Overcoming shy feeders

At this time of the year when the carp’s movements are still very slow and their feeding much less intense compared to other times, it’s important to pay attention to much more than just your rigs, location and bait. Only quite recently I experienced some really cagey fish when they regularly cleaned my freebies out without so much as a bleep on the indicator. Basically, wherever I managed to catch a fish from, the next day the area would be cleaned out as the carp sussed out that something wasn‘t quite right in the swim. I was using a boat which allowed me to take regular visits to the baited areas to see what was happening, and as seems to be the norm when carp do this, there wasn’t just the hook bait that was left, but also half a dozen other baits, one or two of which had been chewed up and spat out; and that was from about thirty or forty free offerings!



When does it happen?
When you know this is happening, obviously you know something needs to be done. The hardest part is often knowing it’s happening though, as not every lake has clear water to allow you to observe the environment. Initially I got round the problem recently by pre-baiting several spots that I didn’t fish until I knew the carp were sussing out my rigs, and then it was just a matter of re-positioning my hook baits to the areas that had been pre-baited, something which always pays off for you when you have time on your hands, as I did recently. At the beginning of the trip I picked a selection of areas in my swim which I thought looked likely to be visited by the carp, baited them all at the beginning of my trip, and then alternated where to put the hook baits once I knew the carp were up to no good.
Later in the week I did note that the carp began to really get cute as pressure took its toll, even on spots which I’d not fished before. Even then however, I managed to get round a few problems by adjusting the way I fished. One particular morning I woke up and hadn’t had a touch on all of my rods, including a couple of new spots that had not seen carp caught from them. A quick scout out in the boat revealed that all of the rods had been cleaned out and that the idea of pre-baiting obviously didn’t always work if the carp had their defences up, as they proved after a few days of pressure. I knew the spots were getting visited, so there was something in the swim which really put them on guard and it was just a matter of finding out what it was. At first I played with my rigs, dropping down a hook size from Solar X-Wide Gape 6s to 8s. I also shortened the rig slightly in case they had too much margin for error, however, none of my rig adjustments seemed to sort it.



Personally I think there’s a misconception amongst anglers that when you’re being cleaned out, you’ve a problem with your rigs. Whilst this is often the case, I knew it would be stupid to ignore other factors such as the obviousness of the main line and the way I had my indicators set up, so my fiddling didn‘t end at just considering my rigs. I was using Solar Quiver-Loc indicators and I had the sensitivity on my Fox buzzers at midway because there’d been quite a lot of heavy rain and snow during the first part of the week. The Quivers I had quite tight because I was using heavy 4oz leads, even at quite close ranges of 30m (I must confess I’m more of a tight line man than a slacker as I don’t like the margin for error carp get with slack lining, especially in the late winter when bites can be ever so sensitive). The trouble with Quivers though is they are great for keeping the line tight, but whenever a carp pulls at the other end (unlike coming towards the angler), because there is tension in the indicator pulling down on the line, it needs a lot of pressure or movement to make the indicator rise if you have them set fairly tight like I did.



Missed chances?
During the course of the week I’d noted a couple of drop backs which were ever so slight; both which had happened without a bleep on the buzzer. This is the reason why a lot of the time I fish with my indicators all set at the same height so that I can see if anything has moved. What I concluded was that this had happened whilst I was getting cleaned out, with the carp pulling at the rig, but because of the tension on the Quiver-Loc I had set, nothing had bleeped whilst the fish sussed the rig and dropped it, causing the indicator to drop back ever so gently.
Thankfully I’ve seen this kind of thing happen all too often in the cooler months when the fish are not as aggressive with their movements. I managed to overcome the problem by simply adjusting the tension on the Quiver-Loc, slackening it off so that it could freely rise once the rig end was pulled, whilst at the same time I upped the sensitivity on the buzzer. This is quite a balancing act really, as you want the tension not too light so that there’s none on the line at all, whilst at the same time you need the buzzers only to bleep when you know something is happening in the swim.
The very night I adjusted things, I started getting early warning signs of fish activity in the swim. The buzzer began bleeping two or three times (without any movement on the indicator) which I put down to liners. I also had two very slight lifts on the indicator which were on single bleeps, both of which I hit and turned out to be hooked fish. During the week I had a further two single bleeps coupled with a slight lift, and these too ended up as hooked carp, meaning that I finally sussed out the fish myself.



Confidence
I’ll admit it does take a lot of confidence to hit single bleeps, especially at this time of the year when all you want to do is stay in the warmth of the sleeping bag. However, I’m convinced plenty of us are allowing the carp to get away with it as a result of our ignorance.
A few weeks ago I was at Pool Hall in England for a feature in Crafty Carper magazine when a young angler commented on the fact that I was hitting single bleeps and turning them into fish. Although not every single bleep on that occasion turned out to be a fish, during my recent trip I hooked four from single bleeps, all of which coincided with a slight lift, perhaps as the fish tightened up on the rig which up until that point I’m sure I would have missed if I hadn’t adjusted my set up.
It’s all a fine line working out what is going on in the swim and then being able to counter any sly movements from the fish. Often all it is down to is confidence and effort, believing that the carp you are targeting are capable of sussing you out and that a single bleep actually can be turned into something positive. I suppose the effort comes with being willing to get out of bed fast enough to hit it, and knowing that even if it doesn’t turn out to be a fish, it really isn’t too much hard work to recast a bait back to where it once was.
CROWY