Surface Baits
By Julian Grattidge
Surface fishing must be one of the most exciting approaches there is for catching big carp – the adrenalin rush you get when you see a huge fish break the surface and engulf the bait just can’t be beaten! There are a whole host of baits available, both natural and artificial, so I’ll give you a rundown of my preferred choices for fishing off the top. First choice for me has to be dog biscuits; carp just seem to go mad for them. There are hundreds of different types available and a great many of them can be perfect for the job.
My own choice is Pedigree Mixer, as I find they have premium ingredients and they are easy to fit in a bait band.
Pedigree Mixer – My preferred choice
I like to make them a bit different from the biscuits others may be using by adding a flavour. I like to add some Nash Supasense Palatant oil in cranberry, strawberry or tangerine. I empty the dog biscuits into a plastic carrier bag, add a few ml’s of flavour then give them a good shake. Not only does this give the biscuits a great fruity flavour but the oil content helps to create a slick effect when you are fishing in windy conditions.
A nice fully scaled mirror stalked on a dog biscuit
I have a few friends who like to use dog biscuits where the pack contains biscuits of different shapes, sizes and colours. The reasoning is that the fish will then find it harder to detect which is the hook bait, and whilst I can see the logic in this, their catch rates in comparison to my own using uniform biscuits don’t make them stand out as being any better, but its worth mentioning to those who like to explore all avenues.
I’ve also had success using pop-up boilies as surface baits. I have a preference for such baits when the water is coloured up and will tend to go for a fluorescent yellow or orange bait, and have again found something with a fruity flavour to be best. I’ve also experimented using pop-up boilies as surface baits in
Bread has proved a popular surface bait for years, simply rip of a chunk, burry the hook within it and cast it out! I have caught many fish on bread but I find that it quickly disintegrates once in the water and you have to apply a new piece on each cast, so much prefer dog biscuits as they can be cast time and time again. However, I’ve used artificial bread amongst real bread offerings with good success in the past on waters where the fish are shy on taking dog biscuits.
Artificial bread – stays on the hook much longer!
To a degree, if you can get the carp feeding on a real surface baits, your hookbait could be almost
anything, as when the carp get going they will often sample whatever happens to be floating on the surface to see if it's food. The amount of times I’ve had them trying to eat my bubble float or controller is
unbelievable!
In the past I’ve caught on the surface using cork balls shaped like a dog biscuit, pieces of yellow foam cut down to resemble boilies, and even grass on one occasion - I was actually at the water to do some feature finding on a couple of swims and did not have any bait with me, but on finding half a dozen carp under a tree, all sampling debris that had been blown across the lake into a sheltered spot I knew I had to have a go.
I borrowed a mat and a net from a couple of lads doubled up in a swim just up the bank and on telling them how I intended to catch one there were a few wry smiles – I returned to the spot, scrunched up a bit of grass, hair-rigged it straight to freelined mono and lowered it into position – ten seconds later I was doing battle with a rather large lump! The smiles weren’t so wry when a few minutes later I returned to ask if they would take a photo of the stunning linear I had in the net!
Dave Miller with a nice linear caught off the surface using a whittled down artificial halibut pellet!
However, one thing I find essential to get right is buoyancy. Most natural surface baits are porous so over a short period of time they will take on water, thus getting heavier. Observations lead me to believe that the carp are more confident sampling a hookbait that can be sucked straight into their mouths, rather than a super buoyant artificial hookbait that they need to suck much harder to take in. I’ve used many artificial hookbaits and whilst they are great in terms of ease of use, I feel they do fall down in this area, so it’s important to whittle them down a bit and match them to a heavier hook so that they can be taken in with the same force/effort as a natural bait – critically balanced if you like
Depending on the situation at hand, I either try to get the fish feeding in open water through the liberal application of free baits to induce and encourage confident feeding, or will often stalk in the margins using just a single hookbait, actually waiting until I spot a fish before offering the bait.
However you go about it, surface fishing is a great way of targeting carp that may have wised up to bottom baits, and it it’s great fun!