Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Flick the winter switch
Nash’s Neil White reveals his bait and watercraft secrets for consistently catching big carp in the cold
CATCHING carp during the colder months of the year can be a tricky proposition, but one angler who seems to have little problem bagging big fish when the mercury plummets is Neil White. Despite having only limited time at his disposal, over the past few winters the Lincolnshire-based rod has banked some of the biggest carp in the east of England. Venue choice is crucial to his success, so Neil suggested that we join him for a session at the prolific Bayeswater Fishery near Chelmsford in Essex, which has a proven track record for producing year-round action. Neil explained: “All carp have to feed at some point in the winter, but if you’re fishing a low-stock venue then the chances of putting a bait near them are quite slim. I tend to fish more prolific venues at this time of the year, and Bayeswater is perfect. With a stock of several hundred carp, most of which are over 20lb, it is the perfect place to get a bite as you know you are never going to be far away from the fish. It makes more sense to travel to a venue like this than to tough it out on a water closer to home where the stocks might be much lower. “Day-ticket lakes are perfect for winter sessions,” he added. “The carp are used to finding bait and being fished for, so they are more tolerant of lines and rigs than carp in lightly-fished venues are. Come the turn of the year most anglers will hang up their rods until spring, so even on well-stocked waters like Bayeswater you can find yourself with the pick of swims. Get things right and you can enjoy some mega-catches, even when there is ice in the margins!”
FISHISH FOR LINERS
Th The modern trend in carping is to fish with ultra-slacktra-slack lines lines, but Neil likes to introduce a degree of tension by using light bobbins. He also has his alarms on their most sensitive setting setting. “From past experience I have an idea where the fish are going to be at this time of the year, but in an effort to confirm this I always ways start the session by fishing for line bites bites,” he said. “These are much more common in winter - I suppose it’s because the carp are a bit dozy and tend to bump into the lines, but whatever the reason, these indications give the fish’s location away and mean that I am confident that my rigs are in the right position. “I will recast regularly - every couple of hours if there are no signs of fish - and if a carp rolls or I see bubbling then I will put a rod on it straight away.” To start his session Neil introduces his loosefeed only via PVA sticks attached to his rigs. “Until I’m confident that my rigs are in the right spots, I won’t put in too much feed. I want just enough out there to get a bite. Only when I’m happy with the rods will I introduce a couple of Spomb of bait, but this will be just enough to encourage the carp to have a bit of a browse and pick at the feed.”
SMALL FOOD ITEMS
Rather than fish with big boilies, Neil scales down his approach in winter and uses a cocktail of small food items. “I wouldn’t go coldwater carping without a few pints of maggots. They are a great carp bait at any time of the year, but in spring and summer can attract hordes of silverfish. However, this isn’t much of a problem when it’s cold. I could just use maggots for loosefeed and on the hair too, but I think the carp prefer a smattering of other baits as well. My aim is to get them rooting around, but I don’t want to fill them up. Small baits are ideal for this. Next to go into Neil’s loosefeed mix are a couple of handfuls of Coconut Cream Monster
Carp pellets. These are low-oil and break down to leave a fine mush of particles on the lakebed. Neil’s final ingredient is crumbled boilies. He said: “This mix releases loads of attraction and offers the carp a choice of different baits. If they don’t want the boilies then the pellet mush or maggots will stimulate them. There’s a lot of smell and also the movement of the maggots, but little for the carp to fifill up on.”
SIMPLE RIGS
Neil keeps his rigs strong and simple for all his carp fishing, using tackle that he has complete confidence in. For winter fishing he uses a combination of maggots and artificial corn on the hair, which produces a highly visual hookbait that also balances out the weight of the hook. Neil uses a needle to attach his maggots to a length of sewing cotton, before tying them to the loop on his hair rig; this holds the rubber corn in place. A size 8 Nash Fang Uni hook has a wide gape and turns into the carp’s bottom lip the instant that the six-inch hooklength is tightened - a simple but very effective presentation. A 1.5oz lead on a safety clip provides enough resistance to prick the carp, and causes only minimal disturbance on entering the water. Neil makes his PVA sticks from a fifine- weave mesh that stops the maggots escaping, but which melts quickly even in cold water. Instead of making the sticks really tight, he leaves them slightly
slack and loosely ties the knots at the top and the bottom to make it easier for the water to penetrate, speeding up the melting process. He hooks the stick through the tag end of the PVA, which he leaves longer than normal for just this purpose. This loose tag melts quickly, leaving no residue on the hook.
PERSISTENCE OF PAYS PAYS OFF
A few hours into Neil’s session, his left hand rod signalled a couple of line bites. Happy that the rod was in the right position, Neil slackened off the line slightly to avoid spooking the fish. Just a few minutes later it pulled up tight and Neil was playing a powerful fish that sped into the centre of the lake. Just as the battle was turning in Neil’s favour, the line fell slack and the fish was gone. After examining the rig he couldn’t spot anything wrong, but tied on a new rig anyway - good practice at any time of the year. As the sun started to set the recast rod was away again, and this time after a good tussle a dark-looking mirror, typical of the lake’s stock, slid into the waiting net. A chunky twenty-pounder, it was ample reward for Neil’s persistence. With another 24 hours of his session still remaining as the time came for us to leave, Neil settled in for the night, confident that having got all aspects of his approach right, more pristine winter carp would be sitting in the bottom of his net by morning.
“You can have some mega-catches, even when there’s ice in the margins”