Carper’s Web - Carp Fishing News

Pete Castle looks in detail at mass baiting and carp bait campaigns to catch carp in the summer months.

Mass baiting is a strategy best described as arriving at the lake with the aim of putting out something like three-to-five kilos of boilies and a good sized bucket of mixed particles or pellets to fish over for the coming session. Some people seem to like to fish over lots more bait than others and anglers that regularly fish over a lot of bait are generally more confident in this approach than when they are fishing light, as they see their tactic as the best way to stimulate the fish into confident feeding.

Heavily baited spots are something that I really like fishing over every now and again and this technique has produced some fantastic results for me in the past. There are definitely certain lakes that fish well when you put out loads of bait, but even on those lakes you have to make sure that you mass bait only in the right circumstances. There is no point filling in any water if the fish are off the feed. However, if conditions are right and the fish look like they’re having it, then have a go at mass baiting because this baiting strategy can not only catch out the odd fish, but it also regularly produces multiple captures.

Bait Campaigns

A bait campaign is often the chosen baiting strategy for many of the leading carp anglers. With this technique the aim is to establish your bait as a main food source so that the carp are literally hungrily looking for the chosen bait. It can sometimes take weeks to establish, but when the fish start to see the bait regularly then your hard work will start to take effect and you will begin to enjoy the benefits with hopefully outstanding results.

Key Tips for catching Carp:-

1 I like to put in a variety of bait when I’m mass baiting.

2 A huge framed fish caught by regularly baiting the same spot.

3 Choose a high quality food source bait if you’re going to start a long-term bait campaign.

4 Try using large quantities of maggots as alternative baiting strategy.

I’ve had three successful bait campaigns over recent years – one of these was done on my own and the other two took place with a little help from a few carp fishing friends. The most recent of these bait campaigns was on a relatively difficult water where there was only around thirty-to-thirty five fish in over forty acres of water and a bait campaign seemed the best way forward.

Everyone in the bait team agreed to get as much boiled bait into the lake as they could during the spring months to see if we could establish the bait as food source in this lake, which was also producing a lot of natural food items. It didn’t take long for us to notice that it was only the anglers that were on that specific bait that where getting the results. It was still very difficult, as you can imagine with such a low stocking level, but when fish were being caught it was usually on the bait that we had been putting in.

I had blanked for first few weeks, but I was confident that if I could get on fish with the bait that I would eventually catch. On one evening I managed to move onto a few fish and as I had full confidences in the baiting strategy we had been using, I thought that it was only a matter of time before I got a run. I actually managed four runs that night and banked not only a cracking upper-twenty, but also a mid-thirty and a pretty double. I also lost another fish after it tore off and stuffed me in a large weed bed – it felt like it might have been a bit of a chunk. The established bait played a big part in the capture of those sparse carp and it was only good teamwork and a belief in the bait that helped everyone that took part in the campaign to reap the benefits from establishing a bait as a food source.

Some Recent Success

I recently went on a trip to a local lake where a heavy baiting strategy proved to be very successful. I turned up to fish a three night session and put out about 15 kilos of crushed and whole boilies, pellets and particles to sit over for the next three nights ahead. The first night proved to be very slow and I only managed a lost fish early the following morning - I started to think that I had maybe made a mistake with the amount of bait I’d spodded out. However, things started to look up when just as I reeled in to go for a walk, a few fish started to move into the area.

By the second morning I’d caught a several good fish, but then things went very quite again by mid-morning as though the fish had cleaned me out of any remaining bait and had moved on into other areas. I spodded some more of the mix on the spots ready for the evening. The main lines were all already marked and in the clips and I spent most of the day spodding three buckets of mix to the chosen spots. I was confident that I was going to have some further success and things went really well throughout the third night and I wasn’t let down as I caught some more fantastic fish from the heavily baited areas. It took a little time to get swim working with the mass baiting technique, but as soon as the spot started to produce the odd fish it was just a case of topping it up to get even more runs.

Summary

It sometimes pays off to put out masses of bait into a swim and in other situations you’re probably better off fishing with single hook baits. Heavily baited areas can stop fish as they’re moving through, but if they’re off their feed then a lightly baited area might be more suitable, so try to choose your baiting strategy wisely. The best way to get the carp to pick up your chosen bait is to establish it as a food source. Most carp anglers (myself included) rarely take advantage of the idea of starting a bait campaign, but it is one of the fundamental tactics favoured by many of the leading carp anglers.

Personally my angling style is more eclectic, as I’m usually fishing different waters every week – this often makes a formal bait campaign unfeasible for me to do on a regular basis. Nevertheless, if you’ve joined a syndicate or club that you will fish regularly and you have a few trusted friends that will put the bait in on a regular basis, then I would seriously consider trying to establish your bait as a food source.

Many of the leading bait companies produce excellent mixes that will offer a quality food source to the carp. It might take a little time for you to notice the results, but if you strategically put in enough of the stuff then the carp can soon become so dependent that they end up being caught on little else.

Good Luck, Pete Castle.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

bait up, carp bait, mass baiting

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 5:18 am and is filed under Carp Articles, Carp Baits, Tactics & Strategies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.