Tactic of the Week Paul Garner on how to make a fake floater for carp
From clever fake mixers to feed that clouds the water, Paul Garner has the answer
IAM not a great fan of hot weather, but there is one thing that I really look forward to every summer surface fishing for carp. In my book, only lure fishing comes close to the excitement of stalking carp off the top.
Being able to watch your quarry close up means you can learn a massive amount, too. From how carp locate baits to which flavours work best, one afternoon spent surface fishing will teach you as much as a year spent fishing out of sight on the bottom.
FEED THEM UP
The first lesson that I ever learnt from surface fishing was just how important getting your feeding right is to success.
Coaxing the fish into action and building their confidence as they become preoccupied with feeding makes them so much easier to catch, not only off the top, but on the bottom as well.
Often, when I arrive at a lake on a hot summer’s afternoon, the carp will be resting up in weedbeds or just under the surface, hardly moving at all. Plonking a load of bait over the top of fish that are behaving like this will normally see them slowly melt away, but if you take your time and very gradually start to introduce some feed then often they will start to take notice.
Begin by introducing just half-a-dozen baits well away from the fish. If there is any surface drift, put the bait in upwind and let it travel down to the fish. If there is no wind, put the bait in the spot where it is easiest for you to catch the fish. Tiny floating pellets are often the best opening gambit, as they are unlikely to alarm any spooky carp.
If the carp start to show some interest, trickle in a few more baits. If your luck is in, then eventually the carp will start taking the baits confidently and actually race from one to the next. This can often take a couple of hours to achieve – don’t be in a panic to make that first cast. The longer you can wait, the better your chances are likely to be.
Once I have got the carp feeding hard I will select the one I want to catch. Normally this will be the biggest fish, but not always.
Put your hookbait in front of this fish, and if you have got the feeding right the chances are you will catch it.
SOAKED FEED
One of the most frustrating things about surface fishing is the number of missed and aborted takes that you get as a fish turns away from the hookbait at the last second. Having looked at this problem closely by underwater
filming carp approaching baits, it is obvious that the line and hook are often really visible and signal to the fish that the bait isn’t safe.
In murky water this is less likely to happen, but to minimise this problem I have started using feed that creates a cloud in the water to help disguise the line and hook.
To do this I soak some small floating pellets in water for a couple of minutes and then drain off the liquid and allow the pellets to soften for a while. Get this right and you can compress the pellets together quite easily – they should be soft and spongy to the touch.
When catapulted out, most of
the pellets will still float. A few will sink, but all will generate a cloud of particles that hangs in the water column.
This slick is not only really attractive to carp, but the reduced visibility makes it much harder for them to spot the hook and line.
Last summer I took this approach one stage further and even modified some cage feeders by removing the lead and replacing it with a piece of rig foam to produce a floating cage feeder.
Stuffed with my soft pellets, the floating feeder gives a slow release of feed right by the hookbait.