twoblokesgofishing.webs.com

Have you ever walked around the lake to see a carp in the margin?

 Well I have and that is what this tip is all about. Carp tend to be a very social fish, like if you have watched any of the State of the Art Underwater Carp Fishing most of the fish on there are in shoals but some of the bigger fish seem to like a bit of peace and quite away from the shoals and tend to go to the little quite neglected corners of the lake. To be fair the biggest feature on the lake is the margin - think of the match anglers once they have finished their session the bait gets thrown in the margins, so t the carp have already got a free meal!  Also in many lakes there are reeds in the margins. Reeds and other plant life  hold natural food so  the carp get peace and quite and a free meal. Because the margins tend to be a shallowest part of the lake, in spring, summer and early autumn the margins are also the quickest part of water to warm up.

 Float or Ledger? 

How are we going to fish for them? You can float fish or ledger. I prefer ledgering for the carp as your line is going along the lake bed instead of straight down as it would be if you were float fishing. My ledger rig is just a simple lead clip system or helicopter rig if your margin is silty. Using this lead system with leadcore works much better as it i pins the line down behind your rig far better than rig tube,  but if your lake has a ban for leadcore then one of kordas safe zone leaders work just as well. 

Baits?

As for my baits, I find pellets and boilies perfect for margin work. I use I mixture of pellet ranging between little 2mm pellet to 21mm pellet and sometimes I add boilies. When fishing in the margin you can be extremely accurate with you baiting and rig placement.

Most of my margin fishing is done in spring and summer so using pellet and fishmeal boilies are a good meal for the carp. When stalking for carp you are close to them and you need to be quiet. You could have the fish of your dreams feeding in front of you, and you don’t want to be chucking 15-20mm boilies on his head because he is just going to spook off. So little baits like little pellet, little boilies are OK,  but maggot’s fall far more naturally on top of the fish. Keep your  but using the bigger baits for prebaiting.

Don't scare 'em!

 Now we have our rigs and baits sorted! Say you have the carp feeding there heads off in front of you  - if you were to lower a rig in on top of them then they will probably spook off and not come back,  so I will always make sure there are no carp in the swim when I lower my bait in. I find it is far better to scare fish with bait than it is with a rig, so I will just throw in a small hand full of pellet, maggots or chopped boilie. When the  fish move of out of the swim then I will lower my rig in then I’m pretty sure that it won’t be long till the carp move back in.

Here's one of my stalking successes - you can see more of my pics in the photo gallery.

Tight lines !

Josh