hook baits

[baitmaster]

in many cases now its more important to draw attention to your hook bait .
as water are now becoming pressurised beyond belief and carp are now getting wary very wary indeed . and we as angler need to try and either make are hook bait stand out .
this can be done in several different way by either making it smell different or act different or placing other baits as tight to it as possible the most common form of hook bait is the standard bottom bait .
so now we can change our hook bait by simply andding a pva stringer this now have added four or five other baits to are single hook bait therefore making it more difficult for the carp to tell the difference form the freebie than the hookbait.
now again you can change it again by having another hookbait added to the hair now you have a double hookbait .
this you can again customize by changing the second bait from a bottom bait to a pop up this now this makes your hook bait stand on end and this is normaly called a snowman.
now on pop ups frank warrick was a pioneer of very bright single pop ups and this tactic has put him huge numbers of carp on the bank
these are the standard changes we all have made when times get hard now there are several more changes and tweeks you can make .
now you can add bouyancy to your hook bait by making some pop up by using small cork balls and rapping them in the given base mix of your bottom baits or you can buy pop ups of the same and save all the hassle .
these can be made to to act as near to neutral bouyancy as possible ,these we call criticaly balanced and these are used to fool the wariest of carp .
again you can change you hook bait by soaking them in a bait soak or glug
(the longer in the glug the more extra flavour leakage you will get ).
if you do not want to glug your hook bait but you want to draw attention to in by ways of using a oil capsule which you hair rig directly under your bait as soon as you punture it with your baiting needle it release oils directly around your hook bait .
this above tactic is a favourite of ken townley .
another tactic to use to draw attention to your bait is to use a totally different bait to the free offerings this is called using an alternative hook bait . .
also we try and confuse the carp by baiting with various size free offering ,so why not try and also change your hook bait by cutting it in half and turn the two halfs making them look llike a butterfly on the hair ,
i do this so they do not reconize it as a hook bait ,and when i,m using chopped baits as free offering to comfuse the carp when feeding
i also will peel my hook bait making in look knarled and not ressembling a round sphere like the free offerings all around it .
so again changing it shapes can give you an edge .
now some time carp will be wary to feed and it nots until a baits have been out for a while will they eat them sometimes this can be after you have left the lake, so i wash baits out and try and make carp think they are safe to eat by making them think they have been out longer than they really have .
now i have only talked about boilies as hook baits and the baiting situation you might use if that all you have .
but you know there is hundreds of different types of baits out there and its fun to try lots of different baits when carping
so don,t just become boilie heads try every thing and any thing and you might even find something that no one else has tried and bag up .
but the fun is really in the trying and experimenting .

tightlines
baitmaster

[Rob M]

Cracking stuff Kev! Very informative mate. My PB was caught on PVA stringers, I love that method. When I did mine, I varied the size and flavour of the boilies, so it looked like a random scattering rather than a bunch of the same type

Rob

[baitmaster]

thank for that rob

tightlines
baitmaster

[Omahayank]

Cool beans, I'll bounce that off my fishing buddy when we try a carp bash up north of town.

[carper-chris]

great advice

[Norfolkboy]

Nice post Kev, plenty of good information that I'm sure will help us get more Carp on the bank.

[pingu]

nice one kev

[Twinkle]

Kev great post, will help me catch more