Edges for Winter
Tip 1 – Recast regularly
Carp can be shoaled incredibly tightly during the winter and with them being a lot less active in the colder water it’s important to get your bait as close to them as possible. Being active and recasting regularly every 2 or 3 hours allows me to search as much of the swim as I can and hopefully locate the carp. Tip 2 – Get on the Paste
In cold water the attraction leaking out from standard boilies can be greatly reduced, and one of my favourite methods of countering this is to wrap my hookbait in paste. The paste will breakdown quickly and help pull fish in to the hookbait. Tip 3 - High attract pop-ups
This links in nicely with the first tip, as hi-attract pop-ups fished in isolation or with tiny PVA bags are perfect for casting regularly around a swim.
Go for bright colours and high flavour levels offering maximum attraction with minimum food.
Tip 4 – Fine down
With clearer lakes and fish not feeding as hard it can often pay to scale down your end tackle and make everything as subtle as possible. I’ve had a lot of success by dropping my hook size down to an 8 or a 10 and using lighter hooklengths such as 10lb fluorocarbon.
Tip 5 – Keep an eye on the bird life
Watching the bird life on a lake can be a useful tactic in helping to locate carp in winter. The birds tend to congregate in areas of the lake that still contain natural food such as dying weed beds, and the chances are the carp won’t be far away from these spots either.
Tip 6 - Pepperami
Brilliant as a single hookbait in the winter, carp absolutely love the taste of Pepperami. The hot version seems to be even more effective than the original and is well worth a go as something a bit different.