Luke Vallory - Autumn Location

Fish to where the carp are, simple as that. Don’t get drawn into pre-mediated ideas and keep an open mind. Watching the water remains as important as ever, finding the areas they want to be in and then adapting your tactics to suit.

I hear and read a lot of hype surrounding the deep silty zones in the autumn. Yes, the carp will visit these areas, but don’t neglect the shallow water. So far this autumn and in autumns past I’ve found success in areas of just a few feet in depth. You can often get easy bites from these spots as the fish look to seek warmth.

Dying weed beds are magnets for carp, and through the autumn, I look to target these areas. Offering the fish safety, warmth, shelter, and natural food, they offer everything. Finding presentable areas close to the weed has served me well in previous years, especially whilst fishing places such as Dinton. A notoriously tricky cold-water venue, but precise fishing to these weedier zones, I managed a really fruitful autumn.

One the subject of autumn, I also hear plenty of chat about the big autumn feed up, which from my experience, seems to be a thing of the past. I believe the carp have their fill through the summer and as we progress into autumn, they don't have these big feed ups like people say. Through the autumn, I scale down my baiting, fishing for bites, often with bits and pieces and incorporate natural baits into my mix. Of course, where I can, I'll look to fish boilie as often as possible, simply due to the ease. You can't beat a pouchful of bait over a match the hatch hookbait - Super simple fishing that can be a really effective way of getting them big ones. But, when bites slow up on the boilie, I'll look to fish bits and pieces and naturals on tight spots close to the dying weed beds, with small whittled down hook baits. 

Lastly, the weather will play a vital role in autumn zones. I favour the back of the wind at this time of year, often finding the carp seeking sanctuary on the side or back of big winds. Good conditions don't come around everyday, so if you see a pressure drop and some nice westerly, I'd definitely try to get down the lake to capitalise. Often, the end of the wind will fish well initially, but you'll soon find they back off. And lastly on weather, I also follow the moon phases through there year, but find them even more important through the autumn. The September and October phases have a real history of big fish and for me, it's not a coincidence.