How to catch carp on a natural rich water?

[Santiago]

I once saw a TV programme with Chris Yates in (cannot remember which one) and he was trying to catch carp. During the daytime he baited up select margin areas with the odd handfull of corn and then had a brew and a nap until dark, and then fished with corn on the hook. Needless to say, he caught quite a few that night! I think he soaked the hook bait corn in beer for a few days prior to fishing! Anyways, corn always worked for me on lakes that contained few carp. Alternatively, luncheon meat worked, as did the old penny sized pieces of sliced bread pinched onto the hooks shank, all under a night float in the margins.

I'm not too sure it really matters on bait, I think targetting the magins at night would be key to success! Spend a few nights fish spotting before you plan your approach!

[Wallys-Cast]

Some sound advise from others here Paul so plenty to try, if it was me I would try a large piece of crust freelined in the margin near a reed bed, bush or overhanging tree, start fishing for them about half an hour before dark and don't give them too many freebies.
I fish a very similar water and just lately this is the only time of day they will feed. They feed for about an hour until really dark then they vanish again. I think its because the line is almost invisible due to lack of light on the surface of the water.
Other anglers have caught them through the night further out in the lake using ledgered baits.
Good luck with whatever you try.
Wal.

[MadScientist]

Hi Guys

Thanks chaps this is great..lots of ideas to mull over. Unfortunately i live some way from the water so a feeding campaign is out at the moment.

[Northern Eel]

I have a lake near my house very similar to this, for many years there was a local myth that it contained no fish at all due to pollution, this went on for years, most people thought nothing of it & fished other waters, ignoring this lake completely.
What they didnt realise was that someone (I have an idea who it was) had put carp in the water & now 20 years later there are around 30 good sized carp in the water (about 2-3 acres) I know because I watched them spawning 2 years ago
The water is very shallow & fairly clear & has a lot of silt around the edges, there are only 2 places that are fishable.
Supposedly this lake has no fishing, but there are no signs, only no shooting or boating signs, so it does get fished, but not a great deal, most people turn up & then quickly give up.
Along the main bank, is where people come to feed the ducks so its always being visited by noisy kids & dogs etc.
To get to 20lb + these fish must have been eating natural foods for years.
What I have found is & this might help you, is that the carp tend to congregate right at the back of the lake, where there is no access because its marshy (the quietest part of the lake) Ive watched them from a tree (they refuse to take bait here), when they do feed it seems to be mostly at night when all is quiet or very early morning. (ive never heard or seen of a carp being taken between 9am & 11pm)
I have caught the same fish here twice, using exactly the same bait, in the same place at the same time (2am) exactly 1 week apart. which just proves that they are creatures of habit.
The strange thing is, as with your water, you would assume that these fish would be mainly interested in natural foods or baits, but in fact for some reason its the opposite, if you use maggot or corn, you catch tench & tench only.
Ive never caught here on naturals, on this lake for some reason they like, popped up baits? maybe its because of the silt they can see them better but the brightest popped up boilie seems to be favourite.
I even saw a 24lb carp taken on a pop up at 8am in about 18 inches of water (its tail was actually out of the water as it took the bait)

I suppose like any water you need to find out what the fish are upto & learn their habits,

as the saying goes "you only get back what you put in"

good luck.

[Aitch]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/32103652 ... =83&ff19=0

try superglueing some of these to a whittled cork-ball rigged hair rig style and fish right into a bloodworm bed

[GregF]

All excellent tips here. Here's just one more from me. If nuts are allowed they can be a great ‘instant’ bait. They don't work everywhere, but on a few occasions I’ve had supposedly pressured and wary carp going absolutely berserk feeding on less than a handful. Once this happened within just an hour of throwing them in the pond! That was peanuts but not many places permit their use these days because they are said to be harmful if not prepared properly. Tiger nuts are a good alternative and almost as effective, though not quite.

[MaggotDrowner]

I'd go with red maggots. I think it is the secret carp where Yates imitates blood worm with red maggot. He spices his with curry. I wouldn't bother though. If they are eating natural food, would they be searching out spice? Maggots are perhaps an issue with attracting smaller fish though. Keep ringing the changes until you find something that works. I find prawns really good bait in some places.

[Gary Bills]

I still think we shouldn't underestimate the pull of bread on virgin and near virgin waters (which, heaven knows, are rare enough). I think that, if carp are keen on surface bread, there's every chance they will be keen on a hunk of flake fished on the bottom too, - this was my logic at the pool I mentioned. I'd seen the carp go nuts for surface crust, and so I had every confidence that they would find bottom fished bread equally alluring, and I was right. I think that, if I were to be limited to just one bait, I would choose bread, and this choice is partly backed up with a recent experiment. I was fishing a pool at a local natural reserve where fishing usually isn't allowed unless you book a woodland chalet there. As a result, the pool is not heavily fished. I know the owner and he was kind enough to let me on. Well, I caught a number of carp on surface flake/crust but ran out of bread. I did, however, have a pot of good quality, white, long-life pop up boilies in my bag. I fished two of these on a hair, on the surface, and hoped to continue catching, I did not. I felt guilty in any case for such a non-traditional approach (!), but the fishing gods punished me enough for my heresy. On three or four occasions, carp rose to take the floating boilies (which had also been glugged, - dammit, they smelt good to me!) - but I never had a proper take on the boilies. However, when I threw out the last few small scraps of bread I had - these scraps were wolfed down immediately. The gap between the pulling power of the bread and the pulling power of the glugged boilies was so vast that day - very much in favour of the bread.

[Santiago]

Can't beat float fished bread on the bottom! I'll agree to that!

[Estaban]

I have two similar waters here, although one is considerably smaller. Corn, bread and stealth did the trick. Get close enough to the water to sit and watch the fish, on smaller waters carp seem to have a pattern of patrol routes. Once you find one of these areas trickle in a few kernels of corn and some wet bread. Watch and see what interests the fish, place it on your hook and carefully lower it in near the rest of the bait, free lined if possible.