Since My last blog the water temps have risen and with this the Carp through the Daytimes spend a lot of there time in the upper water hardly interested in feeding. As it was also a very busy public park I ruled out fishing daytimes an planned to concentrate my sessions through the late afternoons an evenings into early mornings, this way the park would be quieter with less people around and in past experience these were some of the best times to grab a bite.

The Daytime wasn’t a complete write off as this was a good time to Prime a few spots without actually fishing them an also check out the patrol routes of the resident Carp for future reference.

Swim Choice I decided to fish the same spots whenever I could the swim was in the middle of the lake which gave me plenty of water to go at, and a margin area which was surrounded by overhanging trees that I knew from following them about liked to visit.

I had 4 Spots dotted around my swim which I would bait regulary for a few hours without any lines in the water then I would fish these spots in the late afternoon giving the fish around half a kilo of the Awesome RedBall Bottom Baits available from First4Fishing an letting them build confidence. Bait Wise what I like to do is feed different sized baits from Boilie Crumb Half Baits all the way upto to 18mm Whole Frozen Baits. Although My hookbaits would be Shelflifes tipped with Enterprise Rubber Corn. the reason being Frozen Baits have less Preservatives than Shelfies so in turn when the fish picks up an easily Digestable Frozeen bait like the Redball then they will start moving around looking for more of these baits  I use shelfies as hookbaits tipped with rubber corn because as the fish become more active looking for baits, a shelf life which is packed with preservative an additives with a fleck of colour to it Can stand out from the rest cos of its food signals an fleck of colour an can sometimes grab u a quick bite.

Consistency is KEY

Since the beginning of the season I had kept applying bait to my chosen swim either during my session or as I was packing away I would put out a big spread of so the fish could keep finding my baits although I wasn’t actually fishing for them. The Rigs I was using to catch these fish were simple as u get, A simple inline Set-up with a basic supple braided knotless knot set-up which I had complete confidence in using. Although the fish in the lake are old I think applying a bait consistently and gaining there confidence can make them a lot easier to catch The Proof of this being that I have only managed a couple of quick overnighters but managed 17 Fish since May  including 2 of the biggest Fish (1 of them my fiancée caught) in the Lake and a massive 3lb ‘shy feeding’ Crucian Carp which goes to show how effective a basic rig can be if you can get the fish feeding confidently an I believe consistency is definetly key to this.