When it’s cold, fishing for carp can become difficult. The fish will often shoal up tightly and their metabolism slows – they don’t need as much food, and won’t travel far to get it. Find them, though, and to succeed you just need to offer them the right treat on the day..
Mighty maggots
With silverfish activity diminished, maggots come into their own. There will be no natural food available to the carp in the colder months, so a small bed of maggots is incredibly tantalising to them. It’s a common misconception that you need gallons and gallons of wrigglers for winter carping, but that isn’t always the case. A small mesh stocking of maggots is just enough to get a bite.
They work inside solid PVA bags too – just be careful not to pierce any of the maggots or the bag will melt. It’s better to tie up the bags on the go, rather than in advance. Having a couple of pints of maggots with you for ‘toppers’ is a great winter edge. Tipping zig rigs, Ronnies or other pop-up presentations with maggots can be enough extra attraction to generate a bite in the toughest of conditions.
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Super Singles
Single hookbait fishing is a go-to for many of the country’s best carp anglers. With the carp’s senses diminished, this is the time to go ‘bright and stinky’ with your pop-ups. It’s worth taking a variety of colours, as some will work better in different water conditions.Enhance them further with glugs, dips and products like Goo, and the carp will have no option other than to investigate.
Singles don’t have to be just on the bottom either; single foam zigs get just as many bites in winter as anything else. Black foam is the number one colour, but reds and yellows have their place on the right day too. Boost these further with a bait spray, or tip them with maggots or worms for added movement.
GET THE BEST RODS AND REELS FOR YOUR CARP FISHING IN OUR BUYER'S GUIDES.
Wonderful worms
Worms are a devastating natural bait, which aren’t used enough by carp anglers, other than those in the know. So, get some dendras and get chopping! Chopped worms in molehill soil is a devastating feed. The soil soaks up all the amino acids released from the worms, and any other stuff you might add, so the whole lot gets to the bottom, where it will drive the carp barmy!
Don’t be afraid to put them on the hook either. Worms, like maggots, are a superb topper for zigs and Ronnie rigs. Just tie two or three dendras to the top of the pop-up. This will keep them wriggling off the bottom and easy for the carp to engulf.
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Brilliant bread
Another cheap, underused and quite frankly awesome winter carp bait is bread. You see anglers using liquidised bread for chub and roach all the time – well it works wonders for carp too. Bread crumb takes on flavours incredibly well, so there are no limits to how much you can enhance it either. The fluffy crumb suspends in the water column and spreads on the bottom when fish are present, making it extremely attractive.
You can overfeed with bread, however, so it’s best to start with small PVA mesh bags of crumb, matched with a bright white or yellow pop-up. It also works well in solid bags, especially when mixed 50/50 with boilie crumb!
GET THE BEST BOILIES FOR WINTER CRUMB IN OUR BOILIE BUYER'S GUIDE.
Perfect Peperami
Becoming a bit of a forgotten gem, but no winter baits article would be complete without the incredible meaty goodness of Peperami. It’s not entirely clear why fish love it so much. Is it the smell, the oils or its subtle appearance? One thing’s certain, you need a stick or two in your bait box. Just a small piece of Peperami on a standard hair rig alongside a 50p mesh bag of low-oil micro pellets, or boilie crumb, gets bites on the coldest of days.
Super sweetcorn
Cheap, colourful and one of the best carp baits of all-time, what’s not to like about the golden grains? Corn is such a good bait to use at any time of year, but even more so in the winter, as it provides the visual attraction needed to encourage the carp to drop on a spot, and is easy to digest without overfeeding them. Tinned offerings are better as hookbaits, but for a prolonged baiting campaign you can cut the cost with 1kg freezer bags.
To be that bit different, try colouring and flavouring your corn. Or, if you want your hookbait to be the only solid item in the swim, why not liquidise a tin or two? Fish over the top of your loosefeed with two grains of corn on a D-rig or a small 12mm yellow pop-up on a Ronnie, and you have a truly awesome trap, worth its weight in gold.
YOU WILL NEED SOUND BITE INDICATION IN THE WINTER, HERE ARE THE BEST BITE ALARMS.
Baits to avoid in the freeze
High-oil pellets
These baits will take longer to break down in the colder temperatures and are harder for the fish to digest.
Fishmeal boilies
Be careful with fishmeals in the winter. While the carp will still eat them, you’ll fill them up quicker as the oil in the baits will take longer for them to digest. There are some low-temperature fishmeal baits, but if you are not sure, go with a sweeter milk protein boilie feed.
Nuts
While a very small amount of crushed nuts and a single nut hookbait can still work in the winter, be very careful about introducing any sort of quantity. Again, this is all to do with how easy (or hard) the fish find them to digest.
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