Surface fishing for carp has to be one of the most exciting, frustrating and rewarding aspects of modern day carp angling. The range of different tricks you can try and tempt a bite are endless, and you have to be alert when trying to lure a specimen carp into taking your hookbait.
This Tackle Fanatics guide gives you a foundation to surface fishing for carp. As with all angling there are a huge range of baits, tactics, tackle and methods that you can use when surface fishing, but we have put together a brief guide to make your surface angling as devastating as possible.
Time to get the floater kit out
Hardwear
Surfacing fishing rods are generally long and soft to allow quick line pickup, to avoid hook pulls and line breakages.
The rod you use will depends upon the size of the fish you are angling for, the range you are fishing at, and how much fun you want to make it! If you are free lining under the rod tip, or fishing at very short range, then a through action rod will be best due to its ability to absorb the initial lunge when you set the hook on a margin caught monster. If you are fishing at longer range then a long 12-13ft rod with a semi fast action and soft tip will be ideal. A longer rod will help you to mend the line, control the float and strike at range. The rods soft tip will prevent the small hooks being pulled out and light hook links snapping.
An Avon style rod or light carp rod with a 1.25lb-2.5lb test curve is a great floater rod for the angler just trying their hand at surface fishing, they tend to bend right through to the butt and make playing a fish loads of fun. As you get into your surface fishing and start to target bigger fish then a dedicated floater rod such as the Daiwa Longbow DF Floater Special is ideal, it has been specifically designed to meet the demands of the specialist surface angler, and will help you to target, hook and land carp on surface tackle.
The reel for surface fishing isn’t as important as the rod and anything can be used providing it has a decent line capacity, is lightweight and has a precise clutch. Daiwa Whisker SS 2600, Shimano Stradic GTM 4000 S RC and Fox Stratos FS 10000 are all brilliantly suited to angling for surface feeding fish. Your chosen reel needs to be loaded up with either a strong, low diameter mono or quality floating braid. With mono breaking strains from 6-12lb are typical and braid you are best of using 15-30lb. Mono lines with give you a buffer when playing fish and you are less likely to experience hook pulls; braid on the other hand will give you the advantage of supreme control over your end tackle and the ability to strike at the most delicate bites, even at range.
Balanced tackle and a good pair of polarised glasses are essential
One of the most important bits of surface fishing kit is a decent pair of polarised sunglasses. These special glasses take the surface glare off the water, enabling you to locate and observe your quarry with ease. Without the ability to see what the fish are doing you will miss bites and/or simply not be able to find fish that you would with polarised glasses. The lenses of these glasses normally come in three colour variations – amber, brown and grey. The amber lenes are designed for low light conditions and are ideal for early mornings and evenings, the brown are ideal for those bright days when the sun is up, and the grey are a great all-round colour. Tackle Fanatics currently have a 50% off sale on Fox’s 300 Series glasses, these are ideal for those who are looking to get out on the bank and stalk their quarry this summer.
Floats, line, hooks and bits
Due to the finesse and challenging nature of surface fishing end tackle is one of the most crucial elements of successful surface angling. When fishing for wary fish finely tuned tackle is paramount, if you hook is too big or your hooklink too heavy then you simply won’t get a bite. Although you need to try and fish as fine as possible there is no point in fishing a size 18 hook and a 2lb hooklink as you are extremely unlikely to land anything you hook. A general rule of thumb with hooks is anything between a size 8 and size 12 for general pellet/biscuit type fishing; you are able to use larger hooks such as size 6’s and 4’s when fishing large pieces of bread. There are a number of fantastic surface fishing hooks on the market such as Fox’s Arma Point SSSP & SSBP patterns, Drennan’s Barbel hooks and Korda’s dedicated Mixa hooks, which have been designed with surface fishing in mind.
A small quality hook is essential
Hooklink length, breaking strain and nature are critical when attempting to trick large carp. The line must be either neutral buoyancy or floating to prevent it spooking the fish, or fouling on their extremities when feeding close to the surface. The majority of lines can be made to float by greasing them, this can be done by using a product called Mucilin or simply by rubbing your finger either side of your nose, behind your ear or anywhere else that your body’s natural oils collect. Hooklink length varies on the swim you are fishing and how wary the fish are. Often fish will actually come up and suck the float before they take your hookbait, but generally you want to have a distance of about 4-8 feet between your float and hook. When it comes to breaking strains this will also be influenced by what you can get away with; it’s no good getting the bite only to lose the fish because you have stepped down the breaking stain of your line, a line with a breaking strain of 6-12lb will cover the majority of situations. Tackle Fanatics recommend surface fishing hooklinks such as Korda Kruiser Control, Fox’s Zig + and Ultima’s Power Zig, all of these are dedicated floater fishing lines with all the qualities required for surface angling.
Beyond distances around 10 yards you’ll need to use a float of some kind to give you the additional weight required to be able to cast your bait to the waiting mouths of your quarry. The addition of a float to your setup will also give you increased hooking potential, and a number have been designed so carp actually hook themselves against the resistance of the float. There are a huge array of different surface fishing floats available on the market – these are often referred to as ‘controller floats’.
Although there is a wide variety for the angler to choose from there is two main types of surface floats – self-cocking controller floats and bubble style floats. They are both as effective as each other but each as their advantages. Self-cocking controller floats can be cast in excess of 50 yards and are easier to see as the tip of the float stands proud. The line runs through the top of the float and when the fish take the hookbait the float will tilt forward giving the angler the indication they need to strike! The only problem with these types of floats is that they do have a tendency to tangle on occasion and they don’t cast as far as an inline bubble style float.
The bubble float in its original form is a classic piece surfacing fishing tackle, its ability to be filled with water gives it fantastic casting capability, and its shape gives it brilliant hooking potential. These floats are fished in-line and have great aerodynamic qualities, adding to its castable distance, whilst also remaining almost tangle free. Inline bubble style floats can be used at ranges of anything up to 80 yards and are great for those who want to fish at range.
Baits, feeding and mounting hookbaits
As with all fishing the way you feed is essential to success. There will be times when a single hookbait cast delicately to a cruising fish will get you a quick bite, but more often than not the best way is to locate some fish in the upper layers, feed little and often and try and get the fish competing for food. Once you have achieved the ‘Pac-Man’ feeding scenario it will be easy to overcast your controller and draw it back into the group of competitive fish waiting for a floating morsel. Its surprising how much bait you need when surface fishing so don’t find yourself short, take a large bucket of bait and a number of hookbaits to give yourself the best chance of a red letter day.
Surface baits comes in all shapes, sizes and forms, these can range from floating dog biscuits and bread, to dedicated floater fishing baits such as buoyant trout pellets and pop-ups. Bread is a classic surface bait that has tempted some of the finest carp in the country into taking a baited rig. Bread is buoyant, visible and will take on flavours and colours readily. For short range fishing bread is always worth a try and will often encourage a seemingly uninterested fish turn its head and slurp down this ‘old school’ bait. The disadvantage to bread is that it tends to come off on long casts and won’t stay on the hook for prolonged periods of time when in the water. The modern surface angler tends to use pellet and biscuit type baits as these have a much higher resistance to casting, the attentions of nuisance fish and long periods in the water. The humble ‘Chum Mixer’ catches thousands of carp every year, and once you get a group of carp feeding you will often get them competing for their next mouthful of these smelly dog treats. ‘Mixers’ can be flavoured and coloured to make them stand out. A great addition to these ‘classics’ are cat biscuits, which give variety to your surface fishing mix. The variation of size, shape and smell will help you to confuse the fish and make your hookbait more readily acceptable.
What carp could resist?
For those who want the ultimate in surface baits then the floating trout pellet has to be up there with some of the best. These ultra-oily baits leak huge amounts of attractors into the water and will actually create a slick on the surface, allowing you to fish in an area which is flat calm whilst the rest of the lake resembles a small inland sea! Again these come in a number of different sizes and shapes and will also take on colours, flavours and extra oil (if needed).
Freebies can be fed using a number of different methods. Generally a catapult will get bread, biscuits and pellets out at a reasonable range, but sometimes the humble catapult just isn’t enough to get the distance or quantity of bait needed for those hungry surface feeders; this is when spods and Spombs come into their own. Spods and Spombs can be loaded with large amounts of bait and cast huge distances. Another way to get large amounts of bait out at range is with the use of PVA bags. PVA bags simply need to be filled with your chosen floating bait along with a couple of stones to give the bag some weight, this can then be catapulted at range.
‘Spombing’ out surface baits can be devastating
Hookbaits are one of the most important aspects of your presentation; if the bait is not buoyant enough or is simply different from your freebies it can be treated with caution. The best way is to alleviate this problem is to get the fish to throw caution to the wind by getting them to compete.
The classic way to fish pellet and biscuit type baits is to either soften hem then side hook or to use a bait band. Both these methods are effective in their own right, but side hooking tends to close the gape of your hook, making it harder to get a decent hookhold. Banding biscuits is much more effective and easier way to mount a bait and is probably the most popular form of attaching a hookbait. Hookbaits can also be mounted using a hair but this tends to affect the buoyancy of the hookbait.
From the need to keep a hookbait on for as long as possible and to get maximum buoyancy, the introduction of pop-ups and artificial hookbaits spawned. These baits are not only ultra-buoyant but are also easy to cast at range and will avoid the effects of nuisance fish. Pop-ups can be trimmed down to the same shape and size as your freebies and the choice of colour and flavour can also help you to get a quick bite; much like fishing a fluro popup over dark fishmeal boilies. Artificial hookbaits such as plastic dog biscuits and floating pellets tick all the boxes where surface hookbaits are concerned, these are well worth keeping in your tackle box for those hot days.
There are a number of other methods such as the beach caster technique, over depth ‘zigs’ and fly fishing for surface feeding carp, but we will leave those specialised tactics for another day.
Surface fishing is one of the most exhilarating methods that our sport has to offer. The sun is shining the weather is sweet, so get out on the bank and try your hand at tricking a carp ‘OTT’.
Tight lines from all the Tackle Fanatics team.
