At this time of year, carp and F1s can be very fickle creatures indeed. In the hot weather they’ll be hanging motionless near the surface, unwilling to feed, and so chasing them around with mugging or shallow tactics can mean a lot of wasted time spent waiting for a bite.
By changing your target species, though, action is pretty much guaranteed – I’m talking here about skimmers. They’re not everyone’s cup of tea, what with all that slime they always leave behind on landing nets and clothing but, if they’re of the right size, they are a great fish to spend those quiet spells targeting!
On commercials they grow big on a diet of pellets, meaning that catching 30lb of fish around the 1lb 8oz to 2lb mark is a relatively simple process, and nor do they need a specialised approach. On any commercial fishery, the baits you use for carp will be taken just as readily by skimmers – namely corn and pellets.
Find your range
Skimmers like deeper water – around 5ft is perfect in a lake with a depth of 6ft. If the lake has lots of little skimmers, fishing at 6m or 7m lets you catch them quickly, but if you’re after skimmers running to 2lb, you’ll have to go up to 13m out into the deepest water.
Balls of pellets
Micro pellets are a better feed than groundbait on commercials, but feeding them loose in deep water is all wrong! The deep water and possible tow on the lake will spread them too widely. The solution to this is to feed balls of dampened pellets squeezed together.
Corn is king!
Although expanders would be my main hookbait, corn appeals to big skimmers – presumably due to its colour. I only fish corn when trying for a better fish. Then I’ll feed a few grains by hand over the top of the float if I want to try and increase the size of skimmer I’m catching.
Positive floats
Deep, open water is no place for small floats, but I’ll fish as light as I can get away with. The Guru Wire Pinger is a very stable float in the 0.6g size, allowing me to combat wind and tow. I won’t keep the hookbait still all the time, but will lift and drop the float every now and again.
