ANGLER'S MAIL is number one for tips and tricks! Here Matt Sparkes looks at a carp bait tweak which should tempt more crafty fish in harder waters.
Carp bait tweaks comes in all forms, but to fool those wary whackers on heavily pressured venues I use little irregular pieces of boilie on a hair.
I would often rather use these than the usual little spheres, fresh out of the bag.
I’m certain that big carp can quickly associate a bed of uniform baits with danger and stay well clear.
So my theory is that an offering of irregular-shaped carp bait will be treated with far less suspicion.
Most carpers crumble up boilies to add to a Method/spod mix or a PVA bag, as their regular carp bait choice. So why not put some little pieces on the hair itself?
Mounting small pieces without them splitting can be tricky, but there are ways to do it with few difficulties.
The easiest method is to mount a normal round boilie on the hair and then carefully start to whittle off pieces, bit by bit until your left with an ‘apple core’ shaped bait, or any shape you fancy.
Matt Sparkes likes catching carp of all sizes – and this bait tip will work on all sorts of waters.
Alternatively you can use an extra fine baiting needle which will help avoid splitting the little broken pieces of boilie and using an extra fine material for the actual hair will help prevent baits splitting as they are passed over the loop knot.
I rarely use round boilies as my main carp bait these days. I’ve even managed to encourage a few of my fishing chums to adopt this easy little ‘edge’ and it’s resulted in some memorable catches.
Try some little pieces of broken boilie on an extra long hair, using a smaller than normal strong hook, a size 10 for example, as this seems to result in positive blistering runs.
I also like to pop one unbroken boilie in my PVA bag, theorising that a carp will ignore the big round ball among the little broken bits and confidently go about hoovering up the rest including the little pieces mounted as a hook bait.
CAUGHT A BIG FISH? Email photos and details exclusively to: anglersmail@timeinc.com – you could star in the must-read weekly Angler’s Mail print magazine. The mag includes Matt Sparkes, every week.