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Dave Lane Spring 101! Posted by Dave Lane

What to do when the time comes to start introducing bait onto your spots!

So, Spring runs from March until mid-June and we have already looked at the first half of this period in the last month's issue. May and June are entirely different to the preceding months in as much as the carp will be fully active by now and settling into a decent routine of feeding, using similar areas on a regular basis. This is the time to start to introduce bait onto spots and keep them topped-up as often as possible. It is not necessary to absolutely back fill an area and I firmly believe that frequency is more important than quantity. What you are trying to achieve is regular feeding and a cleaning of certain spots. Carp will displace the silt layers when feeding and this will hold back the weed growth on these areas, creating the perfect environment for your bait and giving you a platform that will last all summer, even when other areas may become choked with weed.

Everything on the lakebed will be coming alive during this time and you should see House Martins, Swifts and Swallows start to appear, dive bombing over the lake to mop-up all the little insects as they emerge from the lake. All of these have started their emergence from the silt, and this will get the fish in a proper feeding mode, you just have to make your presentation of food more appealing and easier to access than the natural version. Good quality boilies both whole and chopped and a bed of smaller seeds like hemp and mixed particles will keep the fish coming back for more, turning over the same areas time and again, looking for those tasty morsels of food.

Boilies give the carp a good return for their efforts and, pre-spawning, this is what they are after, nutrition and well-being. On snaggy lakes you may well find that the fish will spend a lot of the time just laying up in the sun as they know that they are safe there but if you start early and create a feeding area or two then this will soon become part of their regular patrol route and give you the chance to bag up during this magical time of the year.

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