Dear Mat Woods,
How can I improve my chances of catching when casting towards showing carp?
Ken Brampton, Hull.

For some reason I have found that a single cast towards showing fish produces more carp than a PVA bag, or stringer. I have thought about the reasons for this on many occasions, and I have a little theory for why this might be the case. Let me explain. On most waters the carp share their home with many other aquatic life forms, from sprightly roach and bream, to more obscure amoebas, snails and other larvae. All these animals and organisms like eating the bait we use – especially boilies and pellets – and when you’re PVA bag fishing the contents of the bag will always be wiped away, even if the carp don’t find it. It’s because of this that I think the carp rarely stumble across little piles of feed. Anglers don’t recast half as much as they should on the pressured day ticket waters, further highlighting this issue.

The odd stray boilie, bit of maize, or tiger nut, are a lot more likely to be sitting unmolested in a quiet area of the lake than the contents of a PVA bag. Carp find a lot of their larger items of food in this manner, so the single hookbait approach is a fair way of representing how they find their grub naturally. Replicating this scenario with a single is ideal when you have a water full of scavengers, as I like to call them, i.e. carp that are always looking for a free meal. It also offers you the chance of a bite when, really, they don’t want to eat anything!

The hookbait can be of your choice. I prefer bright balanced bottom baits, but my old favourites, tuna oil-glugged NRG pop-ups are currently producing the goods, which I think is due to the dying weed and leaf litter scattered around at the moment. Rigs can be whatever you’re confident in – as long as you’ve got the confidence to cast it out onto any form of lakebed, at any range, you should be laughing. They don’t always show over the cleanest patch of gravel in the pond, so have a rig that can go anywhere.

Good luck,