Most North American carp have not experienced the fishing pressure of European carp and so basic baits and rigs often produce well. Basic North American baits range from simple sweetcorn and nightcrawlers to simple doughballs of wheaties and strawberry soda that rely on the strength of the baits flavor to attract carp. The evolution of North American baits revolves mostly around doughballs used in pay lakes. In this situation, the carp are pressured by anglers fishing only for carp. The carp see a lot of different baits, the biggest carp caught during the match wins the money pot so this is serious carp angling. With this much pressure on bait emphasis you would not think pay lakers would share their bait secrets with us, but they don’t forget the fun they have and are willing to teach anyone the basics. Here we present a short primer on American Paylake doughballs, the full article is in the NACA, Fall 1999.
European carp are much more pressured as they are considered game fish so there is a lot of competition in these waters and bait, rig design and presentation become much more important. Attracting a fish is accomplished by pre-baiting the water. At this point the problem becomes making the fish eat one of thousands of boilies in the water, so the Eurocarper will make special bait boilies which are larger or smaller, have a different taste or formula, and may be pop-ups or floaters. Often these are commercially available in tackle shops. They are not cheap.
A new era of carp fishing is emerging in North America. We are merging European techniques with North American tactics to produce bigger catches, bigger carp and more fun! North Americans are discovering chumming for carp, baits like the European boilie that are not picked apart by little fish and boiled maize (feed corn) threaded onto a hair rig. North Americans are also experimenting more with floats, feeder cages, bank sticks and bite alarms. In short the Europeans have given us a big boost in carp fishing and we have lots of carp to catch with these new techniques. But, don’t forget the doughball, now American carp anglers are teaching their European counterparts the virtues of a revival of pastebaits in Europe while at the same time the North American anglers are learning of new additives and flavors for their own doughballs.
The NACA (CAG newsletter) constantly has new information on baits, rigs and presetations, these are just a sample.
