The problem is I don’t want to be a one trick pony, and since I returned to carping and it seems to be fashionable to 'spod the granny' out of waters with tuna and salt mixes! As I've said before I like to forge my own path and I don’t like to be doing the same as every other chap on the lake.
this lead me to the conclusion that it was time I really got back into boilie fishing, especially as I intended to target larger carp rather than high volumes of carp - also the lack of preparation involved in boilie fishing better suits my plan to fish back to work overnight sessions in the week.
It appears every magazine you open and every way you look these days in the world of fishing you get Nash, Mainline or similar thrust in your face and touted as the most reliable way to catch carp - the problem is unless you don’t really need to worry about money there is no way you can fish effectively with boilie's 4 or 5 nights a week and continue to pay £10+ for a kilo of boilie’s.
Don't get me wrong the bait works, I've caught plenty of carp on Mainline and Nash bait in the past - infact an old favourite of mine was Carp Company Caviar and Cranberry, the problem is at this time I cannot afford to use their bait in the way I want to. My intention is to put a lot of my chosen bait into my 2 pits in the spring and summer in the hope that I can get the fish to view it as a safe and reliable food source - this meant I needed a quality food bait, that I could afford to get in amounts of 10kg or more at a time.
Fortunately I was pointed towards an excellent bait company called 'Active Bait Solutions' on a forum I like to frequent. These guys were able to offer me bait 10kg a time at half the price of 'high street' brands! On top of that the bait is really high quality and has been used for many years, to catch many large carp.
With a new boilie chosen for the coming spring and summer I was happy to put it into the lakes in large quantities and begin my own baiting campaign. The shallow pit especially is a known boilie water and if I can start catching on the bait then I know my friends who fish the water will soon change to my chosen bait too.
Changing the subject completely! I felt that it was important that I also set myself some realistic targets this year. Both the pits I’m fishing have a decent head of 20lb fish, with both having around 8 know 30's, and both have the chance to produce a 40lb common at the right time of year.
Now that we don't have a traditional closed season on still waters I think my targets should run annually, because it better represents the cycle of fishing in a year. I've decided that I'm going to aim to catch 20 20lb carp, one of which should be a winter 20 - I would also like to bank my first 30lb fish. It seems that a 30 isn’t that impressive these days, but before I quit fishing for university a 20 was a real result and a 30 was the fish of a season, if not the fish of a few seasons!! It seems these days most lakes have 30lb fish in them and 20's are not even that special - well to me they are - infact all carp are, and I intend to photograph all the carp I catch this year irrespective of their weight.
Hopefully I will have to re-evaluate my targets as the season goes on, but for now this gives me a good benchmark to aim at, and should keep me focused even when the weather turns miserable!
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