Many anglers use their conventional tactics and rigs in winter and cold spring conditions without accounting for changes in carp behaviours due to the cold and carp being cold-blooded. So here are some proven tricks to try for more big winter and spring fish...

First off carp metabolism is much reduced which means less movement and feeding and less effective rates of digestion and so on. Carp and cold water is really all about the conservation of energy as this is central to these creatures survival. Although this produces changes in carp behaviours that can make them harder to catch, there are many things you can do to help maximise the opportunities and chances you have in winter fishing.

Probably the major factor in winter fishing in the consistent application of a digestible attractive bait designed specifically for these conditions. Believe me when I say I totally agree that instant attractor baits work very well in winter, but there are far more complex effects on carp that occur with many of these flavour substances than most anglers even imagine.

Many of the best flavours are extremely sophisticated and many are potently bioactive in effect like many top nutritional value baits. And having fished through the period years ago when Richworth Tutti Fruiti baits seemed to be the only winter bait used by the masses, it soon becomes clear that when used enough, such baits can become over-used to the degree they tend to catch predominantly smaller fish and the less wary carp! (This is very different to using a single bait fishing approach where such baits are not introduced en masse as free baits as well.)

Wrapping pop-up baits in paste of a completely different recipe base mix and flavour attractor combination is a well proven trick all year round. The chopping up of baits and trimming of pop-up baits for instance is nothing new and anyone who used luncheon meat and spam 30 years ago will have realised the effect of this on warier fish! (I used to soak mine in aniseed oil for winter.)

Many angler use the now infamous so-called snowman rig basically use of a sinking and buoyant bait on a hook rig so that one counteracts the weight of the other and much more importantly (and often missed,) the weight of the hook itself. Years before snowmen rigs, the use of a hook bait with a high fat content when used with a sinking boilie made rigs more effective especially in winter as being more buoyant, they helped counteract the weight of the hook, and assist baits in flying up into the mouth better among other effects. In fact after years of using tinned meats the incorporation of minced cheap tinned spam and luncheon meats has proven very effective in winter as they are so soluble and act more as attractive paste when used on a conventional boilie rig with boilies or particles etc.

My question is how many carp anglers use half a small pop-up bait to help balance a half a brazil nut or tip a hair full of chopped nuts or hemp in winter? Carp are notorious in winter even more so than usual, for choosing smaller sized food items and baits to satisfy their energy requirements. I find it so ironic that it is popular to use a chopped-down pop-up bait in winter when many of use have done it for decades. I suppose like anything else, eventually if something works the masses will get to hear of it so why not here?

Why not try this: add a liquid food such as Minamino, Nutramino, Liquid liver, liquid yeast or Feedstim XP to a 50 percent proportion of genuine Robin Red. Try this as your pop-up bait soak and apply it to all your free baits for winter (why not boost Robin Red based pellets too?) You might use one of the many Robin Red ground baits available alongside your hook baits.

Ground baits are not purely the domain of small carp as many carp anglers incorrectly assume; far from it! Bread based ground baits are very effective in cold water for wary big carp and you do not have be yet another conventional slave to hemp at all; the diversity of fantastic homemade and readymade winter ground bait and feed options are amazing! (Perhaps try testing your PVA products until you find ones you yourself like the taste and smell of that really do melt effectively without leaving a nasty residue in low temperature water; such little things make all the difference...)

Pop-up baits can include those fake baits too made of plastic and rubber substances etc and these obviously are used by many copy-cat anglers to tip-off there other baits. But like any other popularised method, copying eventually becomes counter-productive and doing things in new and alternative ways will always sustain more consistent success!

Personally I would far prefer to be using a buoyant pop-up bait made with 30 percent de-fatted green-lipped mussel extract (available from Ccmoore), plus added squid liver extract powder, mineral salts and fish-digestible vitamin supplements, spirulina powders and European fermented shrimp extract, krill and salmon extracts for example, than a piece of rubber sweetcorn; even if it is trimmed to be different to normal and glows in the dark! Read on for details of some very unique bait secrets ebooks...

By Tim Richardson.

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