Is it Location... or the Bait?

by

Joe Bruce

Here is something to keep in mind, especially for the newcomers getting into carp fishing. How many times have you had more success or less where you set up in a swim twenty or thirty yards from the next carper, and he was or wasn’t doing better than you?

Do you think it was his bait? Or was it the location?

If your bait is time-tested and you have complete confidence in it, then it is location most times you aren’t catching fish. I fish nothing but method feeders and a pack bait formula that has worked on a couple thousand carp, plus fake corn on my hair rig, if carp are active, I’m going to catch some.

Notice I used the word active, if they aren’t active, they won’t bite. I believe some fishermen think fish eat all day. This is so far from the truth. Nothing alive feeds all day. So many factors contribute to fish activity.

Weather and temperature are a couple, in the colder months carp metabolism is low they might only feed for an hour or two all day. Just because we are out trying to catch one doesn’t mean anything to the carp, some days we are going to get skunked.

Many times, my carping buddy and I have been set up right next to each other, casting in different directions with the same pack bait and hair rig combination with one of us more successful.

We have fished the same venue numerous times and we have switched our setups to allow the other fisherman a better shot at where the carp were on a previous trip to find now, the carp were where one of us was the previous session.

We have fished many locations both freshwater and tidal water with great success at times and marginal at others, but we have never felt our pack bait or what was on our hooked bait was the reason we weren’t catching carp.

We have fished a tidal venue more than twenty plus times, having many days with numbers in the twenty to thirty-plus fish and for almost two months, then for the next two months just about nothing; it was close to spawning time. The carp had moved.

We even used depth finders with our kayaks to check out the bottom and find where the carp were. There were no carp where we have been so successful. They left the creek to spawn upriver. It was never about the bait but location and timing, the fish moved.

They started to come back and again we were having big numbers. It had nothing to do with what was on the end of our hooked baits.

I laugh when someone states he was successful using peach-flavored tigernuts with a banana-flavored boilie and sweet corn with a PVA bag with some fancy hooked bait combination and this is all he would ever use. He had confidence in his bait, what happens when the carp have moved? Does he still fish the same bait combo or keep changing baits and hooked rig? Or go home without a run.

Carp are always moving. A hot spot one day is a sour spot the next. If the carp aren’t there it doesn’t matter what kind of bait or what is on the hair rig.

My carping buddy and I both agree that sometimes ten feet can make a difference.

My carp partners and I use a well-balanced number of ingredients in our pack bait, that has been time-tested over the years and a few thousand carp. We feel the carp are attracted to our pack bait not what is applied to the hook.

The scent from the bait brought the carp to the site, not the peach-flavored tigernuts with the banana-flavored boilie with the sweet corn, it was the pack bait, and in the process of them rummaging around the feeder, they became hooked. We feel this would happen even if there was not any product applied to the hair rig.

A follow up on “Is it Location or bait.

My carp buddy and I fished at our favorite carp venue with great success today.

Here is the significance of location instead of what is on the hooked bait. We both were using the same pack bait and fake corn on our hair rigs.

I started to fish closer to the shore and caught the first two carp; then my partner casting farther out caught fourteen carp. Not needing too big a hammer to hit me on the head I started casting farther. He was still out fishing me.

He was throwing a 3ozs feeders in this tidal water and I was only throwing 1 oz feeders. I was not landing near the area my partner was reaching. I switched to 3 oz feeders also and started catching fish as steadily as my partner.

Location made all the difference. The pack bait was the same and the hair rigs likewise. The distance from the shore was the key. This reinforced to me how important location is over what is on my hair rig. As I have stated, the pack bait was drawing in the carp not what was hanging on the hook.

This happened again on our last tidal trip for carp. My partner had caught seven carp before I caught my first one. We both were using the identical pack bait formula and fake corn on the hair rig, but he was doing better, it boiled down to the distance he was casting compared to my casts. I have a bum shoulder and it is hard for me to put as much effort into the cast as my partner.

He graciously offered to cast my rods, which are also identical to his rods. I accepted his offer and proceeded to catch carp at the same rate as my buddy.

Again, location was the factor, not bait or what was on the hair rig. The difference between my cast and his wasn’t much more than twenty yards.

Met a couple of carp buddies down in what we call our “winter hole” for some carping. I got there a little early and set up on the right of our swim. The swim is wide enough to handle three pods, but when a carp decides to go on a extended run after being hooked it can get interesting.

I have fished this area many times and have done well where I set up. I guess I was there for about an hour before the guys showed up with nothing to show for my time on the water. This is a tidal creek with a heavy current strong enough to even move a 3 oz. method feeder across the bottom.

All three of us were just watching our nine rods for a few hours when one of the middle pod rods went off. At this point the tide had been running for over three hours and the tide was slowing down.

We all agreed that the fish fed more consistently when the tide was going slack or when the tide is starting to go out, it is slower. This certainly was the case today.

But it wasn’t just the tide, it was again location. I was fishing downstream of my two buddies, and they were fishing across and a little upstream. They caught all the carp today. It wasn’t a banner day with only six carp, but it was a winter outing with friends.

And it wasn’t they were using different pack bait because they were using mine. They forgot and left theirs in the truck. Regardless of the bait it was the location. There was some change in the bottom that the carp were moving in.

Without a doubt in my mind or my carp buddies, location is a large factor in catching and not catching carp, regardless of bait used.

For those fisherman just getting into the sport, don’t be fooled into thinking rigs with exotic baits is always the answer, use a pack bait formula that has been time-tested. This is what brings the fish to the area, not some combination on the hair rig. If you are not catching carp, cast around, the carp could be ten feet from your bait.