The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

I've caught a couple of jack pike whilst carp fishing & when moving the bait.

Last week I was carp fishing on a club pond that throws up the occasional good pike, so I put out a pike bait as well [rare for me to use 2 rods] - half a largish mackerel on 20lb trace wire & 2 no.6 singles.

I'd had no interest in the carp bait but a couple of small knocks on the pike bait [float fished just off the bottom & off the crayfish!]. The float then vanished straight down & I struck after a count of 3 to connect with what felt like a reasonable fish - but it never felt like a pike.

It was on for @ 10 seconds & came to the surface only to then let go of the bait. That's the best description I can give. It didn't feel like a hook pulling out.

It was clearly a mirror carp with a distinctive light grey colouring. I was fishing in the margin beneath me so it was only a rod length out.

About 40 minutes later I had a fish on the carp rod. A 12lb 1oz mirror carp with.....a distinctive light grey colouring. A lovely, deep bellied fish in great condition.

As sure as I can be that it was the same fish! It too came to the surface after a few seconds & then "woke up" & put up a decent fight on an Allcocks Hercules & Allcocks centrepin.

I had heard that carp have been caught on small deadbaits but that's the first time in @ 20 years in total of fishing that I've had such an experience.

Has anyone caught a carp in similar circumstances?

I spent some time living in Cyprus. It was fairly normal for the locals to use deadbait for carp fishing. I watched them pull in a reasonable number.

A chap I know fishes for big eels with fish heads with guts attached for bait but says he catches lots of 20lb+ carp.

I have always thought that at Redmire a reason why the biggest carp were never caught is because they had become carnivorous. They should have fished a gudgeon deadbait.

One 'pond' in West Sussex I fished for perch with small dead baits, rudd/roach mainly, caught perch and the occasional carp. Occasional in this case once or twice a visit but nothing over 10lb! Lack of protein I believe was the cause as it was a bare sandpit.

I also remember a 20+lb carp caught in an Angling Times pike match on dead bait, a sprat I think.

I was fishing for catfish (and carp) this July. My first fish was a catfish caught on a carp bait intended for the Carp. Later on when I switched to the catfish set up I had a carp caught on duck heart and roach head combo.

I have caught a lot of carp on dead fish intended for catfish, also caught a lot of bream on mackerel in particular. Sand eels I had to stop using because of the amount of carp and bream I was catching. at the end of the day it is the freshest fish meal you will get and a lot of our freshwater species love a bit of pellet/fish meal.

A mate of mine did a lot of Pike fishing at Boddington reservoir. He used to get bites all the time from the Match size carp in the water. When he was using lamprey, he would reel in and the bait had been sucked clear like, in his words, "a Mr Freeze ice pop".

ExeAngler wrote:A mate of mine did a lot of Pike fishing at Boddington reservoir. He used to get bites all the time from the Match size carp in the water. When he was using lamprey, he would reel in and the bait had been sucked clear like, in his words, "a Mr Freeze ice pop".

I used to fish there in the 1980's before it became a 'carp match lake'. At that time October was good for the pike fishing, but once the carp were stocked it became impossible as they were constantly attacking the deadbaits before the pike got a look in

This happens often enough. In the days when I spent a lot of time Eel fishing I had a lot of carp on a small deadbait. Also I caught a lot of perch the same way long after dark. I think a lot of our coarse fish are predatory to some extent.