Five Top Tips to Catch Big Carp

Video by Fox International

Ian Chillcott shares five top tips for targeting bigger carp. Ian has caught many enormous carp, all across the UK and his video delves into the mind of the man himself to bring you some of the best fishing tips.

Select a venue that holds the carp of the size that you want to catch.

There’s a very, very old army saying time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted and it’s truer in this instance as in any other. Find out the venue holds the fish that you want to catch and then spend your time recceing the place using your telephone, your computer get on the internet and get as much information on the place as you can make sure that you can afford to fish there. Make sure you can fish there and make sure you understand the kind of fishing that’s going to be required.

Tip number two, probably is to use the most important part and the best item of tackle that we own,

which is a mark one eyeball in the main presented with a good pair of polarized glasses. Richard Walker wrote many, many years ago back in 1953; “first find your fish or one hour in the right place is worth five in the wrong” is true today as it was when he wrote it. So get around the lake looking for your fish. Stalking is a great way to pick out individual fish setting traps in the margin. Maybe surface fishing if you can get them to take a surface bait is another way to try and isolate the bigger fish that you’re trying to catch. But most of all you’re using your eyes you’re creating a picture, building your confidence and that is so important when you’re chasing bigger fish.

Tip number three and we’ll go back to another age-old army saying “standard operating procedure”,

which for me is to use one of two rigs and a mainstay tactic with my bait and baiting up is something that I have got every confidence in. I’ve used it on every water I fish and it just works. On the odd occasion I have to readjust it but use what you are confident in to begin with and adjust it from there. In the first instance you’re going in with things that you know that work and confidence is a massive part of the carp fishing jigsaw. I use the two rigs a stifling pop up, the short version of that on a helicopter rig or my PVA bags are on a short curved chain hook and a long hair, they just work everywhere I’ve ever been. For me that confidence takes me 90% of the way to catching the fish that I want to.

Tip number four, somebody very famous once sang that you can have it all but it depends how much you want it,

Ihow hard you want a work towards the ultimate result. It’s all about walking the extra mile, doing the things and making the effort to get to where you want to get to get to. For a kick off I go back to your eyes again – using your eyes. I always set my alarm clock for at least half an hour before first light. I’m awake then at the time when carp are very active and I’m able to look and see signs and if I need to I move and that might even be in the middle of the night. There are other options as well to lessen the disturbance in the swim. Can you wade out to a spot to place a hook bait on? One, you’re making far less noise, two, you can do things other things ever so accurately which all add up to making the capture.

For the vast majority of my fishing I use boilies in 15 mil and 10 mil sizes.

One, it gives me options for a hook baits just to confuse the issue a little bit and two it invites everything to the party. Most things in a lake will try to eat a 10 mil boilie and all that feed-in activity, even if the carp aren’t there to begin with will get them involved in the end. I will start catching carp and it may not be the fish that I’m targeting at the time but I’m catching fish. Adding to my confidence and at the end of the day having fun and isn’t that what carp fishing is supposed to be about in the first place.