Dog Biscuit

[Marvin Village]

not being a 'carper' myself i am after a little advice if poss.
i fished a pool last night from 7 till 10.30pm spent the first hour introducing bait (dog biscuit) and letting the carp get there confidence up, i started fishing at about 8 ish.
usual story i suppose really, they took everything apart from my biscuit, i had the fish boiling on the surface with fish easily well into double figures and a huge ghost carp that seems to be hoovering up everything.
i managed to hook and land two fish (1 about 6lb and the other 11lb) but there must have been 30 fish milling around of which 6 or 7 were well into double figures
i had a hair rigged a single dog biscuit on a 8lb Korum hair rig, 12 hook, to a 10 lb maxima mainline, free lined about 5 metres out, ( i fished with a controller a few nights ago and i think it spooks them, the only way i could get confident takes was to freeline)
i have heard if you dip your biscuit in marmite this helps
i cannot go down in line diameter because last cast, i got broke off by one of the bigger fish

 

[davestocker]

Use a fly rod & a non-hair rigged biscuit fly. Can't see the point of hair rigging a surface bait. I'm beginning to think that dog biscuit baits are are a bit big for smaller carps' mouths when they're surface feeding. I must have missed 20 fish in a short session yesterday. Given that my fishery's carp are familiar with surface baits, I might try floating pellets of some kind, and a pellet fly as my next experiment.

 

[Barry Edney]

I had some 6mm expander pellets that had been in my bag unused for ages. There were a couple of carp milling around just beneath the surface in front of me, so I threw a couple of handfuls of these pellets in and they started taking them straight away. After a few more handfuls, there must have been about a dozen carp all taking confidently. (Much more confident than I have ever seen them take dog biccies) I soaked a few in the bottom of a bait box to use as hook bait and hooked 1 directly onto a 14s hook.

The takes were as confident as they were taking the freebies. Maybe that was because they were not used to being fed such small offerings on the surface.

One problem I did have though was the ones with the hook in didn't stay on the surface for very long. After about 5 mins they very slowly started to sink. But this wasn't really that much of a problem as the carp would still take the sinking ones, and I just watched the line to indicate a bite.

 

[Ian Cloke]

Marvin, instead of hairrigging a D/B try making a small incision into the D/B with a hacksaw blade(about 1-2mm deep), put a blob of superglue into the cut, then put the shank of your hook onto the blob of glue. Making sure you leave the point of the hook away from the D/B(ofcourse).

 

[Stuart Dennis]

Afternoon guys,

In a nutshell if you wanna use dog biscuits then follow this link. I've had much success with this method alongside a controler. The weight in the fake bait pulls the biscuit round so your hook sits on its back on the surface. You just push your hook through the rubber bait. No need to worry about soaking and the imatation is spot on.

copy and paste in your browser:

http://www.enterprisetackle.co.uk/baithtm/dogbiscuit.htm

 

[Robbie H]

Marvin, i would say the bigger carp are wise to the d/b's. Try something else, like the opther guy's have suggested. Or even pop-up boilies. Anything to catch them out (excuse the pun). Or even flavoured cork balls maybe?

 

[Ozz]

I've been using Bakers meaty chunks for about two years now, and would recommend these over chum mixers etc.

 

[Frothey]

if you think they're wising up to mixers, try koi sticks with those cork plugs on the hook.

 

[Marvin Village]

a mate suggested a pop up boilie, i am assuming that you would hair rig this in the same way as a dog biscuit

 

[sash]

The fact that they are mopping up the loose feed suggests that they are wary of your presentation, not the bait itself and as you're freelining means it can only be the line or the hook.

As others have suggested try an arrangement that will leave the hook uppermost but I would initially try one of the controllers that lifts the line nearest the hook off the surface. Alternatively, how about presenting a zig-rigged floater amongst the freebies which offers a completely different presentation with a sunken line?

 

[Terry Parsons]

floating pellets are by far better than d/b's. ou can get them in some decent sizes and flavours now.i have used a squid scopex pellet with bread crust as freebies and had no problem getting bites.

 

[Dave -------------------]

just so add my recent experiences, i have had a lot of sucess using the enterprise dog biscuits...as well as the fact that they flip the hook out the water, being an artificial bait means less time out of the water fiddling around with supper glue so in my mind increases the likely hood of success just by being in the water more for every hour on the bank.

On a recent trip i had a few fish on the artificial D/B then got broken up.
I then found i had no more of them left....decided to change my setup and use a braid mainline with a short 10lb mono hooklength i have found some larger real db's approx 8mm and attached these using the hacksaw and glue approach...i had another three fish on this rig...

Other random feelings i have about surface fishing...sometimes i feel that feeding less once you have a attracted a group of fish adds an element of competition and sometimes causes the fish to be a little more aggressive and less circumspect when taking your hook bait...i have also found that on occasion a very slight movement of the hookbait can induce a take and often quite an aggressive one...

The few hours i spent with braid where interesting as it gives you a much more direct contact which i think could be of benefit when having to strike at some of the really quick takes.

anyway back to work....

 

[Big Rik]

interesting stuff Dave -------------

How about an article?

 

[Stuart Dennis]

As stated above I've had some great sucess on dog biscuits and floating pellets but nowhere near as much success than what I've had on the bread roll rig.

A superb invention of which needs to be used before passing comment or opinion. I've got to bow down to CAKEY for showing me that one.

Sure he did an article/rig on here actually.

Cakes?

 

[Bryan Baron 2]

I have also been using the Enterprise fake Dog Biscuits over the last 2 seasons. With some good results. The set up i use is a Greys Prodigy Barbel 1.75Ib, 20Ib fireline braid, controller and 10 foot of Krystonite in 8Ib as a hook length with a size 12 Drennan super specimen hook. Have managed carp upto 16Ib on this set up with no worries.

Have also found same as Dave that feeding little and often when they are on your bait gets a more positive bite. On the water i fish any movement of the bait will send the carp running.

 

[Ozz]

http://www.fishingmagic.com/news/article/mps/UAN/1902/V/1/SP/

I think shud be Cakeys article matey

 

[Dave -------------------]

...blimey well i could knock something up, i kind of assumed that most of what i had mentioned would have been covered...but i could give it a go....

 

[Marvin Village]

not to dig up old bones but there seems to have been a farly firey debate on the bread roll rig, i started reading the posts but theres about 100, could anyone that followed the thread, give me a brief resume of whether this was a considered a dangerous rig or not

 

[Stuart Dennis]

Me finks it was considered dangerous by thos who perhaps hadn't seen the method in actual work flow. I've nevr had anything other than a bottom lip hook take.

 

[Frothey]

all i'd say is that it wouldnt have been the first rig to be "banned" by people that have "heard" of problems, but never actually seen them for themselves......

not a lot different to having the bait on a long hair is it?