My Approach to Winter Carping

Mmmm...... Winter mornings! Dispelling the myths of winter carping Well, winter's finally here - time to change your bait and rigs, swapping the summer fishmeals and combi-links for hi-attract pop-ups and fine mono's. But why? Is there any proof that it'll catch you more fish, or could you actually be catching less than you could be? Over the next two or three months, I'm going to try and prove or dispel a couple of myths. I've got no idea what the results will be, or what I will actually prove, but I'll give it a good try. Winter Myth 1 Don't use fishmeals - carp can't digest them properly, so using them will be detrimental to your fishing. Essential Baits Shellfish B5 - in its full blown summer version Winter Myth 2 Fine your tackle down as carp are more finicky in the winter - they are more careful when feeding so rigs need to be more “tricky”. Winter Myth 3 As carp need to feed less, don't put much in - they will fill up too quickly What I propose to do is carry on using my summer bait - Essential Baits Shellfish B5 - in its full blown summer version (rather than the winterised one) on one rod, and keep feeding it in fairly large quantities (for an overnighter). The bait has been going into the water for a few years now and I'm totally confident with it. If myth 1 is true, catches should drop off as the winter goes on. On another rod, I will use a 'proper' HNV milk protein bait in its no-holds-barred, no expense spared version. This will be Nutrabaits Hi-Nu-Val plus the full complement of the Addits - a selection of Amino Acid preparations - plus Liquid Liver, a nut oil and an Essential Oil as a nutritional 'label'. In theory, this should start slow(ish), but get better as time goes by - at least until the second half of spring when a fishmeal should start to take over. Again, at least a kilo will go in per week. Rod 3 will be the infamous yellow pineapple pop-up with a bag of low oil pellet - seemingly 'the' method for winter. This should be steady through the winter, but nothing spectacular. One reason people seem to rate this method is that it's all they use! as I'm not trying not to catch fish with them (if that makes sense) I may swap to using them with method mix if I feel it's worth it. Rigs will be kept the same for the two boilies rods, either snowman or single bottom baits presentations to size 8 Gardner Muggas and 15lb Kryston Mantis Dark or 8lb Riverge Fluorocarbon to size 8 Muggas. The same hooklength material will be used on both rods. The same presentation will be used for both, ie, a stringer on one rod will mean the same on the other. Nutrabaits Hi-Nu-Val plus…. The pop-ups will be fished on a 360 rig using a size 6 Mugga and Mantis Dark. I'm trying not to get too into the bait digestibility debate; some modern thinking is that milk proteins are actually harder for fish to digest than the modern fishmeals - but there again the results will back this up if it's the case. To be fair to the Hi-Nu-Val, it was designed when fishmeal baits were relatively basic, and they had a very high fish oil content leading to possible digestion problems. People often talk about this type of bait as a 'natural' one, but there's not many sources of milk in a lake! With regards to rigs, some people give the impression that carp are cleverer in the winter, so finer, more sensitive tackle is needed. But surely with carp being cold blooded animals, if the water is very cold they will be less 'clever' as their metabolism will be slower. So long as the hook turns and is sharp that should be all that's important. If anything the hooklength should be shorter, not longer…. In my view, if you keep bait going in, the fish should keep eating it - it's only stopping it going in that will stop the fish eating, making it hard to get them to start again. To be fair, me putting in 2kg or so a week isn't much, but it'll be going into a smallish area where I know the fish normally sit over winter - hopefully a few others will be putting a bit of bait in too. I can fish the spot from four different swims, so hopefully I can always get to them - I want to keep as many things constant as possible. So you should start seeing catch (or blank!) reports from me, and hopefully we can see some trends. Or maybe I'll be resorting to maggots and corn in a couple of weeks! The infamous yellow pineapple pop-up RECIPES Shellfish B5 Hi-Nu-Val 16oz Basemix 11oz Hi-Nu-Val 4ml Shellfish Plum 1oz Robin Red 20ml Red Salmon Oil 2gm Addit Taste 1Tsp Fruit Factor 6 2gm Addit Digest 5gm Green Lipped Mussel 2gm Addit Attract 10ml Nutramino 5ml Toasted Sessame Oil 5 drops Cassia Terpenes NEXT - The first session