Tom Stokes - Finding the spot

After location, the second most important aspect of carp fishing is presentation. As even if you’re on the fish, you're never going to catch them if your hookbaits aren't presented correctly. So, this means you need to find an area, or spot, on which to present your bait and rigs where the carp are likely to come across them.

Of course, there are times when you feel like a quick bite is on the cards, that fishing for a 'drop' will suffice to minimise disturbance. This is where pop-up rigs such as chods, spinners, and hinges fished on a heli set up come into their own. Although this can be an effective tactic, there is always an element of uncertainty as to how those rigs are going to be presented, or if they are even presented at all.

Lead around

Therefore, it often pays to start off your session with the leading rod, searching the swim for clean areas. These areas can vary, but an ideal spot is usually made up of silt, gravel, sand or clay. Basically, it is anywhere that is clear enough to present your rigs and bait effectively without it being hindered by weed or debris, which is likely to be sat on the lake bed.

Use a bare lead

To find these spots I will begin by casting a bare lead to the area I am hoping to fish, feeling for the lead to drop onto the lake bed. If that drop doesn't come straight away, I will bounce the lead back through the weed multiple times, feeling for the drop each time, this way I am exploring a much bigger area on every cast. If that first cast doesn't reveal anything I will then start fanning the casts slightly left or right each time, again aiming to explore as much of the swim as possible.

Feel for a drop

When I do eventually get the sort of drop I am looking for, the line is put in the clip and I will have multiple casts to that same clip, to explore the area in which I got the drop in much greater detail, with the hope that the drop I have got is on a clear spot. A clean pull back on the rod tip will indicate this, as sometimes you can get a ‘false’ drop as the lead falls through the weed and hits the lake bed. If it is clear, then I will then work out how big the spot is by again casting slightly left or right each time, and adjusting the clip slightly if necessary to ensure I am landing bang on it every time.

Explore the area

Of course, not all swims will have perfectly clean areas, and in these instances I will be happy to settle for a good drop over low-lying weed, again this is where pop-up rigs will come into their own. But the ideal spot will be a nice, smooth, clean pull back on the rod tip, unless it's gravel of course, where you will feel the 'tapping' of the gravel through the tip. These are the spots I am always most confident in fishing if I can find them, and will generally present a bottom bait over the top of.

Here's what you need

The set up I use to do this consists of a 12ft Korda Kaizen Platinum spod rod, as I believe the stiffer tip helps read the lake bed much better than a softer rod would; a Daiwa Spod reel loaded with 20lb Korda Spod Braid - braid is essential as its lack of stretch transmits the feeling of the drop and what your lead is getting pulled across much better than mono or fluorocarbon would do; a shock leader made from 30lb Korda Arma-Kord, to avoid any potential crack-offs; and then a 4oz Korda tournament lead - I tend to favour the tournament shape as it is easier to pluck free from any weed, making the process of bouncing it back through the weed much easier than it would be with a more dumpy shaped lead, which is likely to just get clogged up in weed bringing back big balls of it on every cast.