Nuts about Carp

Everything Carp & Carp Fishing!!

Winter Carp Tactics

Winter time seems to have arrived at last...Sort of anyway! Albeit a rather mild version of winter. Its perhaps time to discuss a few of the techniques we can apply to our fishing to maybe swindle a fish or two out.

I have to admit to finding things a bit tougher this year myself and I wont lie to those of you seeking a miracle bait or technique for those winter specimens...Its hard work out there at the mo! Some times there is nothing you can do to tempt a fish to feed, but by being out on the lake you are giving yourself a much better chance of catching than the guy who is sat in the warm in front of the TV.

There are obviously many factors involved when fishing during the colder winter months and nothing more prevalent than that of the weather conditions.
Many of the methods, baits and tactics we use in the summer will still work during the winter but the one thing which can and usualy stands in the way of us catching is the weather.

Carp were always thought to just switch off and almost go into a hibernative state during the winter and I have observed carp doing little more than this sometimes. Carp still have to feed at some point and very slight temperature changes, wind direction and sunlight are all thought to be initial feeding triggers. Its widely believed that carp will feed down to about 39 deg at which they then become far less active.

I would personaly say that they become far less active at anything below around 45-48 deg and certainly appear harder to catch! A fall in the pressure or slightly warmer or wet weather can be good times to hit the bank side.
Carp will feed but often for much shorter periods of time, sometimes just an hour or even minutes of the day. This means that observation, bankside time and effort are all key factors in being successful during the winter.

Here below are just a few ideas and tactics I have personally used during the past and found to be effective on many occasions. I won't as I said to you, lie about winter time, It is hard and fish are few and far between. But, catch one this time of year and they are usually at their best weight and I have to be honest they usually also look stunning in the watered down sunlight of a winters day!

When the weather becomes cold and the fish become much harder to catch there are plenty of things we can do to still get a take even when the going gets really tough.

Here above are just a few ideas of the kind of different things you can do with pop ups for example. There is no end to the variety of bait combinations, flavours and colours you can use.

Possibly my favourite and well underated bait for this time of year is the humble maggot. There are obviously many ways to present the maggot but I prefer to use the madusa rig most of all. I always tend to use mixed maggots of  many colours in the rig as It looks great and Im sure stands out really well on the leaf encrusted bottom. I won't go to much into the logistics of the rig itself as its elsewhere on the site under occasional rigs. Presentation is the key to all rigs and a PVA bag with a handful of mixed coloured maggots in it and your nice ball of maggs in the middle of that is surely a great tempter for any carp. Stick a half dozen bouyant  artificial maggots on the same rig and you have yourself a lovely poped up maggot madusa.

You could, if your water responds to spodding techniques trickle in a spod or two of maggots through out the day over your baited area.

This spodding technique works well with Zig Rigs as well. The Zig Rig can be devastating this time of year as many carp hang around in the upper layers of the water trying to warm up in what ever sunlight they can find.
Never underestimate the power of sunlight too, even just a blim of light on an enclosed dark pond can give way to a great possible target area. The water temperature may only be a quarter of a percent warmer than anywhere else on the venue but that could be the key to locating the fish.

Remember youself too, that if you stay warm you'll fish far better than if you are freezing cold. You can always take clothes off but you can't put on what you havn't got! I choose to wear a thermal layer from the Nash stable, which is a pair of long johns and a thermal vest. A good quality pair of thick trekking socks and cool foot socks beneath those to stop my feet sweating. This is important as if your feet sweat then you sit and do nothing for a while they will soon get very cold! Multiple breathable layers is the key to winter warmth. Over this base layer I wear a breatable T shirt and a quality fleece. I then wear a coat of duck down or similar. My legs are covered with comfty dual thick trousers from North Face and then I wear either a pair of saloupettes or my gortex trousers. Footwear is simple, lined wellies or winter walking boots. Trainers will not surfice for warmth! If they get wet you get cold!

Dual skinned bivvys are an essential piece of kit this time of year if your considering venturing out overnight. This will stop the majority of condensation and help to store any warmth inside. A good thick ground sheet is also essential as the cold rises from up through the ground as well.
A five season sleeping bag and most of all a waterproof breathable sleeping bag cover. These bits of kit are a must for a decent nights warm rest. A good bed set up at a reasonable distance from the floor will stop cold rising into your back.

Another useful tip is when you sleep, keep your head covered with a hat, but not inside the sleeping bag itself as this causes damp air in the bag and will make your core temperature drop. Most quality 5 season bags have a draw string top...Use it...It will keep the warmth in ten fold!
When positioning the bed in the bivvy its also worth remembering to keep it away from the sides of the bivvy as this will attract the damp from the side of the bivvy wall to your bag.
 
Here's a useful little tip for you thats for knowing how much light you have left before darkness...Look at the horizon and position your clenched fist with the base on the horizon line and sun on top of your thumb. If the sun is right on top of your thumb, you have approx 45 mins of light left before sunset. Quite useful when your working to a light schedule and a bit fixed for time etc.

Plenty of hot drinks, soup etc are essential through the colder months but remember coffee drinkers out there...coffee is a diaretic which makes you pee! If you drink lots of coffee you'll probably need to get up in the night which isn't nice in cold winds below zero! I use a great petrol double burner stove to cook on because it works to much lower temperatures than butane gas. A word of warning here: I unfortunately lost a very good friend once to butane poisoning. He was trying to keep warm in the winter and closed his bivvy door with stove on. The wind got in and blew out the flame whilst he slept. A great loss of a lovely guy! Don't make the same mistake, oxygen soon depletes in the small area of a bivvy.

I have often found that in mid winter the key catching time is often between the hours of 1pm-3pm when the sun is at its strongest and highest in the sky. When choosing a winter swim I would try to get on the back of a cold wind and onto a bank that was receiving as much sunlight as possible. By doing this I have already increased my chances of catching. Obviously location is still the key element as it is at any point during the year.

Many of the summer spots you can catch carp from are still good catching points during the winter.

This I have proved by taking fish from under my inside margin in not more than 3 feet of water in a lake with depths to 17/18 feet.
I also know of a gentleman who swore blind on fishing for carp off the surface even when the venue he fished was almost completely frozen over!!!!
And yes, he did catch! A lot!!!

Another great technique to employ over the winter is to dip hookbaits (or glug) them in your chosen flavour. This works very well with a boilie fished on its own as the only atractor. This works on the principle that to taste the object the carp comes across, it has to taste the boilie on your rig and not baits around it first.

Once that fish tastes the bait its hooked! Carp are curious creatures and given an obvious easy food opportunity they will nearly always investigate. A single hookbait has to be taken in to sample the taste as its the only sample there too taste!

You could also enhance this single glugged hookbait further by introducing your chosen liquid flavour to the PVA bag. As long as the flavour is not water based in anyway it won't melt the bag.

A few years ago I had great winter results fishing a shallow estate lake in Hampshire with a depth of no more than 5 feet. The bait was a simple 50/50 base mix boilie with a small level of fishmeal inclusion but heavily coated in Marmite. This worked exceptionaly well and I took many good fish throughout the winter on this simple method.

My current boilie is of quite simple ingredients, but I have caught very well all year on them.

The base mix is as follows:

Perfect Plum 14mm

4x Large Eggs
10mls of Multimino
2grm of Betain HC1
6mls of Pineapple Flavouring
1mls of N-butryic Acid
2 grm of Red Colour
1/2 mls of liquid blue Colour (to make purple'ish colour)
1oz of Limestone Flour
1oz of crushed seeds(hemp,dari,tares)
2oz of Gram Flour
6oz of Semolina
6oz of Soya Flour

This mix works really nicely in the blender and forms lovely solid baits. Because of the simple structure and ingredients, easy to digest and forms a great floavour trpping bait. I always steam my baits too, this makes lovely firm skinned baits and as far as I am concerened stores a lot more of the flavour, oils etc than boiling them.

For bait introduction, all I can say is little and often is possibly the key success approach. The best bet would be to try and find out what has been working for everybody else first then emulate that if possible.
Im not saying fish exactly the same as John Smith next to you, but if it works for him and he's catching then try doing the same.

Don't forget to use artificials either, popped up plastic corn is another devastating bait this time of year. Pop up a couple of grains over a small handful of sweetcorn in the margins and you have a great chance of taking one. As with pop ups there is a huge array of colours, shapes, sizes and even flavoured everlasting baits now!

Going small! Small baits often work exceptionaly well this time of year. On a recent trip to Brasenose 1 on the Richworth Linear Complex, there was a guy who fished for 36 hours and took 19 fish to well over 25lbs. In early December!
He was fishing the same as everybody else but his hookbaits were 6-8mm in size with small hooks and short hairs.

In my match fishing days It was nothing unusual to have to go down to a size 24 hook just to buy myself a bite on an otherwise fruitless day. Taking this to mind I think its always worth this style of approach when carping too. Obviously it would be foolish to think we can fish size 24's but we could drop down to 12's maybe. Fox do some nice size 12 wide gapes that would work nice with a grain or two of corn or a hair rigged 6-8mm boilie.

Going back to the single hookbait option again briefly, The Snowman Rig is another very effective way to fish this time of year and has accounted for many very big fish. This rig gives you many various bait options with the use of either boilies of the same, multiple colours and even artificials such as corn or rubber pellet on top of a boilie. The options are pretty much endless.

Well I hope some of this has helped to get you thinking about your winter approach. I wouldn't say anything in fishing is absolutely full proof and struggling in the winter months is unfortunatley par for the course. Keep things simple, feed small but regular, locate the fish. Choose a venue thats not too deep and fish at likely times to increase your likelyhood of a take. Lets remember one thing most....He who ventures out stands the most chance of catching fish. He who stays at home stands no chance!
There are other benefits to winter fishing, lets face it how many times do you have the bankside to yourself this time of year!
top