Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Catch on dog biscuits – Alfie Naylor
Alfie Naylor explains that with temperatures soaring, there is no better way of targeting carp than surface fishing with floating dog biscuits – and it’s cheap too!
CATCHING big carp can be an expensive affair. A group of fish will quickly demolish a large bed of bait at this time of year and with a kilo of boilies costing up to £15 it is easy to see how bills can spiral out of control. But when the carp want to take advantage of the summer temperatures and bask in the sunshine, there is thankfully a much cheaper way to target them. Daiwa and Nutrabaits-backed angler Alfie Naylor is constantly catapulting loosefeed but he only spends less than £2 a session on bait. So what is his thrifty secret? “One of my favourite ways of fishing for big carp is catching them off the surface and the ultimate bait for this style is dog biscuits,” explains Alfie. “The fish can’t get enough of them and if you take a trip to a supermarket you can buy a giant sack for next to nothing.”
Bait multiple spots
A good many specimen carp anglers sit it out in a bivvy for days on end. Alfie, however, is an advocate of short sessions.
With limited time on his hands he needs to utilise every minute effectively. Surprisingly, that doesn’t mean getting a rig in the water as quickly as possible. Instead, the first part of any session is dedicated to locating the whereabouts of fish. “I walk the lake with a catapult and a bucket of dog biscuits and feed a few in any likely-looking spots and then move on. I might feed half a dozen areas and then I’ll discreetly walk between them and look for signs of feeding fish. There’s every chance that only one or two of those areas will be home to fish but it’s worth spending the time to pin down their whereabouts.” Right, surely now is the time to cast a rig? Not a chance! Once the fish see a few floating baits they will tentatively peck at or even a few to begin with. You need to keep a steady trickle of loosefeed going in to make them drop their guard. “I could be feeding the peg for up to an hour just to increase their confidence and I won’t start fishing until they are ‘PacManning’. This is a reference to the old computer game and it is when the carp are slurping down one biscuit after another.”
Boosting your baits
Carp love floating dog biscuits but on some venues they have seen them umpteen times. As a result they can become increasingly tricky to catch on them. Producing a bottle of rapeseed oil and a bottle of Nutrabaits Blue Oyster liquid, Alfie reveals he has a simple way to fool fish that have become more wary. “I use a couple of additives and a bottle of each will last you weeks on end. When combined together they have caught me some huge fish.”
Taking your chances
Once the carp are preoccupied with the loosefeed it is finally time to reach for your rod and baited hook. Freelining is an option but that restricts the distance at which you can present your hookbait. Alfie uses a Korda Interceptor Controller Float to give him that extra
“I could be feeding for up to an hour just to increase their confidence...”
casting weight. Mainline is 12lb and the hooklength is 3ft of 12lb Fox Zig Floater hooklink tied to a size 12 Korda Mixa hook. The hookbait is banded and sits tight to the hook. “I always make sure the rig lands just beyond where the feed has been going in and then slowly draw the rig and hookbait back in among the freebies. This reduces the chance of spooking any fish that are already confidently feeding.” With the rig in place, it remains in place until a fish takes the hookbait. The only time that Alfie will reel in and recast is if the rig drifts so far away from the loosefeed area that it is unlikely a carp will find it. When the plan falls into place there is no more exciting way of catching a PB. A large pair of lips break the surface, the hookbait is engulfed and your cleverly-devised plan has been executed to perfection.