The guys from Solar Tackle give you their top 3 baiting tips…
Tip 1 – Packing your boilies with attraction is a great way to get your baited area noticed quicker, and visited more often, than the guy in the next swim. By soaking your baits in a proven, amino liquid such as Solar’s Marine 17, you can easily boost the pulling power of your baited area. Better still, this isn’t restricted to certain baits and can be done with your favourite boilies, pellets and groundbaits.
To get the best from this method when using boilies soak your baits for at least 24-hours prior to use to give the liquid a chance to soak into the baits, which will in turn give you a longer-lasting attraction boost than glugging the baits minutes before chucking them in. Air-drying your boilies and then re-hydrating them in an amino liquid ensures that the attraction penetrates right into the center of each bait.
It’s a simple tactic and one that you have probably heard of before, yet a surprisingly few anglers actually take advantage of it… which makes it all the more effective.
Soak your baits
Tip 2 – Every angler knows that maggots are a fantastic bait and they work year round, but they can really come into their own through the winter as we ‘scratch’ for bites in the cold.
There are all sorts of methods for using maggots, but a simple and effect way that works year in, year out, and doesn’t break the bank, is to use a tangerine-sized PVA bag of maggots and slightly-dampened groundbait, Solar’s The PVA Bag Mix for example, and to couple this with a small, bright pop-up; an 11mm Top Banana pop-up is perfect.
The pop-up should be critically balanced because you don’t want the hook bait sat off the bottom above the maggots and groundbait. You want the bait sat right among the small pile of freebies and a critically-balanced bait will fly into a carp’s mouth with the lightest of sucks and bingo, you’re in. Pinching a shot just below the hook onto the hair is a simple and effective way of counter balancing a pop-up, as you don’t want the hook bait sat off the bottom above the maggots and groundbait.
The reason behind using a pop-up rather than a bunch of maggots is that it will withstand the attentions of nuisance fish, and adds a visual element to your setup that often works so well through the colder months.
Used in conjunction with a mobile approach and/or for casting at showing or bubbling fish, this method is a sure-fire winner.
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Tip 3 – Carp spend very little time on the lakebed, and spend the vast majority of their time suspended somewhere in the water column. There’s every chance that carp pass through your swim at some stage on each session, but unless you can see them on the surface or they drop down and pick up your hook bait, you may not even realize it.
To increase your catch rate you need to grab their attention as they pass through and give them a reason to drop down to the lakebed and pick up your hook bait. Solar’s Up & Down Mix creates a column of particles from lakebed to lake surface that is all but impossible for a passing carp to ignore. As the particles rise and fall through the entire water column a carp’s inquisitive nature encourages it to investigate the source of the activity, where it’ll come across your hook bait.
You can use the bright Up & Down Mixes neat for a very visual column that works very well on well-stocked waters, or you can combine the Up & Down Mix with boilie crumb or your favourite stick mix for a more subtle approach, but one that still works to pull carp down from mid water.
All of these products are available to order at Solar’s official online store www.solar24-7.co.uk.
The Up & Down mix in action
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