'Uncatchable' feeding fish.

Picture the scene; the small bay in front of you is three feet deep has a flat calm surface. Evening is drawing in and light levels have dimmed. Sparadic patched of bubbles emanating from the silty bottom begin to break the surface in discreet patches. These bubble patches increase in number and frequency as more fish join in. Before long the whole bay is a seething cauldron of bubbles. You can imagine the path of the unseen fish as bubbles appear in lines, one burst after another. Carp (all over 20lbs) begin to break the surface all over the bay; rising vertically before crashing down noisily. They are not feeding over any bait that you have put in. You suspect they may be preoccupied on naturals, maybe bloodworm. You are casting a float fished bunch of red maggots to patches of bubbles. The float is surrounded by bubbling fish, you know the bait is on the bottom. The bubbling continues furiously for 90 minutes and you don't get a single bite. It is all very exciting and ultimately very frustrating. Why couldn't you tempt these feeding fish. What was happening underwater? What would you have done to get a bite?

I've failed when faced with your scenario many times but have sometimes won by presenting worm, especially redworm, other times by fishing well overdepth, and other times by fishing the lift method. The only thing you can do is to keep trying different things, for the answer could be different every time you are faced with the same problem.

John,
Although it has been a long time since I fished exclusively for Carp, I'd have tried everything that Graham advocates as well, but I would have been tempted to stick with natural baits, worm, caster, maggot and even a slug if I could find one in the vicinity.

What time of the year did this happen?

Your answer just makes me want to cry. I was at the end of a two day session and I only had half a lob worm remaining from a huge bucket full. I fished this 12" overdepth as soon as the bubbling began. Within a minute this has been taken and resulted in a 21lb common. At the time I desperately wished I had more worms but hoped that red maggot would be a good alternative, especially if the carp were feeding on bloodworm. The maggots were ignored and I curse my profligate use of the worms during the previous 2 days. Pah!

Peter. It happened last Wednesday.

It happened to me this weekend too, on a water I know very well.
All I had were boilies and a few pellets and I could have torn my hair out.
Is there a certain natural that appears at this time of year because bubblers are fairly rare on this water?

Was there an abundance of tadpoles in the lake?

Just a thought.

Peter
Tadpoles? In October?
Also, bubbles are caused by digging in the bottom. Tadpoles swim midwater

this normally happens because of a sudden change in air pressure.
The extreme of this is when you have a clear summers day and you get a thunderstorm in the middle of it.
This drop in pressure causes the fish to hit the bottom and trough it up.
Whether this pressure change effects any invertabrates in the bottom or not I'm unsure.