Carp don\u2019t do much for me. Apart from annoy me. They are fat, stupid, overrated fish, who populate too many of our country\u2019s lakes. They spend most of their lives sucking great gobfuls of mud from the bed of ponds, causing clouds of fine silt to colour the water. Which usually kills off any other decent resident fish, apart from their grubby mud-sucking relatives.<\/p>\n
Classy fish like trout or roach or perch, don\u2019t like to live alongside carp, because carp\u2019s mucky table manners put them off their food. Fish like trout and perch rely extensively on their eyesight to find food. So they dine best when the water is clear. Thick, soupy, opaque water is hard to see through, so they go hungry. Trout and roach, also have finely-tuned breathing apparatus, that requires a good flow of clean water through their gills. All the mud that carp stir up, clogs the more sophisticated fish\u2019s gills, especially in hot weather when oxygen is in short supply. This can all too often make them turn belly up and croak.<\/p>\n
Yet, it\u2019s this time of year when the sun is hot, that my frosty heart warms slightly to the species of carp. Carp are keen sun worshippers. And, given the opportunity of a hefty dose of UV rays, a carp likes nothing better than to wriggle out of his trunks and climb on top of the pond for a sunbathe. Apart from just loving to soak up warm rays, the hot weather turns them from mud-suckers into surface-slurpers.
\nOne of the only truly great things about carp, is that in summer they start to feed from the water\u2019s surface. And, true to their pig-belly, trough-snuffling form, they\u2019ll happily try and eat anything they think they can fit down their pudding shute.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen carp slurp down everything from lumps of polystyrene to twigs, weed, leaves and even dog-ends. It\u2019s at this time of year\u00a0 you\u2019re most likely to catch a carp off the surface, which is, in my humble and hugely-prejudiced point of view, the only really good way to catch them.<\/p>\n
To hook a carp off the surface, the three best baits to use are bread, dog biscuits or a large bushy fly pattern. Carp are crazy for bread, especially if they live somewhere like a park or an estate lake where people daily feed ducks and swans. In these places, bread\u2019s become a normal food source for them. But even if they haven\u2019t seen bread before, it doesn\u2019t take long for the surface cruising fish to decide to wrap their laughing gear around a stamp sized chunk. And once they\u2019ve got a taste for it, there\u2019s no stopping them. Carp have absolutely no regard for fibre or calorie-counting. They like their bread white and gloopy. Although they\u2019re also partial to a bit of crust too. But wholemeal or good brown bread is totally wasted on white trash carp. Give them gummy old Mother\u2019s Pride and they\u2019ll love you for it.<\/p>\n
To catch a carp on bread, first loose feed a few chunks around the cruising fish, while you slip the point of a strong size four or six carp hook through a lump of crust. Try and hide as much of the hook bend and shank as you can. Use a minimum of eight pound line all the way to the hook. Then, flick your hook loaded hunk out to sit near the free floaters.<\/p>\n
If the carp are cruising too far out to be able to just free-line the bread, then you can put a controller float, or even an old pike bung three feet up the line, to give it some casting weight. But don\u2019t be tempted to put any lead shot on the line or it\u2019ll just make the hook bait sink.<\/p>\n
The Pedigree Chum style of fat pellet shaped dog food, has become a huge favourite with carp anglers. It floats for Europe. And, small handfuls can be easily and accurately catapulted some distance. Carp soon switch on to dog biscuits even if they\u2019ve never heard of them before.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019ve got some fish surface-feeding on your loose-fed freebies, then you\u2019ve got to get a biscuit onto your hook, which can be quite a challenge. You can use a small drill bit to drill a hole across one corner and slip the hook point through the hole. This works well, but it\u2019s frustrating because you\u2019ll soon find they frequently crumble and break. A good trick to try, is to soak a couple of handfuls of biscuit with a few tablespoons of hot water. Leave them in the sealed bag for an hour, and they\u2019ll take up enough moisture to allow a hook to be stabbed through and stay put. This\u2019ll cast and lie in the surface happily for several chucks. And when this biscuit does eventually start to sink, simply swap it for another from the plastic bag.<\/p>\n
When your loose feed is holding a few fish and making them slurp off the surface, then it\u2019s worth trying a big fluffy fly too. A floater pattern. Something large and noticeable, like a Royal Wulff. Carp aren\u2019t fussy. They\u2019re naturally inquisitive and gutsy. So they\u2019ll suck down most things that look like they might contain nourishment.<\/p>\n
Carp are hogs. And generally, I do hate them. But, when you see a huge one cruising straight towards your well-presented floating bait, it\u2019s amazing what a buzz of anticipation suddenly starts fizzing through your veins.<\/p>\n
Fishing is always most exciting when it\u2019s visual. When you can see a fish and see your bait, and then see the two coming closer and closer together, the fact that it\u2019s a stupid fat, scum-sucker suddenly doesn\u2019t seem to matter at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carp don\u2019t do much for me. Apart from annoy me. They are fat, stupid, overrated fish, who populate too many of our country\u2019s lakes. They spend most of their lives sucking great gobfuls of mud from the bed of ponds, causing clouds of fine silt to colour the water. Which usually kills off any other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-1628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-fishing","tag-nick-fisher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}