Do you feel you are taking too long in achieving your carp fishing goals? If so, how can you ensure you achieve all the success you dream of for less effort and time and what do very many big name anglers do that makes it look so easy? Shave years off and speed things up by reading on!
There is a vital pivotal point that is central to maximising your results in carp fishing that most anglers over-look in their rush for the most fashionable new rod or reel or latest bait. I will reveal this secret in a moment because it seems that far too many anglers on the bank misunderstand this! But possibly the first point to state is that everyone can catch the kind fish they dream of catching. It may well be that not really believing this is the first barrier. When you truly believe you can - you will because you will find yourself doing the right things at the right time in the right places! The subconscious mind works wonders when correctly programmed and Kevin Maddocks was spot-on when he said a positive mental attitude is of paramount importance (in this case when referring winter carp fishing in particular, but the principle applies all year!)
Very many carp anglers see the high profile anglers catching big fish and feel intimidated, feeling that these anglers are a cut above the rest and somehow have a bubble of huge advantages at their disposal that an average carp angler cannot match. It is certainly true that such guys have competitive advantages but it is also true that many of them have paid the price for these in advance by putting in far more effort and applied dedication to becoming much better in their sport than the average occasional or week-end carp angler!
The anglers you meet who seem to catch all the fish will generally have one thing in common and it is very simple. They are confident and they think confidently! This is their greatest competitive edge in many ways because unconsciously their minds are therefore fully open to receiving all input of every kind from every source that will lead inevitably towards further success. The fact that they might have more time, or money or bait or tackle or connections to get onto waters etc are meaningless if they do not think like a winner to begin with!
It is no secret that thousands of anglers every week fish with lots of bait, the newest tackle and on renowned big fish waters and yet really fail to succeed in comparison to other anglers around them. The fact is that carp fishing is about thinking. Only those anglers with the most open minds are flexible enough to be able to constantly change not only ho the think but the actions their thoughts produce so in turn keeping them ahead of the game in terms of the carp and their competitors.
There are creative innovations that we take for granted completely now but which have seriously boosted catches all around the world to the degree that carp fishing may well not have become the cult sport it is today without such ingenuity!
These creations include the following: the hair rig, hard over-flavoured instant boilies used with bolt rigs, long-term high nutrition boilies, polyvinyl acetate water soluble bait products, electric bite indicators and adjustable swinger indicators, use of high line capacity big sea fishing reels teamed with long-range customised rods for large water fishing, the application of sweetcorn, Robin Red, L030 fish protein and Minamino to carp fishing baits and so on. How many more can you think of?
Just think about it. Like-minded groups of disparate individuals as well as actual individuals and friends have evolved these or brought them into the carp fishing world. Each of these innovation applications were the result of belief in conquering a problem and were applied to over-coming them. But without the correct positive mind-set then many of these would simply be missed and never have been spotted or tried in carp fishing.
Many of these have made house-hold names of the originators or claimed originators of these things and applications. Sometimes there are periods when some of these kinds of special advantages you might say, are evolved or developed by numerous people at the same time without them knowing anything about the other. This can be seen in various areas such as the development of the hair rig, or the true inventors of our worlds electricity systems, the telephone, radio, TV and so on.
I was using a hook with line attached with a bait on in the Seventies originally for bass fishing and other anglers applied exactly the same thinking of improving hooking and bait presentation at the same time and long before this time to develop hair rigs for carp and other fish independently of any individual claimants of any particular rig origination. But carp fishing used to be a serious world of secrets. Just a few decades ago carp fishing secrets that are very well known now were simply not discussed unless you happened to be in the right clique or circle or group because everyone knew just how much effort goes into these things and wished to exploit them to maximum effect before the herd gets wind of them.
Now the point here is that you too can create your own innovative competitive edges and the problems that face in your fishing provide the very solutions you may be seeking. The trick is not even to event something new but to use something that already exists in new ways. You can do things just 10 percent differently and get a huge multiplication your success. For instance, being able to cast 5 yards further, being able to identify feeding spots just 10 percent better than most anglers, being able to choose and apply baits 10 percent better than other anglers.
You might think about the different characteristics of individual high profile anglers that make them that bit more successful. It might be excellent watercraft skill. It might be incredible casting acuity and acumen. It might be the ability to adapt rigs and tactics in response to changing carp behaviours and habits. It might be the willingness to move focus upon identifying finding fish and being totally willing to move swims at 3 or 4 in the morning. Some anglers may have a bottomless bait supply and through long practice know exactly how and when to apply various baits to maximum effect.
Some of these things may not seem like a big deal. But this is probably because some of these at least are easily within everyones reach. The difference between many of the higher profile carp anglers and the casual carper is that many casual carp anglers just do not seem to realise this sport and passion begins with the fish themselves and not with all the paraphernalia associated with it. In fact pretty much all the commercial oriented products do is exploit everything about the fish without actually making it very obvious that this is the key!
Success is a formula, a recipe of combining the right refinements together at the right times, consistently. Because fishing for big carp is a skill and an art that can be learned and developed this means all carp anglers with strong intention can become the kind of angler who is consistently successful and this really means always having an open mind! Remember when you were a beginner, when everything seemed magical and exciting and mysterious?
All the possibilities in terms of where to fish, what tackle to use, what bait to use; all these things with a positive mind set equal the fastest learning of all. Now I focus on the learning bit here because just a small bit of information can transform your catches completely and this goes on over and over again all the time for anglers with an open mind! But all too often the average carp angler gets caught up in a rut of thinking in ways that are out of date!
This is the biggest danger of getting too attached to what is new, what your mates are buying, what their opinions on what the best reel, or rod or bivvy or bite alarm or bait are. Do you see where this is leading? The starting point must always be the fish. They provide all the solutions you need because you and your fellow carp anglers are training them and conditioning them dynamically be everything you do and use while fishing and even your very presence on the bank trains them.
If you want most success and wish to achieve all your carp fishing dreams faster than your ever imagined, it all begins with studying your fish. As the saying goes, know your enemy better than yourself! The top anglers are doing things all the time that exploit weaknesses in carp defenses that they have evolved and are constantly adapting in order to avoid getting hooked. This is the right mind set in action and is best described as thinking like a carp!
Many aspects of fishing for carp fishing are easily available to everyone including all the big fish carp waters and all the tackle and baits now available plus loads of magazines and websites on fishing. What really matters is how your mind sees all this stuff - because everyone is in a world of their own as each and every individuals perspective of reality and the big picture of things is unique to himself alone! Next time you go on a new lake and some of the locals or regular anglers say it is hard it is very often in their own minds. Beginners get much more luck because they are often employing different tactics, use of different swims, different baiting methods and tackle and rigs and a different mindset in general to those of anglers already entrenched on a water.
It is like Jim Shelley who went and fished Conningbrook for the British Record carp. The regulars had told him that using lots of bait is a bad idea. Lots of anglers these days just use PVA netting and pellets for instance. Maybe they know Jim Shelley often uses loads of bait, far more than average anglers might imagine. Either way, he fished for just a few days, baited up heavily in right in the weed I believe, and he caught the British record fish! You have to consider that here is a guy who is a pretty much full-time angler who is so in-tune and refined in his fishing he can unravel very many variables in terms of fishing pressure, fishing tactics to use and baiting levels etc based on what he has heard and seen on such a water that has seen many very good anglers over the decades.
Basically he knows how fish behave in response to anglers baits, lines, and tactics and he knows that being different even in what seems like minor ways makes all the difference; the fish themselves provide the clues. Many anglers hate fishing directly into weed, but carp can clear weed fast when feeding hard by regular baiting. Jim has been a regular at so many heavily weeds big fish water because in so many ways big fish and rich waters go inevitably together!
Some of the biggest breakthroughs in carp baits came anglers with open minds. And it is noticeable that Einstein had a way of questioning that helped constantly question conventional thinking so enabling further progress and advancements to be made.
How you noticed how you can go for long periods of time thinking something was absolutely right but finding this a limiting factor in your success? Then you might have thought to yourself, what if I consider that thing to be wrong - would this remove the limit to my thinking so I can see the light and find answers and solutions I never saw before? Imagine if you will if the boilie or hair-rig or pop-up bait had not been invented and you still had to think for yourself. (How would your mind reach the end result of the HNV or balanced profile protein bait, or pop-up baits, flavour over-dosed instant baits and so on?)
So picture this: when you have located your fish feeding in front of you, and you have a sharp hook on, what is it that will catch those carp that prevents a blank? The answer ultimately is it is the thing that delivers your hook into the mouth of the carp. It does not matter if this happens even for a fraction of a second - just long enough to enable the hook to penetrate and result in a carp self-hooking itself so deeply it cannot get off the hook before all the added pressure of lines, leads, back leads, indicators, clips, reel clutches etc kick in.
I have over the last year been testing really heavy rigs with eighteen pound monofilament line hook links and big size 4 hooks to remove any refinements. The tests were with paste on the hooks directly. In doing this I was replicating how most carp fishing was done prior to the hair rig in the immediately preceding years and this is a set-up that often produces fewer fish actually hooked even though baits may be held between the lips, pulled, and even mouthed. My tests were based around experiments with various fish feeding triggers and other things that enhance bait palatability and stimulate different aspects of the sensory systems of carp internally and externally.
Of course, when you have a really obviously heavy rig your bait has to work that much harder in convincing carp to keep trying to mouth the bait because they want it so much that they by repetition almost end up hooking themselves. The tests proved without a shadow of any doubt that the baits containing the most stimulating natural feeding triggers resulted in the hooking of the biggest fish most frequently after the fake baits and instant over-flavoured baits had been associated with danger and produced very few hooked fish by comparison.
Of course heavier leads were used with such pre-hair rig set-ups and often acted like bolt rigs, but problems still were apparent in terms of hooking and converting enough fish compared to the number of bites experienced. This was a problem the hair rig provided a solution to as the bait would enter the mouth will far less suspicion as the weight of the hook would not be noticed anywhere near so much as often the hair was 2 inches or more long.
Anglers came up with the length of hair on the original hair rig (off the hook bend) of 2 or 3 inches anglers. This distance is what they believed to be the correct length from the lips to the throat teeth that represented a safe distance of bait ingestion before a risk of bait and hook bite-offs. (But this distance can be much is longer than this.) Anyway, the long-hairs used that produced the effect of separating the bait from the hook (and so negating the weight and feel of the hook) was a huge step in getting more bites!
Equally important was density of baits, and floating baits applied on the bottom such as floating pastes became a huge advantage. Added to the development of great flavours designed purposely for carp the application of the pop-up bait made a huge difference to numbers of carp caught by individuals using them on so many waters for the very first time!
When you examine the details of why plastic sweetcorn or rubber hemp works as baits this reveals a lot of priceless secrets about carp senses and behaviours and how these work and can dynamically adapt and change over time. When you examine why balanced or high nutritional design boilies keep catching the same big fish over the years, carp senses and conditioned behaviours are implicit in this success. Far too many angler miss great competitive edges even if they are just using ready-made baits by not knowing about the carp themselves! All kinds of known and yet to be discovered details of carp themselves are certainly many of the greatest secrets to successful carp fishing today they always have been and always will be!
Carp themselves provide the greatest challenges in carp fishing and but in studying them they provide the solutions to better catches!
High nutrition boilies have caught more big carp than any other form of bait over the decades. But they can cost much more than many anglers can afford to pay today. Making your own economical and unique homemade baits (and applying them in your own personal unique ways) is a leveller par excellence against anglers with more skill, experience, time, money etc!
The best starting point is not these but in studying the carp first! The British Carp Study Group is a body that is a collection of highly experienced carp anglers who have proven in their own ways that they know something about carp and often then some, but most of all appreciate the fish themselves. Again, the fish provide the solution when you are designing baits because ultimately you are trying to maximise and use their own natural senses, instincts and behaviours against them in your own favour. Most carp anglers appear to make the biggest mistake of starting out with ingredients and flavours and not what will actually best exploit fish senses in ways that will give them more competitive edges over competing baits!
It took me a long time to realise that when you think of each and every carp as a unique personality and a unique genetic creation you will catch many more fish! Each fish has its own tiny or large differences in feeding behaviours, bait flavour and taste preferences or mineral needs or may have an enhanced ability to avoid certain rigs or areas of a lake or swim. Added to the fact that carp waters vary enormously you need to be able to more fully understand carp themselves in order to catch many more fish.
It is not an understatement to suggest that the majority of carp anglers on the banks today know more about the specifications of their rods, reels, bite alarms and bivvies than that of the fish sensory systems or baits meant to exploit them! So how can you get to know most about carp in the fastest way possible and exploit or even create weaknesses in carp defenses that this knowledge reveals to you that you can exploit to seriously multiply your success? Read on for the answer and my biography.
By Tim Richardson.
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