Baiting for Carp...

Hello all,

I have fished for some 15 years. generally pleasure fishing and then progressing into specimen hunting in the form of Tench, Bream, Pike and Chub... Now I have decided that enough is enough and I want to get into the Carp scene... I have been put off in recent years due to the 'supposed' cost of Carp fishing but also that it can appear like your fishing for 'pets' with fish having names an all!!!
Still, the lure of big hard fighting Carp is now too much to resist and I am now going to dedicate the coming season to catching them (I hope!)

Enough babble... My question is this:
There is such a mass of baiting advice in mags etc that I am a little overwhelmed. Some people recommend piling bait in with ammounts up to 80lbs in wait! (the big cost of Carp fishing as I mentioned) others recommened setting little traps with just a choice few offerings...? With Spods, Marker floats, pellets, particals, ground bait mixes galore, PVA bags and string and then the rather massive subject of boilies, where do I start!!!...??? Fruit boilies in winter and fishmeal ones in summer last thing I read...

Any help to suit a budget of about 20 quid for a session would be a great help and hints on presentation would be a great help too!!!

Thanks,

Jeff

Jeff.... no replies, so heres my "normal strategy"

I like to bait up using mainly pellets... i buy from a variety of places and make up my own mix of pellets from 3mm up to 11mm high betains... i just keep on adding to the mix.Also in the tub are hemp pellets and CSL ;-) I like to put more of the smaller sizes in, as the bigger ones are more like my hook baits? ... observe the breakdown times and the small pellets should be breaking up and clouding pretty quickly.

I also use boilies, but never really mass bait with them.... i prefer to attract fish to the area using a groundbait, usually my pellet mix and something like vitalin, a crumb base, or particle mix.....

If you are confident that your boilie freebies are being taken, then feel free to bait up with more.... but if not.. do you want a mound of uneaten boilies in your area?...

This is my method... but i'm really fishing one fish at a time, rather than going for broke!