To pop-up or not to pop-up?

This is the qustion...
I'm a beginner carp fisherman and even though I 15 years fishing experience I still feel it is sensible to make things as easy as possible in the beginning, right? Well I've got together what I hope is a good selection of kit and am now turning my attentions to bait, and oh my god there is some serious choices to be made here! What do you lot recommend, I'm thinking that I want to get stuck strait into boilies and avoid pellets etc at this early stage. So what's a good safe(er) bet to begin with and do you recommend trying pop-ups in my infancy? and what sort of things do I need to know about critical ballance that I have sort of applied to my tench fishing in the past?

Thanks

Hi - having been thru the initiation stages, and now getting into the next phase of learning, I would suggest you settle on a few basics first. Like just getting used to baiting hair rigs, concentrating on finding and locating the fish and adopting some fairly simple baiting techniques.

The best thing to do, if the locals oblige, is to ask what is catching. Dont be too narrow by just selecting boilies. Even though they are effective on most waters, more "traditional" baits like corn / maize can be more effective.

If I had my time starting over again I would do the following -

1. More time looking around and picking good likely feeding spots;
2. Learn to use the PVA bag earlier as my first baiting up technique (unless close in when I would just c'pault it in);
3. This may not be relevant for you, but I would have spent a bit more time practicing casting;
4. Use two basic presentations (if you have two rods) one pop up, when very basic hair rig presentation.

.....then just build on it. Good luck

Thanks mate, Just a lot of baits to choose from that's all!