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Carp Fishing Q&A: Tips for fishing imitation carp baits?
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Written by Julian Grattidge
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Thursday, 07 October 2010 14:35
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Question: Dear NWC, I'm a bit of a seasoned campaigner in angling terms and quite old school at heart. That said I've been trying more and more new things over the last season after reading lots on your site and have had better results, so this is one old dog who's happy to learn a few new tricks! I was talking to a lad last week who is having lots of carp on my water and he says they have all been caught on fake baits. I've never used them before as it just seems a bit mad not to have any actual bait on the hook, but his catches can't be ignored. Any tips you could offer to a complete novice in this regard? Keep up the good work with the site, Geoff.
Answer: Hi Geoff, glad you are picking up some good carp fishing tips from the website. Imitation or ‘fake' baits as they are known can be a devastating bait for carp, but as you say, the whole concept seems odd to many, and using them in place of a proper feed bait can be quite a leap of faith - but the results can be astonishing at times so it's definitely worth giving them a go.
There are two main approaches when it comes to fishing imitation carp baits. The most common way is to present a fake bait over a bed of the real thing; for example fishing a few grains of imitation corn on the hair over a bed of real sweetcorn feedbait. In this instance the benefit is mainly in guaranteed presentation. By this I mean that because it won't come off the hair on the cast, and because it won't get eaten away by smaller fish, you can leave it out for as long as you like over a bed of bait - or on its own - safe in the knowledge everything is presented perfectly.
'Mutant' Imitation corn from Nash Tackle
When fishing real corn it can be extremely fiddly to get four or five grains on the hair neatly, and chances are you're going to loose a couple on the cast if you're fishing at distance. Once you do get it out over a nice bed of particles, the slightest beep from the bite alarm or knocks on the line will have you wondering if it's still on, so you usually end up reeling in and casting out again - by using a fake bait you do away with all these issues, as it's a cast iron guarantee it will still be on the hair even if you leave it out for a week!
The other approach with imitation baits is to use them in completely the opposite manner, so that they stand out from everything around them. Using this approach you hope to make the carp sit up and take notice, and aim to get a bite by playing on their curious nature. In this manner you can fish them popped up, zig rigged, or even as surface baits, and you can get them in all sorts of shapes, sizes, flavours, and colours - you can even get ones that glow in the dark!
Personally, I've had my best results using imitation flavoured corn; either fished over a bed of the real stuff or completely on its own. I know a lot of anglers like to use a few real grains as well as a few fake grains on the hair (as much for their own confidence I think) but you really don't need to. My preference is usually to fish two fake grains of corn on the hair and that's it. I've often found it comes into its own on highly pressured waters that see a lot of bait, or those where the inhabitants have seen it all before. One such venue was Birch Grove, where over a number of years we had some fantastic results fishing fake baits with virtually no freebait. You'd book the water between a party of four for the week. It was never an easy water and you'd often find those on before you had tried baited spots all over the shop to try and get at the fish, and failing all else would often go for a mammoth baited patch as a last resort at the end of the week. As such, you never knew just how much bait had been tipped in immediately prior to your arrival. Our results on the imitation corn were fantastic and over the years it became our standard approach, four of us fishing four rods each, and all on imitation corn fished over minimal feedbait. We often had three or four fish between us in a night using imitation corn, when many parties struggled to catch a fish between them in a whole week - so their effectiveness speaks for itself!
Imitation baits can be deadly for casting to showing fish too, especially in shallow or clear water, or when positioned up against marginal or obvious patrol route features like sedges, reeds, weed or lily pads, etc. You'll often get a screaming run just after dawn as the carp start to forage, and that's why I often favour a single hookbait approach with imitation baits - I think the fish often think they've stumbled across a tasty little morsel the other fish must have missed - one which they'd better eat up quick before it's gone, whereas, were it fished over a big bed of bait, they might be more on their guard. As such, for me it's definitely one of those methods where less can be more, if you know what I mean.
It can be a daunting prospect to put all your faith in a tiny bit of rubber, but persevere, the results will come, and when they do, you'll never look back!
Tight lines...
Julian
Helpful Links: Enterprise Imitation Baits / Nash Imitation Baits / All Imitation Baits
Julian Grattidge
October 2010
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