing the water temperature is often my first check before I decide how much/type of bait to use. A further point is that in cold water conditions the nutritional requirements of carp differs from those in warm water with a much higher carbohydrate requirement and far less protein than in warm water. The good quality fishmeal boilie that scores well in the summer may not be the best choice for winter fishing. It was noticeable at our fishery that in the past couple of weeks, as water temperature has been dropping, the good old shelf life pineapple pop up has outscored the usual hnv boilies that do the business in the summer.

[BigFishNut]

A lot of good and interesting advice given but one point often overlooked is how water temperature effects the feeding process of the carp.

 

Oldfellah made a very good point there , i did mean to add that point about water temperature but as you can see by my post i started to but forgot to add that bit , you have made a very good point but one thing i would like to add is, if the water temperature is low but the lake is busy then its good odds that the carp in the water will get spooked from swim to swim so there fore they move about more and need to eat more to replace the energy they have used to move to other parts of the lake so take that in to account, but is the water you’re fishing is not to busy then Oldfellah is spot on and I would avoid putting in baits that contain high oil content because they leek off a lot slower in the low water temperature.

 

Nice one Oldfellah

 

Oh well its that time of week again so I better stop reading all the posts and get my kit in the car, I just been invited to silverlands lake in Wiltshire for a 5 day trip to see if we can suss out what's going on there, I have not fished there for the past 6 months so it should be good to see if we can brake the 4 months blank they are all on.

 

So with crossed fingers I head for the door, tight lines all have a good one

 

Gav