Dear Spug,

I have been fishing an eight-acre gravel pit for a couple of years now. It’s got a big head of carp with at least 60 above the magical 20lb mark, and from my experience I have found that the carp do like a bed of bait to feed on. I took up spodding last year and my catch rate has improved. However, with it currently being winter, I’m not sure when the carp start to feed so I’m puzzled as to when I should start introducing bait again. My question to you is when would be the best time to start introducing bait into the lake again? Please help.

Regards,
Nick Williams, Hull.

Hi Nick, and thanks for the question.

In winter, as the water temperature drops, the general school of thought is that the carp go into a state of semi-hibernation as their metabolism slows down. Because of this their energy usage also slows, which affects their desire to feed. However, I do not think they stop feeding altogether, it’s just that the feeding periods may be as little as once a day for half an hour or so (or even less). All of this means that quite often most anglers do not want to fish over a large bed of bait in the winter because they feel that the carp cannot/do not want to eat large quantities of bait until such time as they are more active and need to feed more.

March is a great time to start introducing a good quality freezer bait

With this in mind, I feel that you can put the bait in during the colder months, but you just need to be careful as to how much you do put in. I’ve found December, January, and February to be the worst three months for heavily baiting; in March you can start putting in the bait depending on how your lake is producing. By that I mean the more fish that are being caught, then obviously more fish are feeding on a regular basis. I would be tempted to trickle in the boilies at this time, no more than, say, 30 free offerings per rod (and personally I would only use freezer boilies as I have more confidence in them). I would also keep spodding in pellet and hemp because the carp/smaller fish will rattle this off in no time. It’s better to leave a bed of particle on your lake bottom than a real big bed of boilies.

This lovely common was well on the bait!

When April comes along, the carp are definitely feeding more, and at this point I would happily fish over half a kilo of boilies with particle. I would continue to fish like this until the weather has really warmed up (by May), then you should find you are just about back to your summer baiting plan. In the past I have found that May can be a really productive month and you can give the carp plenty of bait.

Hope this helps, and be lucky!

Spug