I was asked the question recently how I feed for carp in the early part of spring.
This period of time in spring can be bountiful with respect to captures of our beloved quarry. Warming water coupled with low pressure giving a mild southwest air stream can make even the wiliest of carp seem easy to catch. If only life was so easy.
In reality spring time can be a series of massive fluctuations in weather and temperature alike. Red hot days with screaming high pressure and icy nights, cold easterly winds for weeks on end or rain and hail so cold it feels like January. This is the more likely conditions we may face at this volatile time of year.
So how does this affect the use of particles and the way they are applied to our angling situation? Well to understand the weather and how this will possibly affect the carp that we seek will allow us the angler to tailor our approach and to hopefully apply the correct amount of bait to help get us that all important bite. I don’t know about your waters but the ones I regularly fish respond to low pressure and not high. Even in the spring time a prolonged high pressure system bringing sunny days and warm weather may feel nice to us the anglers but pile in the hemp and
particles at your peril. Carp spend massive amounts of time up in the water suspended in the warmth of the surface water; zigs are the party piece in these times.
But give them some low pressure and down the carp will go to feed on the bottom. This is when a carefully fed patch of mixed particle, I personally love a mix of our particle blend and chilli hemp with a hand full of our peanuts if allowed on the water can be devastating. I try to feed these small patches just as the carp would find their natural food at this time of year, in small tight patches. What I am trying to achieve is to mimic those small pockets of naturals such as blood worm or caddis that are emerging all over the lake bed. Spod, spoon, place with a boat it really doesn’t matter just keep those patches as tight as you can to maximise those short but intense feeding sprees that the carp can switch on to
as quickly as the weather can change.
So as you can see I hope this answers your question about how I feed particle in the spring. Before I sign off can I say that if I were to use a hook bait over this sort of mix it would be either a small piece of yellow (plastic or maize) and almost definitely dipped in either betalin or Berkeley’s particle bomb liquid. If neither of these worked then if allowed I would fish a single peanut as no carp I have met
gets away without eating these for long.
To the other panel members can I ask what are your choices of particle hook bait and why?
