| My thoughts on pre-baiting.... |
Why do we pre-bait. If our boilies are instantly recognized as food by carp of all sizes then why do we need to pre-bait. I would like to give you my opinion on this subject.
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The first situation would be, to build confidence in your swim. Once carp find an irresistible food deposit, like a scattering of high valued food boilies like the Ocean Fresh range has to offer, then they will be back time and time again to feed. Pre-baiting in my mind guarantee's carp will come frequently back to the chosen area. This produces confidence in the swim when fishing.
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The second situation would be bait domination, this is where you only want the carp to eat your bait and to refuse bait from other anglers or bait companies. This can only be achieved when the boilie in question is of a higher food source than anyone else is fishing with. An example would be Oily Crab against a cheap boilie of around 6 euro a kilo. Most cheap boilies offer little in the way as food; they just contain high levels of flavor for attraction. I name this kind of bait as Poisson in a bag. The bait doesn't break down in the carps stomach and just rots, causing the fish to go off the feed, just like when we have a stomach ache when we eat something bad. High quality fish proteins and Soya allows the Ocean Fresh boilies to be digested in a period of around 10 minutes turning solid lumps into liquid slush. The carp consumes all the vitamins, amino, proteins and fats with almost little waste.
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A boilie this good will get the carp feeding hard and strong and the more pre-baiting will guarantee when fishing in this spot, there's better chance of catching them whilst they feed. The more bait you use will mean the more fish will feed and get on to the bait. You can not achieve bait domination when you fish against other good boilies, like Nutrabaits & Mainline freezers. I have not mentioned their ready mades as I'm still not convinced they come close to our food concept bait. The only real comparison would be freezer bait. When baiting up in this situation I would expect the carp to move between your swim and the angler who is using the other bait. Those of you out there using any other bait be warned!! Don't ever pre-bait with anything less than food source bait otherwise you will do all the work for zero results. In fact you'll make the area a bio hazard and carp will ignore it for ever.
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Ok now you want to know how to pre-bait and what to use right? My way is not the only way and I'm sure there are many people out there that would agree and disagree. I can only talk about my own experiences and results that have come from pre-baiting.First thing, on less pressured waters it really doesn't matter what flavor of boilie to use. You not competing for bait domination but more important you want every carp in the lake to visit your spot time and time again to feed. The more you feed with out fishing the more confidence the carp have to return with out fear.
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| Loosdrecht Plassen March-April 2004 |
Myself and Bob got our asses together and decided to put some effort in building a spot for our spring fishing. It's was unreachable by car or by foot, only by boat could you get there. So we had no fear of doing this effort so someone else could reap our glory. First we needed to find the spot. One we knew carp would come to anyway and was suitable for our fishing. We planned to sit on one island fishing to another. The depths started at 0.5m to 1m close to the margins. The first day. I gathered around 20kg of mixed Ocean Fresh boilies. These consisted of Plum & Squid, Tropical Pineapple, Sorted and Scopex. Being a Bait distributor obviously has its advantages! Why so many different flavors?? Every year around 100kg of boilies are damaged in our warehouse, boxes fall over and bags break open. I can t sell these, so we gather them up and use them to pre-bait instead.
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I also scattered 10kg of high oil pellets, maize, party blend and hemp. This was to feed off the nuisance fish like bream and roach. To our horror we had to up the level of bait as the ducks and koots, little black birds were also getting into the bait. That's the problem when fishing with great food source bait; all creatures want to feed on it.
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The spot took roughly 2.5hours to get to pre-bait and get back. We could only reach it by boat. So the plan was to feed higher amounts on a week to two week basis. One week later Bob and I returned, to find carp rolling on the spot. Bob was so excited he insisted we go back and get the rods. Oh NO mate! Not yet. A good pre-baiting campaign should allow the carp to feed hard and long. I want all the carp on this spot picking up free offerings. They would eat and eat and eat 1000's of free baits before finding one that has a hook attached. The second trip saw us add another 10kg of boilies and a further 20kg of pellet, hemp and maize. We pre-bait three times over a 4 week period! The carp were now ready for the taking.
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| We organized a two night session. Bob was fishing in the first swim boating his lines to the far margin I was a little bit further up fishing the point to the reed beds. On the first day, night I had 6 runs but sadly only landed 2 carps. Between me and the far island was a horrible under water snag that I could feel my line grating against. All lost fish came to snap offs on this snag. Something we missed when choosing the area. Shit Man! But anyway two fish gave a great fight and we safely landed, the scales went 24lb and 26 Dutch pounds, both pristine commons. On a closer inspection of the fish's mouth there were no signs of previous hook marks. Intact with their inside top lip, I would say these fish had never seen the bank before. |
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Both fish were caught on Scopex. I used this boilie due to its color contrast against the dark muddy bottom and also because our Scopex boilie really is a great smelling bait. Bob unfortunately had it harder than me, fishing in 0.5m of water; the local swan could reach our bait with out putting its bottom in the air. This became very clear when he got a blinding take only to find the swan scoffing his bait. We tried catapulting it with boilies without hitting it, that didn't work. In the end shouting at the top of our voices and waving our hand scared him off, but he would return. So more bait was required to top up the swims, just to feed the bird life and to make sure when Mr. Carp arrived there was some left for him. On the second night I found that fishing inside the reeds produced more takes than fishing at the edge. Again though I had the same snag problem and more losed fish came. Even if I immediate jumped in to the boat, these carp knew how to get off when hooked. My mono line just couldn't handle it. Next session would be a change of tactics, changing the mono and spooling up with a heavy strong sinking braided real line.
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| On the second night I tried something a bit special I poured our Oily Fish concentrate into a pva bag and added some ground bait and 10 x 10mm boilies with 2 on the hair, I was fishing barbless Korda size 10 hooks. I placed the rig into the microcat and sent it off to the reeds. The boat maneuvered through the reads and hit the far margin bank. I let the doors open, off loaded my oily bomb. The slick was immense, making a huge flat spot on the surface. Bob was the first one to get into the fish that night, he played a heavy lump which he thought was a real big un, he slipped it under the net only to find another mid twenty. The fish in Loosdrecht are very strong and fight hard. A real challenge! Around 10pm my PVA oil bomb rod screams off and the battle is on, she produces a great scrap and after a few more minutes I slip the net under her. Peering into the net I see a very long carp. I reach down, rolling the net up and try to pick it out of the water, but its stuck, maybe the net has snagged on to something on the bottom, so I give it a pull and low and behold she comes out. No snag just one fat carp. On the scales it weighed 31lb, my first Dutch 30 well pleased. (English 36lb) As with all our fish, we sack them up for the pictures in the morning light. |
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Conclusion… 4 weeks of pre-baiting produced in two nights 18 runs and my Dutch PB. One point also to mention that is when tackling large carp on snagy waters, then opt for a larger hook size. The size 10 didn't get deep into the carps mouth, this caused tearing where the hook moved on the fight. I treated this carp with special waterproof antiseptic but in the future a size 8 wide gap or an Ashima C887 or PB Super Strong hook is much better at hooking and holding. I strongly recommend it. Look out for the new Ocean Fresh ready tied rigs. This will make your life easier and guarantee no more losed fish from poor hook holds. Remember we love our carp we must protect them for the future! |
Happy hunting! |
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| Leigh O' Keeffe |
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