The Top 10 Tips for Summer Carp Fishing

The summer is in full swing and despite the recent downpours of rain, good weather is on the horizon and it’s a great time to be out on the bank catching carp! Here are our top ten tips for summer carp fishing!

The early bird catches the worm

Take full advantage of the early sunrise and get to the lake either just at first light or ideally half an hour before. Leave the gear in the car and find a spot where you can see as much of the lake as possible, as the sun comes up the areas where the fish have been feeding all night will be easy to see, look for patches of bubbles breaking the surface and the more obvious shows of carp leaping from the water cleaning their gills. You can wander past anglers snoring in their bivvies and quickly dispatch a couple of rods into the areas of feeding fish, keep it simple and just two casts can have you angling in no time at all. Quite often I have had a fish on the bank before the first angler has awoken and appeared from under their bivvy!

Have the floaters at the ready

During the summer I always have a floater fishing rod set up in the van with a bucket of floating pellets ready to go. A small bag of end tackle completes the set up and should the fish start cruising around, I can reel in my rods grab the floater kit from the van, and be off around the lake before anybody else has spotted the opportunity! Sometimes when the sun is out after work I will pop by the lake and have a quick look to see if I can nick a fish or two off the top, the amount of bonus carp I have caught doing this is in the hundreds and this is one of the best summer carp fishing tips I can pass on!

Post spawning feed

My next summer carp fishing tip is to keep in touch with your chosen venue and once the fish have spawned they will be hungry! A big hit of fish is on the cards if you time it right and I prefer to use a salty, savory boilie as the fish look to replace the energy lost during their amorous activities! If you find yourself in the enviable position of catching a few fish after they have spawned then do not be afraid to bait more heavier than usual, a few 20lb carp will demolish 10kg of boilies in no time at all when they are feeding hard.

Stay healthy

May sound a bit obvious but a good summer fishing tip is to keep yourself protected against the sun at all times. A decent spray on sun lotion, a cap or bucket style hat, polarised sunglasses and plenty of water or cold drinks will keep you fishing as effectively as possible all day long. When the sun is at its highest and most fierce between 11 am and 4 pm use this time to prepare for the night ahead, get your rigs tied, bait prepared and maybe even have a cheeky nap to keep yourself energised. When the evening or nighttime feeding spell occurs you will be primed and ready to go!

It’s time for the particles

Once the post-spawning feed has occurred, the fish can often drift away from wanting boilies and this is where particles come into their own. A good mix of hemp, corn, and tiger nuts (where allowed) can often be a more appealing prospect to the carp and a good summer fishing tip is to have a few ready-prepared jars of particles in your kit ready to use. Korda’s Tom Dove is a big summer particle user and fishes a bright pop-up over the top of a big bed of particles to devastating effect.

Keep those hook sharp

Not just a top summer carp fishing tip but relevant all year round. Always check your hook points before you cast your rigs out and learn how to use a sharpening or honing stone to keep the hook points in prime condition. Your hook is the only connection between you and the carp so make sure it is razor sharp and ready to do its job, imagine losing the fish of a lifetime because your hook was blunt, something that is an easy fix and very preventable. If in doubt as to whether a hook point is sharp or not, lightly drag the hook point across your thumbnail, if it slides across and doesn’t dig in, then it needs some attention. If in doubt change it for a new hook.

Master the margins

A top summer carp fishing tip that I learned when fishing the famous Blue Pool near Reading in Berkshire. Lakes with deeper margins often see the fish visiting the edges day and night and with a little stealth and effort you can big carp right under your feet! Keep a few different sizes of pellets in a small bucket and have a wander around the lake, dropping a handful of bait onto any likely-looking spots on the edge, the best spots are the ones nobody else fishes! Once you have baited 4 or 5 spots keep checking them and I guarantee that at least one of them will be fed on at some point. If you see that fish have visited a spot and fed you can lower a heavy 4oz inline lead with a short braided hooklink and a trimmed-down wafter to look like a pellet onto the spot. Keep the line super slack, sit well back from the lake edge, and be ready as the bites can be very explosive!

Spodding over zigs

Fishing zig rigs in the summer is no secret. The warm weather brings the fish into the upper layers and carefully placed zig rig has been the downfall of many carp but we can increase our chances of a big hit of fish by spodding bait over the top. Now, spodding out boilies and pellets is not the way to go, we need to make a sloppy, runny, cloudy spod mix that will attract fish into the area and keep them there. Into a bucket goes a few handfuls of hemp and micro pellets, next add a milky groundbait like DNA Baits Cloudy Spod Mix and give it a good mix around. Add water a little at a time until the mix has turned the consistency of runny porridge. The important bit is to leave it for 10 minutes to allow the groundbait to soak up the water. When you go back to it the mix will be a lot more stodgy and thicker, so add more water and get it back to the runny porridge stage. Cast out your zigs and spod it out over the top. Keep busy, spodding every 10 minutes or so to keep the bait going in and the fish will soon be along to investigate where they will find your zig rig.

Stay mobile

A top summer carp fishing tip is to be as mobile as you can, travel light, and fish off the barrow, only settling into a swim for the night once you are sure the fish is in front of you. In the summer the fish are at their most active, often spread out around the lake in groups, you could quite easily sit in a swim all day and still be a long way away from any feeding fish. Keep moving around, fishing a few different swims until you find them, the good thing about the summer is the days are long so you have a lot of time to figure out where the fish are and quite often the last hour is the best of the day so have your rods in the water ready to go well before that magical last hour of daylight.

Fish for a bite at a time

My final summer carp fishing top is to only fish for a bite at a time. Unless you have hit the jackpot and found the fish are tearing the bottom up for food, it is more likely that the fish are not feeding heavily and a single hook bait with a mesh bag of freebies or solid PVA bag approach can be an effective way of nicking the odd fish that is willing to feed. When the carp are not feeding hard they will avoid big beds of bait like the plague, so a bright hookbait with just enough free bait to attract a bite can often produce the goods when anglers who have baited heavily are struggling. You know how humans are in the summer, we often don’t want big meals we just want a nibble ,and carp are no different!

So there you have it, ten of the best summer carp fishing tips to keep you catching right the way through the warmer months!