Hello Everyone,
Well hopefully you found my explaination of the hair/bolt rig useful. I know it was a little long but that was necessary to learn it all. I will try my best to keep this one as short as can possibly be! Now I've already showed you the non-traditional hooks that serious (and dedicated novice) Carp fisherman use, it's time for you to learn what to use as bait on your rigs. This part of the game isn't too abnormal, it's more about taking a few basic principles and playing with some flavors to suit your local area. As I said in my previous article. It seems most of the hair rigs I see people use are too long and leave far too much space between the bait and the hook. But, as a whole, it seems like word has spread well as far as what to use as bait fish for Carp. Hell it should have, the following aren't expensive nor are they all that uncommon.
Basic Carp BaitAs you likely already know, the two most commonly utilized baits for Carp are corn and bread/doughballs. I list bread and doughballs as the same as the term was a bit confusing to me at first. I knew people used bread, and I also knew they used homemade dough-type bait (google homemade Carp baits if interested), but a lot of people use the term interchangeably when talking about that and regular white bread. Here is a secret about bread though. When you are bottom fishing, especially in a river, you want you bait to last as long as possible. Obviously your first thought it to pack the bread/dough as tight as possible, and you are 100% right in doing so. A more convienent idea though is to make yourself what I call a stamper. (I don't know what other Carp fisherman call them.) What I did was goto Home Depot and buy a 2ft section of 1/2" copper pipe and have them cut it into 4 roughly equal pieces. (Make sure you go home and smoothe the edges because cut metal is definently sharp.) Then what you do is either go buy some small dowels that barely fit in the pipes, or, find a stick that barely fits and widdle the bark off it. Then you put the bread in the tube and stamp it down with the wood and when you push it out you have a hard packed tablet which fits perfectly on your hair rig. I've seen one of these tablets last more than 5 casts and over an hour in a pond before. Anyone whos ever fished with bread knows thats outright amazing.
While bread is a good bait, catfish wind up on your line more often with bread than corn, and also the bluegill pick away at it too. This is why I perfer to fish with corn. Now for some, catfish aren't a bad hook-up. But here in Rhode Island, we've got only 4-5 ponds with White Catfish from the Hudson, and aside of that, strictly Horned Pout everywhere else. So you can see that aside of the White Catfish ponds, if your fishing for Carp then you don't really want a catfish messing with your line.
As far as corn, store bought corn is fine and it's what I started out with myself. The problem with store bought corn though is first of all you run into the expense over time. Sure at first the $1 it costs for a 8-15oz. can doesn't seem like a lot, but when your pre-baiting (covered later) and fishing, then you start running into more of a cost. Plus, store bought corn also tends to be more britle from processessing, meaning it falls apart a little bit in the water (from the ends being cut off) and also it starts to break down and stink faster when you bring it back and forth from the lake to your refridgerator. This is why I suggest hard shelled corn, also known as maize by Carp enthusiasts. I buy my corn at a local grainery which sells it as live stock feed. If you can't think of where to get some, google a local grainery, ask around where to get livestock feed, etc. I've also seen maize at the supermarket (sold under the name maize), but not in the country where I live, only in the city. (Yes RI is that small where you can go from cows to hi-rises in a half hour.)
This kind of corn is great as Carp bait because it takes care of every single problem I listed above. First off, it's economically efficient. When I began Carp fishing I bought a 50lb bag for $10 and I really haven't used that much of it, despite the amount of actual fishing and baiting I've done. I'd say I've used about the equivalent of 80 or more cans of corn since buying this bag of hard shelled feed corn. Second, this corn is MUCH larger than store bought corn, and frankly 85% of the pieces are too big to be gobbled up by most bluegill. Third, because of the nature of the hard shell, and the fact that the corn is not entirely saturated on the inside, the corn lasts many trips to and from the refridgerator as long as you don't have it in direct sun when your fishing.
The only thing you have to do with this corn is prepare it. What I do is take a very large aluminum soup pot and put about 4-6 coffee mug scoops of dried corn in the pot. I then fill it 3/4 the way with water and let it soak 8-12 hours. Afterwards, I turn the heat on to med-hi and let it come to a boil for about 45-55 minutes. Then I just let it sit for however long it takes to get mostly cool. This makes enough to HEAVILY bait 2-3 spots multiple times and still fish 4 or 5 times as well. If I am going to be fishing a usual spot (and don't need to bait heavy), I only make 2-3 scoops worth of corn. This corn is absolutely 100% the best way to go. It saves you a lot money, works better, lasts longer. If you end up enjoying Carp fishing I reccomend you buy a bag. If you are going to try Carp fishing, like I said, store Corn is fine! But, if you like the idea of the maize, look at the supermarket for a small bag, or I know the grainery here sells a 2lb bag for something like $2. Another potential bait are garbanzo beans, aka chick peas. This is a good alternative if corn is strictly off limits in your area. Here corn is only off limits in trout waters, so I would only have to use chick peas if I was fishing there. They can be bought at the supermarket and I'm sure in masses if you look around. They come dried and the cooking instructions are readily available and usually right on the package.
Last, Carp of course need to feed on other natural things besides the food we are providing them with. Two food sources (when they are in season) are Mulberries and Blackberries. Often from far away you may have seen something tearing up a shoreline and think its a beaver or otter. But if you had binoculars you'd see it's a Carp ripping off hanging berries right from the bushes. It's an interesting behavior and it's because they crave the sweet fruits from these trees and bushes. These berries can be used on the hair rig and planted right under berrie trees/bushes that Carp are feeding under with good success, or used freelined while sight fishing with even better success. The introduction of the berries brings us into our next topic, flavoring your bait.
Flavoring for SuccessThere are a lot of flavors that people use for Carp fishing. In homemade dough construction some use dried krill blood, garlic, all kinds of things. Others take a scientific approach and try to attain a certain percentage of crude fat, protein, etc. For the most part though, I just worry about getting a good flavor on my bait. As I said above, in season, berries are a favorite of Carp, Mulberries in particular. Often times if you know where a ripe Mulberry tree is that overhangs the water, then you know right where Carp are because they will constantly be feeding on the fallen berries. Even if you don't know where one is, chances are the Carp do and they are familiar with the scent. Point of the story, when it's Mulberry season, GET SOME. What I do is collect as many as I can and puree them in the blender. Then I just soak my corn in them in a mason jar in the 'fridge. I use Black Mulberries because I've heard they have the sweetest taste of all of them (red, white, black). It's as simple as that. You can do the same with black berries, and I've seen on this forum that others suggested jam.... why not, I've done the same before too. Use two poles and plant them right near eachother and try to experiment! Other flavors that work are whiskey, pineapple skyy vodka, vanilla (vanilla extract). Other things that work too are the fruity flavors, experiment with banana type flavors, apple, etc. A tip I got from the person who taught me though is that the fruity flavors work more so in the spring and fall where as the alcohol based flavors seem to work more in the summer months. When all else fails, use unflavored... I have been for the last couple weeks.
You can also flavor doughballs, but if you do I'd suggest using the stamper method and putting the liquid on before you put the bread into the tube. Or, better yet, make some home made dough!
Pre-BaitingBy now you might think I am rambling. Pre-baiting... yeah we get it, go there, throw some corn, leave - come back tomorrow and fish. Well that could work, if the pond is stacked and someone else baits the spot too. But if you fish for Carp regularly or want to get into good fish, you need to take a more serious approach. This is where having a good amount of the feed corn comes in handy. Pick a pond or lake where you want to Carp fish, I am sure you have one in mind or you wouldn't be reading this. Pick your spots you want to fish, preferably away from the beaten trail so you don't work your butt off and show up to someone planted in your spot. Now if you've never seen anyone fish for Carp there before I'd suggest at least 3-4 good baitings. Try to do a few spots at least 50 or so yards apart. You need to throw out enough to make a presence, but not enough to cause a feeding frenzy. This is again where feed corn comes in handy. Remeber how I said the feed corn is really big? Well you will have bluegill, other panfish and turtles going after that chow, so with store bought corn your about 50/50 whether the Carp even find it before it's all gone. With the hard shelled corn basically only the bigger turtles can get it, and even then they don't enjoy it after a few bites because they can taste how dry it is when they break the shell. They will still eat it, but not nearly as much.
Try to make yourself a nice little baited area. Giving the corn a medium hard toss gives it a nice little spray so it prevents it from clumping into one spot as long as you vary your aim a little bit. Remember you want to make a presence but still create competition between the fish, this is VERY important... probaly the utmost important part of baiting aside of showing up and actually throwing bait in the water. Now after you've done this every day (or every other day) for a few days, you may want to keep baiting with a bit less bait, or start fishing. An important thing though is you want to keep baiting while you fish as well. Usually I throw about a half handfull in the direction of each of my lines when I show up and each 45 minutes while I fish. This is a good practice! Remember what I said in my last article, Carp blow at the pond bottom and suck in and spit out their food over and over. If your rig and bait is alone and he sucks it in and spits it out, chances are he will move on and look for more food. But, if your rig and bait is surrounded by un-hooked bait, and he's sitting their sucking in and out all of that (maybe even eating a few), chances are he is sticking around and might eat your bait! FYI, if you decide to do your own research this is refered to as particles or particle baiting.
Well I guess that's it. I tried to keep it short but it didnt' work. But, this along with the previous article should give everyone a good idea of how to get some fish. There are even crazier methods if you can beleive that but I don't even know them enough to use them let alone write about them
Take care everyone,
Ed
