When the wind is mild try to fish where it is blowing into your face.
When starting out on a new venue always take a marker rod and try to build up a map of the bottom of the lake. Look for gravel, silt, weed etc.
When you start getting bites from a particular spot it helps to know what the fish are choosing to feed over.
If you aren't catching fish, keep trying different areas of the lake until you find where the fish are feeding.
I use an array of different baits depending on the venue and time of year. In winter I like to use DT's cold water mix with tutti frutti. I will often fish a bright coloured pop-up or snow man hookbait over the top.
Be versatile with your boilies. Use a variation of shapes and sizes and even chop or break some up. This will help to confuse Mr Carp and make it harder for him to isolate your hookbait.
The amount of bait you use should depend on the situation you are fishing in. i.e. There is no point fishing over five kilos of bait if you are only fishing for a couple of hours or if there are only one or two fish in your swim. A little and often approach works very well and has caught me a lot of fish.
If you are a leadcore user like myself, keep plenty tied up in your box ready to go so that you don't waste valuable time on the bank.
You can buy leadcore leaders tied up and ready to go but I prefer to make my own. It works out cheaper and you can be more versatile with the lengths. This is how I tie them up:
Here are Ben's 5 tips for short session carping.
Derek's favourite bait of all time is either Mainline's 'Active 8' or 'Grange CSL' boilies although he has recently been helping them test a new bait so watch this space!
He also says never overlook maggots.
As a hookbait he prefers to use a Mainline Pineapple pop-up glugged in the matching dip. As a little tip he says not to glug your pop-ups for too long, 5 to 10 minutes is about right. This will ensure that your pop-ups won't take on too much weight and will remain buoyant for longer.
Derek "The Don" Ritchie's golden rules to Carp care.
Maver have asked me to provide some "top tips" for the Maver Carp website. Some of these are general principles whilst some are tactics and approaches. I now use them all in my angling and hope that one or more of them will assist you in your carp fishing.
