Have your best autumn

Follow these simple edges to ensure your alarms keep screaming as we say goodbye to summer

AUTUMN is one of the best seasons on the carp angling calendar. After the hot sunny summer days when the carp were more interested in spending their time lazing around on the surface, their natural instinct is to now feed up before winter. This increase in feeding means that at any point during the day there will be carp feeding somewhere on your chosen lake and ready for you to catch.

Bankside comfort

The days may still be warm and sunny at this time of year but the temperatures can plummet at night. Dig out the thicker sleeping and it’s probably time to put attach the front on to your shelter again to ensure you stay comfortable on the bank.

Cut out the oil

If you’re planning on fishing a venue throughout the winter, this is the ideal time of year to start introducing your chosen bait. With temperatures starting to dip, stop using products which have a high oil content.

Beat the fallen leaves

As leaves start to fall off the trees they litter the lakebed. To ensure that your hookbait is well presented and doesn’t become hidden among the bottom debris, use pop-up rigs instead of bottom bait presentations.

Prebaiting

Autumn is the ideal time to start a prebaiting campaign. Natural food supplies start to dwindle so the fish are much more likely to feed on your offerings. If you live close to your chosen venue try to visit the lake as often as possible and keep your spot primed with smaller amounts of bait. If it isn’t possible to get to the lake on a regular basis, put out a larger amount of bait whenever you can get there.

Add liquids

This is a quick and simple way to instantly boost the attraction of your boilies. Pouring your chosen liquid flavouring over your baits the night before a session will give the liquid time to properly soak in and the baits will then slowly release attractants once in the water.

Changing location

As autumn begins water temperatures will still be relatively high and fish will invariably remain in, or close to, shallow areas of the lake. Carefully placed marginal traps will still work well. As the season progresses and water temperatures start to drop, the fish will start to move to deeper parts of the lake. Keep your eyes peeled for signs of fish activity so that you know in which areas they are spending most of their time.

Trick wary fish with crumb

As previously mentioned, boilies are an awesome autumnal bait. But if the fish in your lake have been heavily fished for with boilies for the entire year, the chances are they will have started to wise up to the little balls of food. Crumbing boilies will help to encourage these fish to feed with confidence and will also release their attractants quicker. A dumbbell hookbait is another great trick to fool carp that have wised up to round boilies straight out of the bag.

Boilies, boilies and more boilies

The weather was so hot this summer that carp will have spawned at least a couple of times. This means that they will need to pack on extra weight before winter. Good quality boilies are undoubtedly the best bait to help fish get back into peak condition.

Camouflage your end tackle

As autumn progresses you will notice the water clarity improve drastically. For this reason it becomes more important than ever to match your end tackle to the type of lakebed you are fishing over to ensure it blends in. The less visible it is the less likely a carp is to spook from it. If you are fishing over soft silty areas use black tubing or leadcore and darker hooklinks. On clear gravel areas fluorocarbon will be almost impossible for fish to see.