‘ASK PENNERS ’ WITH ADAM PENNING
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QThe water I am fishing is heavily stocked with bream and masses of silverfish, plus a few tench. I’m catching quite a few carp with my spod mix but still getting lots of pest fish too – should I drop the pellet content from the mix? his season, on my local syndicate, the tench were a real nightmare, to the point where I had to totally ditch my initial line of attack involving the brilliant new Krill Clusters mixed with chopped boilies and a small pop-up on top. Ten tincas a night is beyond even my patience level.
Changing to a straight boilie approach with 20mm baits totally resolved the situation, with only a couple more tench across the following three months. It meant that I could get sleep when I needed it and, most importantly, know that whatever bait I had put in at the start would still be there when
Tthe carp came through.
More recently I have fished a day-ticket complex that holds some very nice carp. It is similar to your lake in that it is heaving with bream and silvers, and I am certain that a spod mix approach would not only be a total nightmare, but would leave me with very little bait in the swim should the carp arrive.
To answer your question, rather than drop the pellet out of the mix, I would drop the mix, full stop. I would opt for a boilie attack, nothing smaller than 18mm. In fact 22mm would be a better option if you could get them. Baits of this size are not actually ‘big’ compared to a carp’s mouth, it’s just that we are conditioned to think baits should be 14mm-16mm in order to be most effective. This is not true.
Avoiding pellets altogether makes sense, as even really big ones quickly go soft and are easy morsels for bream. Avoid hemp, corn or anything down that route.
If you fancy a change from boilies (or perhaps something cheaper) then tiger nuts make a very good alternative that is fairly bream-proof. Remember, though, that if there are hordes of bream nothing will stop them. In this case it might pay to bait very lightly so that you don’t draw them in.
I have never found that a large shoal can be ‘fed off’ so don’t waste time and money trying! Finally, if you opt for a big, bulky hinged stiff rig with a size 4 hook it will help limit unwanted attentions, and will complement a boilie approach perfectly.