• Latest
  • Trending
One Bite Wonder

One Bite Wonder

3 years ago
Catching Mega Carp At Dream Lakes in France

Catching Mega Carp At Dream Lakes in France

6 days ago
How Parker Baits Make Carp Fishing Wafters

How Parker Baits Make Carp Fishing Wafters

7 days ago
James Armstrong – Carp Fishing at Embryo Lakes

James Armstrong – Carp Fishing at Embryo Lakes

7 days ago
THE SECRET TO CONFIDENCE – JAY ‘MUNGO’ CATER

THE SECRET TO CONFIDENCE – JAY ‘MUNGO’ CATER

2 weeks ago
Korda’s New Product Releases May 2023

Korda’s New Product Releases May 2023

2 weeks ago
Dan Yeomans Carp Fishing in Belgium - Episode 1: Drawn to the Lock

Dan Yeomans visits Belgium – Ep1

2 weeks ago
Neil Spooner & Rob Burgess - Holiday Fishing Masterclass

Neil Spooner & Rob Burgess – Holiday Fishing Masterclass

2 weeks ago
Horcott Lakes sets new 40lb+ Mirror Lake Record

Horcott Lakes sets new 40lb+ Mirror Lake Record

3 weeks ago
Spring Carp Fishing with Alfie Willingale – The Drop

Spring Carp Fishing with Alfie Willingale – The Drop

3 weeks ago
NEW Spectre Flurocarbon Leaders from Ridgemonkey

NEW Spectre Flurocarbon Leaders from Ridgemonkey

1 month ago
Parker Baits Visit Linears Brasenose 2 for a Social

Parker Baits Visit Linears Brasenose 2 for a Social

1 month ago
scott lloyd reflects on catching the croc

Scott Lloyd Reflects on Catching the Croc

1 month ago
CarpTalk
  • FROM THE BIVVY
    • Videos
    • From The Bivvy
    • Reviews
    • Rigs
    • News
    • Tactics
    • Features
  • WHERE TO FISH
    • All Carp Lakes
    • Syndicate
    • Runs Waters
    • Motorhome Friendly
    • Log Cabins
    • Lake Exclusive
    • Day Tickets
    • Club Ticket
    • 30lb+
    • 40lb+
    • 50lb+
    • 60lb+
    • 70lb+
No Result
View All Result
SUBMIT CONTENT
  • Login
  • Register
CarpTalk
  • FROM THE BIVVY
    • Videos
    • From The Bivvy
    • Reviews
    • Rigs
    • News
    • Tactics
    • Features
  • WHERE TO FISH
    • All Carp Lakes
    • Syndicate
    • Runs Waters
    • Motorhome Friendly
    • Log Cabins
    • Lake Exclusive
    • Day Tickets
    • Club Ticket
    • 30lb+
    • 40lb+
    • 50lb+
    • 60lb+
    • 70lb+
No Result
View All Result
SUBMIT CONTENT
  • Login
  • Register
CarpTalk
No Result
View All Result
One Bite Wonder

One Bite Wonder

3 years ago
in Tactics
7 1
0
5
SHARES
154
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Mr Urban Banx explains how he beats the winter blues to keep catching in the cold – and without a big money syndicate ticket in sight!

Anyone who has followed the Urban Banx series will see more clearly than ever that carp are all over the place, and the more you dig around for information the more you’ll be amazed at the free fishing on offer.

One Bite Wonder
Canals and rivers offer much more consistent fishing than stillwaters during the colder months
One Bite Wonder
Urban Banx should have encouraged everyone to look about – carp get in all sorts of places!

I’m not one for fighting for a swim on a well stocked ticket fishery; in cold weather you’ll find me in a park or on a river or canal. Most of my winter fishing is on small stretches of canal or river, and with a little scouting you can find some amazing places to fish, and mostly you don’t have to pay either. Experience says that carp living in rivers and canals stay much more active. With boat traffic and the flow, a carp can’t sit dormant for days on end in the same area under a snag tree where no one can fish for it. When a lake has shut up shop for the winter, canals and rivers still produce bites even when the temperature plummets.

Most of my fishing is short session angling between work commitments. If it’s in between tackle shows or I’m stopping overnight to break up a long journey, I like the sense of adventure that finding and fishing new spots gives me. Most of the time I’m turning up to a venue in the dark and it’s normally a piece of water that I haven’t seen before. Local knowledge is always the biggest help trying to locate a few fish, but also just walking the venue will show areas that look more promising. You might even hear one show itself in the dark.

As most of my fishing is done in the hours of darkness I need everything organised and working for me. Location and the bait play a big part, but also presentation, so that from the moment my leads hit the water I’m fishing with the best possible chance of a bite.

One Bite Wonder
So much water, so much free fishing and carp everywhere if you are prepared to look!
One Bite Wonder
A combination of my favourite carp baits: bread, maggots, Citruz, fizzing stick mix and hemp
One Bite Wonder
High attract but virtually no food – the perfect one bite approach for winter

Use your loaf!

Most anglers shun the attention of bream and other nuisance fish, but I am convinced that they play a big part in getting any carp interested in feeding, particularly on venues that don’t see a lot of anglers. I have some go-to ingredients that help get fish feeding in even the coldest conditions. All are great fish catchers, but when you put them all together there isn’t a carp on earth that could turn them down. Their job is to get one bite from a place I have often never fished.

Bread is my all-time number one. Most well trodden park lakes and canals have some sort of bird feeding area. Even if there’s not an ‘official’ bird feeding area, you know that some areas of canals and rivers will always attract bread throwers, which makes it the most regular food source for a fish and one they don’t view at all suspiciously.

My high attract mix starts with mashing bread into a slop by adding water. I then add maggots and hemp, because they always get a feeding reaction. To add a signature to the mix I blend some Citruz boilies to crumb and add a little dose of the matching fizzing stick mix for that highly visual, bright pink element to the mix. The finished mix can be hand fed, spodded or dropped out of a baiting spoon on to a far margin with next to no disturbance. The baiting spoon is by far my favourite method of applying a sloppy winter mix, allowing me to get a hookbait perfectly over the top. You get more bites because the fish have no choice but to feed over the rig. With little in the way of solid food particles it’s an attractor mix, like a matchman’s cloud groundbait. The result is enough stimulation to get fish looking around, without taking too long for a bite, which is ideal! The only larger items are a smattering of 10mm Citruz boilies and my hookbait and PVA bag over the top. Citruz has become my go-to boilie over the last couple of years. I never leave without a bag simply because every carp I have fished for likes it.

One Bite Wonder
This common was part of a multiple catch from a marina in horrible conditions

Simple and reliable

The carp I’m trying to catch aren’t riggy like they are on hard-fished waters, so strong, reliable and simple to tie is the order of the day. I don’t want to lose anything I hook from a breakage, but equally I want to be able to tie a few rigs in the car while travelling. The chod rig is my go-to rig for light baiting with boilies, but for fishing over high attract slop a simple blow-out rig with a Cultured hookbait is perfect, producing clouds of attraction as it breaks down, pulling fish in to feed.

I want my rigs and baits to work over multiple venues and they can do just that. Rivers and canals are similar, although you rarely have to contend with any sort of flow on a canal unless you are fishing an inlet. The flow of a river might lead me to lengthen my hooklinks and up my lead size if the flow is relatively fast, but it’s all just about fishing to the conditions, like you would on a lake. Again, the golden rule is keep it simple. If you get such a potent handful of feed in the right place you are going to get a bite, and probably quickly. To me that’s more exciting than camping out in a bivvy on a circuit water through a long dark winter.

If you are stuck in a rut struggling to get a bite on your local venue, get yourself on Google Earth and check out all the water around you. You could be surprised that after just a couple of trips you find somewhere to give you a little winter buzz – and that’s what I do it for!

One Bite Wonder
A lovely cold water carp caught quickly over a handful of bread-based slop

Related Posts

How To Make A Basic Cheap Carp Fishing Liquid/Goos/Glugs/
Tactics

How To Make A Basic Cheap Carp Fishing Liquid/Goos/Glugs/

April 3, 2021
326
Weed Fishing with Tom Jehu
Tactics

Weed Fishing with Tom Jehu

July 27, 2020
178
The Best Rig For Surface Carp Fishing
Tactics

The Best Rig For Surface Carp Fishing

June 3, 2020
164
Re-Spooling Carp Fishing Reels Guide
Tactics

Re-Spooling Carp Fishing Reels Guide

May 20, 2020
230
  • How to setup a Helicopter Rig Guide

    How to setup a Helicopter Rig Guide

    487 shares
    Share 438 Tweet 20
  • ON THE OTTER SIDE OF THE FENCE | ASH HUBBARD

    11 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 3
  • Korda Heli-Safe System – How to setup and use

    11 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 3
  • How To Make A Basic Cheap Carp Fishing Liquid/Goos/Glugs/

    10 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 3
  • Carp fishing & Rock Salt for a Spring Campaign

    126 shares
    Share 50 Tweet 31
  • Daiwa Tournament – S 5000T Review

    10 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 3
  • Sonik VaderX RS Rods Review

    9 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 2
  • Drayton Reservoir – Guide | Hints | Tips

    9 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 2
  • Cobb Premier Air Review

    515 shares
    Share 206 Tweet 129
  • Solar SP Spider Bivvy Review

    7 shares
    Share 3 Tweet 2
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Where To Fish

Copyright 2022 © CarpTalk

No Result
View All Result
  • FROM THE BIVVY
    • Videos
    • From The Bivvy
    • Reviews
    • Rigs
    • News
    • Tactics
    • Features
  • WHERE TO FISH
    • All Carp Lakes
    • Syndicate
    • Runs Waters
    • Motorhome Friendly
    • Log Cabins
    • Lake Exclusive
    • Day Tickets
    • Club Ticket
    • 30lb+
    • 40lb+
    • 50lb+
    • 60lb+
    • 70lb+
  • Login
  • Sign Up

Copyright 2022 © CarpTalk

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

VIDEOS
CARP LAKES
REVIEWS
NEWS
Change Location
Find awesome listings near you!