Pre Baiting

Total Carp Staff  |  May 9, 2012

Question: I'm fishing my clubs most pressured lake 16 acres. I asked around and heard pre-baiting selected spots isn't worth doing, what is the best approach when applying freebies in my case? Tom Dicker via e-mail


Total Carp editor Marc Coulson says: Nonsense! I have never been to a lake yet where pre-baiting didn’t work. In fact, it’s probably one of the the very best tactics there is for catching carp – provided you can get away with doing it. I suspect that whoever has told you that pre-baiting does not work is doing so as they don’t want you to do it, ie they don;t want you catching the carp!

If you can find an area of a lake that you can apply even a small amount of bait to over a period of weeks then you will attract carp to this area. The longer you feed them without casting a line to the area the more confident they become and so, the better your chances.

The difficulty with baiting up is that people can see you doing it and then fish your spots. Basically, they piggy back your hard work. If it is absolutely impossible to apply any bait then you will indeed have to change your approach. In this case I would say travel light and move to wherever you spot fish. A few boilies and a stringer, or even a solid PVA bag can be great tactics when fishing this way.
It’s a bit of a vicious cycle as the fewer anglers apply bait, the less weight the carp will gain. They’re not going to get fat on just a few boilies and PVA bags here and there.

Good luck mate. Try and get a bit of a baiting campaign going if you can. Why not try and get a couple of others involved and so increase your chances that way? Whatever the case, I hope you manage it and I hope you catch plenty of carp as a result.

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