![]() ![]() It also caught me some very rare carp when I used it at Frampton, including a rather elusive forty which has seen the bank just twice in 12 years! “Using these two baits together has caught me countless carp from different venues, and often at times when very few others are being caught, which is always the sign of a successful method and approach. Incidentally, the B5 is red and the Black Snail is black hence the contrast. Both are produced by Essential Baits and both are high-quality foodbaits, which is important because you need the baits to compete with each other, especially if the venue has plenty of natural food, or is being baited by other anglers. By far, the best two baits I’ve used for this tandem approach are Shellfish B5 and Black Snail. If the two baits have contrasting colours, better still, and preferably different attractor packages, too. Anything outside the box, so to speak, will often confuse or trick them. Don’t forget what I said earlier about their one-channel thought process. By that, I mean mixing baits together to confuse the carp. “Another method I’ve found absolutely devastating in more recent years is the use of two different boilies alongside each other. It can also be applied to open-water areas, bars, gullies, weedbeds, etc. I’ve used the same method to great effect on numerous occasions since, but its use doesn’t have to be restricted to snaggy areas. Basically, their brain was so wired into being ultra-cautious of a baited area that the single hookbait presented in the ‘safe’ zone just didn’t register as being dangerous, and from that point on, it was just down to the efficiency of the rig. What I’d done with the above tactical-baiting ploy was occupy that thought process, and trick them into thinking the heavily baited area was an unsafe zone, simply because their past experiences had taught them as such. However, they have only a one-channel thought process. Carp have very small brains, but as with any animal, their natural instinct soon teaches them to avoid what they continually encounter and consider dangerous. Then, BANG! The line would tighten and I’d be on the rod in a split second to connect with the fish and steer it away from the snags. “This is where my method came into play, because my single hookbait presented all on its own was deemed safe. They would occasionally drop down and gingerly pick up a free offering, but not before waving their pectoral fins back and forth to cause water movement, seeing whether the bait was attached to a rig before circling the snags and re-entering them on the left-hand side. You could clearly see that the carp would be extremely cautious of the baited area to the right, often gliding over the top, looking or feeling for lines. I baited heavily to the right-hand side of the snags, but presented just a single hookbait on its own to the left-hand side. Like most pressured fish, they would spend lots of time in the snags, and they loved it when that bank received the early morning sun’s rays. My first example of using this approach was when I was fishing across to a snaggy margin spot on the opposite bank, about 40yd away. It involves applying bait in a way that tricks them, simply because they’re not used to it and it catches them off guard. “I wrote about tactical baiting in an early British Carp Study Group magazine, and also in my first Carp Life book. At Ashlea Pool, therefore, I adopted a method I called ‘tactical baiting’, and overnight, it completely turned things around! ![]() Carp soon become accustomed to the same methods, and if these are used day in, day out, it doesn’t take them long to work out how to avoid being caught. I soon learnt that if you didn’t think outside the box, and use baiting methods that were different to others, your success would be very limited indeed. ![]() It happened many years ago at the famous Ashlea Pool in Gloucestershire, where you were able to observe the carps’ behaviour at close quarters in the gin-clear water. Was there a game-changing baiting method or approach that altered everything for you? Mike Willmott The driving force behind Essential Baits gives us his thoughts on boilies, balanced hookbaits and much more besides…
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