CORN SWITCH
Is this the best winter bait ever? Steve thinks so, and reveals his brilliant corn tricks for clear-water commercials
WHEN it comes to catching carp at this time of the year there is one bait that always comes to the fore – sweetcorn.
There are a couple of reasons for this, but I feel the main one is its vivid yellow colour.
With the water now rapidly turning clear on commercials up and down the country, the bright corn really stands out and gives the carp a bait they can home in on with ease.
Once the water temperature falls and the colour drops out I am totally convinced carp feed more by sight than smell, which is why corn is such a good coldwater bait as far as carp are concerned.
The other bonus with corn is that it’s not too species-specific. Big skimmers and even big roach can be caught on it, not just carp, which is another reason why I find myself fishing it so much at this time of the year.
MAKING A COMBO
Choosing the right type of corn is crucial. Trust me, I’ve tried a lot of different brands over the years, including bulk-bought supermarket own brands – but now I always stick to Green Giant.
This is down to the fact that the grains are nicely mixed in terms of size, but perhaps more importantly they are always of a bright, uniform yellow colour.
Sometimes you can get sweetcorn that is really pale, almost washed-out in appearance, and I never feel that is as effective as the really bright stuff.
How much corn you need for the session depends on the venue you’re fishing and just how cold the water is.
Sometimes one tin is enough for three matches, whereas on other venues I can easily feed three tins in a single session!
Rather than use corn on its own, though, I always like to feed a few pellets with it. Today I’ve got a pint of wetted-down 2mm micros with me.
Again, the choice of these pellets is very much venue-dependent. Today I’m at Meadowlands, on the Warren Pool, and it’s only 2ft deep
at 14.5m!
If it was, say, 6ft deep then I would look to swap the 2mm pellets for 4mms.
The reason I like to feed a few pellets with the corn is to give it a bit more attraction in terms of smell, and I never feel feeding pellets hurts, as both carp and skimmers love them.
VARY YOUR HOOKBAITS
As far as hookbait choice goes there are two I like to stick with.
My first choice is always a single grain of corn to match what I’m feeding, but I’ll usually vary the size of this individual grain.
Sometimes I find a really small grain works best, while on other occasions it’s very much a case of ‘the bigger the better’.
If you find bites are hard to come by it’s important to keep mixing it up and offering them something different.
My second hookbait is one that has caught me shedloads of big carp each winter, and that’s double corn.
I’m not sure why it works so well, other than the fact it’s a big bait and perhaps visually more attractive than a single grain.
The number of times I’ve been struggling later in the session then put double corn on and caught two big carp to get out of jail is too many for it to be coincidence.
I think perhaps when a lot of anglers are struggling they think along the lines of small baits, when they should be thinking big!
WHY YOU MUST GO LONG
As the water gets clearer then I feel it becomes more and more important to fish long on the pole if you are faced with an open water swim.
When I say ‘long’ I’m talking 14.5m or even 16m. The reason being, carp and silvers are easily spooked, so they are naturally pushed out from the bank by the disturbance of setting up, nets going in and so on.
Therefore it makes far more sense to target them where they feel safer, which is long. Of course, as a match or session progresses the fish will move back in, but even then they can still be caught long, so it’s a win-win situation.