By Jamie Simpson
Carp fishing has certainly been developing at an amazing rate over recent years. Just the other day I was sat having a chat with a good mate of mine and we got on to the topic of bait.
Now this conversation went down the route of how much bait you would use in certain circumstances, which has got my brain really working.
In my early days this bag would have lasted me weeks
Going back to the late eighties and very early nineties I would knock up a four egg mix and expect it to last me a couple of weekend sessions at the very least. Well I reckon that a four egg mix equates to about a pound and a half of 14mm baits, which would be a couple of hundred at the most. Generally that would be it, no pellet, hemp, corn or anything else. On arrival I would generally put in a couple of pouch fulls and if I caught I would add another pouch of boilies and so on. I remember putting in half a bag one day and worrying about ruining my chances. It’s crazy to think that way now but I was naive at the time and having come from a coarse background of fishing a few maggots and the odd grain of corn, 14mm boilies seemed so big.
Between our group we would commonly use the term I have filled in when in reality we weren’t even scratching the surface of what they could devour.
Over the years I have witnessed some occasions where I am certain you cannot over feed them. On one occasion I watched two Carp that probably weren’t even doubles munch down 2 pints of maggots in no more than a few minutes. That same day on a commercial fishery I had probably 300 Carp climbing over each other to get at my floaters, they were in a complete frenzied state.
In the right conditions on a well stocked lake I would have no hesitation putting in 10-15kilo over a 48 hour session, if I thought that by doing so it would benefit my catch rate. The key to this is knowing what the right conditions are and that comes with experience and watercraft on the chosen venue.
A mid thirty from a French trip where the more bait they got the more I caught
For a weeks session in France I would certainly take atleast 30kilo of boilie, along with Rahja spod mix and Rahja feast as well as 5 kilo of pellet and 5 kilo of hemp. That is the amount I took on a recent trip, however due to the fishing conditions I brought all but 5kilo of boilie, 5kilo of Rahja feast, the hemp a bit of pellet and some of the Rahja spod mix back. Had the conditions been different I would have probably used the lot. About 3 years ago I ran out of bait on a trip to Maurepaire where I landed 34 Carp to just over 40lb. I would have caught more fish for certain had I taken another 10kilo of 20mm Rahja with me. That trip I had taken 25kilo of Rahja in 10mm, 15mm and 20mm. This may seem a lot of bait, but when you break it down it equates to 4kilo a day spread over 3 rods with around 400 Carp to upper 40s with the average size being around 28-30lb. I would imagine that if a group of 6 Carp came into the swim they could eat that amount comfortably in a very short period of time.
A good amount of people would look at that amount of bait and say that it equates to over £200 worth of bait for a weeks fishing, yes it does, but it is one week a year where I have the opportunity to catch fish of a size that I do not normally have access to. With that I will not compromise my chances of a fish of a lifetime due to not being prepared to part with the extra bit of cash for the bait. After all the majority of carpers I see on the bank nowadays will be sat behind a few grands worth of rods, reels, alarms and sat in a £400 bivvy.
In my mind the biggest factors are conditions, stock, history and the most important watercraft.
Cheers
Jamie
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