These days it feels like my venue choice dictates my general cool water approach. Certainly, by the time we lumber towards late autumn, and winter proper creeps inexorably around the corner, I will have inevitably changed almost everything I was doing just a few months earlier.

When the calendar passes the critical autumnal equinox everything in the natural world is preparing for the hardships and austerity of winter – and that includes old Mr Carp…. They are feasting on larders of food in order to bulk up. Fish that were like empty crisp packets during the summer are full and in peak condition by the time winter arrives.

Bait application through the warmer months will inevitably have a beneficial effect on your potential results during this feed up. It’s vital you choose a bait they really like, so I recommend that you go and find a safe area of the lake or a fish holding snag that they feel comfortable in and introduce your bait and watch… If they obviously love the bait, then you can be assured they will be happy to eat the food when they’re out in the lake too. Stick with it and feed as much as you (and your mates) can, baiting known productive areas and with good angling you’ll reap the rewards later.

Many successful anglers sit in a single swim “campaigning”, building up the area by keeping the bait going in. I just can’t do it! I prefer to apply bait all over the lake in an effort to naturalise the food source. There’s also the fact that I just get way too bored of gazing at the same bit of water, session after session [YAWN], and prefer the freedom to

move on most waters. It works on most small and medium venues, but is seemingly quite ineffectual on big waters where campaigning in a swim probably edges it in terms of results.

Anyone that has either established a bait as the dominant food source on a small or medium sized lake, or just got spots rocking, will know what a difference this makes to captures at any time of the year, but the peak return on a baiting campaign invariably comes after mid-August and before the frigid cold undermines the carp’s almost insatiable hunger.

Rig wise, honestly these days I tend to stick to the same range of rigs that I know work, and if I am worried about presentation due to leaves I tend to avoid areas where they build up naturally. Certainly, I’ve fished waters that are adversely affected by the deposition of tonnes of leaves, and they normally fish like a bag of shit for a month or so after the first major leaf fall. This affect could possibly be due to O2 depletion as they degrade, or maybe they just give off something that tastes noxious. Not withstanding that, logic dictates that if we find an area is thick in leaves, then it’s highly unlikely to have been readily fed on by carp, is it? Surely that’s a good enough indicator.

Realistically, by the time the water temperature is below 6C, everything I do with regards to rigs and baits inevitably evolves again – with the methods I finally elect to use being largely dictated by the specific venue rules - In other words, when it’s proper ‘cold-cold’, if the germs are not allowed then I’m a bit bloody snookered!

"I’ll be fishing higher pop-up sections and will be lengthening my wafter rigs. This will aid presentation in the siltier areas"