HOW TO MAKE THE BREAD AND CORN SUPER MIX

It may not look the most appealing bait, but Craig Mortimer’s budget bread and corn mix is unbeatable!

Whether a carp is 3oz, 3lb or 30lb, they will never turn their noses up at a free feed of bread and corn. Match anglers use both to great effect right through the winter and well into early spring, so why not adopt this approach when targeting specimen carp?

Even if the fish are completely dormant due to the cold water temperature, the bright visibility that these two baits bring to the table is usually irresistible. Being primarily flavour, colour and cloud, there is nothing to really feed upon, apart from the hookbait.

Gardner, Sticky and Daiwa-backed Craig Mortimer has been using this mixture of ‘match baits’ over four years and his results speak for themselves, with a 31lb 12oz being the biggest to fall to his tactics. With this in mind, Craig’s carping approach just had to be checked out, so we met the 30-year-old Ipswich rod at The Nunnery Lakes complex near Thetford, Norfolk and asked him to guide us through this magic carp mix.

HOW TO MAKE CRAIG'S MIX

Starting with a whole fresh sliced white loaf, he places the lot in a bucket and adds water to produce a mush. Next in goes a 900g bag of frozen corn that has been liquidised, as well as another full bag of frozen whole corn.

“I like to add around 1/3 to half a kilo of crushed Manilla boilies and 100ml of the corresponding liquid as this enhances the flavour trail and gives the bigger fish something to graze on without filling them up,” he added.

“If I am fishing somewhere shallow or over the top of zigs and I want the slop to make more of a cloud in the water, I’ll add a little more liquid and lake water. Alternatively, if the venue is deeper, I stodge it up with the addition of more liquidised breadcrumb or groundbait.”

The beauty of Nunnery is there are few, if any, silverfish, but if a water does hold bream, you can get plagued by them at times. By fishing a boilie on the hook, if you do hook a bream or roach, it will generally be of a better stamp, so still worth catching.

“I have found in the past that feeding silverfish will draw in the carp, which soon bully these fish away from the swim, so it’s a win, win,” Craig told us. Follow the simple steps below to create your own corn mix on the bank!

     1.  Start by putting a whole loaf of fresh, sliced white bread in a bucket, and add water

     2.   Use your hands to break up the bread and crusts into a soggy mush

     3.  Once you’ve got rid of all the lumps put on the lid and drain off any excess water

     4.  Next into the bucket goes a 900g bag of frozen corn that has been liquidised

     5. Give the mix a good stir until the liquidised corn is fully mixed in with the bread mash

     6.  Another whole bag of corn, this time frozen, is then added to the bucket

    7. The addition of half a kilo of chopped boilies provides a few bigger food items for the carp

    8. A glug of Cloudy Manilla liquid helps to enhance the flavour trail of the mix