What bait should I take to a French carp lake

By Andrew at Molyneux lake;

I often get asked about bait but I was a bit hesitant to write a piece about it in case people thought they could gain an ‘edge’ by doing the opposite of what I advise, but here’s what I’ve found at Molyneux.  Of course every lake varies, but these are my thoughts;

Particles

All particles seem to work well with the exception of Tigernuts.

Boilies

Boilies are the most expensive bait… but by far the most constant. A high quality freezer bait, for me, is preferable. At Molyneux freezer baits generally seem to do better than shelflife boilies.  The cheap, high attract 50:50, euro boilies are almost pointless as they seem to catch next to nothing.

Pellets

Again a high quality carp pellet for me is a must. Being cheaper than boilies they’re a good way of bulking up your bait and keeping costs down.

Amounts

I often get asked how much bait should an angler bring for a week.  It’s an almost impossible question to answer as it depends upon so many varibles. However, it’s better to take some home than to run out.  As a guide, the average size of carp last year was around 27lb and a carp of this size will consume around 3% of it’s body weight per day or around 400g.

Grass Carp

Without a doubt the best bait for grass carp are particles and lots of them fished in open water.  They’re a very greedy fish and are capable of eating massive amounts of bait so if you want to keep them in your swim you need to use very large beds of bait. As an example, I fished for the grass carp last year and ended up using 70 kg of particles over the course of a week, fishing nights only I ended up with 19 grass carp around a third of all the grass carp in the lake!

Catfish

Halibut pellets are by far the best bait for catfish, I’ve had people try bits of squid and dead baits but halibut pellets outfishes them all. Due to the way they feed a bit of bouyancy added to the hook.

Molyneux Lake

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