Quick Carp Fishing Tips

This page lists many quick tips and ideas that can help in any carp fishing situation from tactics to making your fishing more comfortable. New carp fishing tips will be added to this list at regular intervals so be sure to bookmark this page.

Feel free to send us your tips and tricks and we may publish them here on our site!

1. Try to limit the use of fishmeal boilies when fishing over silt. Fishmeal boilies can take on the smells of the surrounding lake bed, this can over power the nice smell of the bait and cause it to become less attractive to carp.

2. Never pull lead towards you when casting on hard gravel unless using rig foam, dragging hook along gravel will blunt point making it hard to set into carp lip.

3. Always try to pin down as much line as possible by using drop back leads or flying back leads.

4. Keep eyes open for potential features where carp may patrol, these could also act as a marker to cast to for better accuracy and presentation.

5. Before visiting a new lake always try to find out as much information about the lake as possible, such as average depths, features, type of lake bed, wind direction, etc.

6. If you haven't caught for hours try casting again but slightly to the left or right of baited areas. Underwater current may have dragged spodded bait in either direction before hitting bottom.

7. Try to feather line on casting so hook bait stretches past lead and limits tangles. The whole rig should then lie straight on the bottom with hook bait at the furthest part away from the lead.

8. Cast harder than normal then feather line down so last tip can be used AND gain better accuracy.

9. Use a marker and mine-sweeper lead to gain picture of lake bed, then cast to the area where your rigs system best suits the bottom.

10. When casting towards a marker float aim slightly to the left or right but always opposite to the blowing wind to avoid potential tangles.

11. Also cast a little past a marker float, the lead will come back towards rods as it falls through water.

12. Trim all sharp points on bait stops, hairs, braids, stiff links or anything which may come into contact with carp.

13. Always use braid for feature finding with a marker float.

14. Use very small lengths of thin lead core to wrap around the line or tubing about every six inches. This helps keep all parts pinned down to bottom.

15. Try not to bully a hooked fish into the bank, they have soft lips so a hook can easily pull out if too much pressure is applied. Also a fish dragged in quickly can be lively on the bank making it harder to handle.

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