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Surface allsorts

Presenting a surface hookbait can be a real science. Here, Avid Carper Mat Woods tries to wrap his head around the best presentation for floating baits…

Imagine if your dinner floated above your head. Imagine if your eyes were on the side of your head so the closer you got to something, the less you could see. Imagine, for a moment, what it feels like to be a carp trying to eat a floater.

For many anglers, surface fishing is the work of the devil and an art-form that can never be mastered. For others, it’s a devastating way of singling out fish that simply will not feed on the bottom, no matter what you try. Whether it’s an opportunist surface opportunity, or a more calculated effort, there’s no greater skill and no greater thrill in catching a unit off the top.

Setting up to fish the surface is relatively simple. I believe most carp anglers fish way too heavy and cost themselves chances on the top, but there is a fine line between having gear that’s up to the job and gear that isn’t! I tend to use the lightest rod I can get away with because often you need to cast a free-lined bait or a small PVA bag a fair distance. If I can get away with not using a controller float, I will. How you set that all up is up to you, it’s not rocket science, but the hookbait and how that is presented is the bit that I believe is most relevant to the whole situation.

Let’s go back to the start again for a second, because how your bait floats around is an essential part of the puzzle. Your freebies will inevitably sit higher in the water than a hookbait that has a hook and line attached to it. As the freebies go soft, they will sit lower in the water, so low that if your tackle was attached it would sink the floater. It sounds daft, but checking how your hookbait sits in a tank of water is such a massive edge.

 For me, the best thing to do is to adjust the buoyancy with something that has a buoyancy that doesn’t change. Mixers, floating pellets, Oily Floaters, bread – all the good surface baits have a buoyancy that changes. They all swell and eventually, sink. One thing I started doing over 15 years ago was using a split shot as a Hair stop when floater fishing. This sat the hook out of the water and also put the floater at a different level. A few companies sold rubber biscuits that had a recess for a shot, but I’ve caught a lot more off the top matching the freebies than I have chucking rubber and foam around.

The problem with this, again, is matching the buoyancy. To negate the shot you often need a sliver of cork or foam the other side of the hookbait. This means that even when the floater is totally saturated and wants to sink, it will still be held up. Avoid sudden movements and the bait will stay attached for some time. It looks like a Liquorice Allsort on the Hair, but trust me, it works. It enables you to leave hookbaits in the swim for longer and to adjust the buoyancy quickly by simply trimming the foam or changing the size of the shot in the hair loop.

Behind the hook I always ensure the line is heavily greased. My favourite trick is to use the Code Red Oil which is usually all over my floaters to grease the Avid Zig Line hooklink. Often you can just rub an Oily Floater along the length of the hooklink, but the oil gives another edge with its unique crabby, fishy smell.

I’m not saying this is the ultimate surface hookbait, but it’s certainly helped me bag a few off the top over the years. I’ve been visiting a few lakes locally seeking surface opportunities and haven’t cast a line as yet, despite a few nice fish taking confidently. Why? Well sometimes in life, you need to learn to walk past the small ones. I’m looking for the ones whose eyes are over 2ft apart!

Use a super sharp straight pointed hook; a sliver of foam or an Avid High-Lite to keep the hook out of the water; a split shot weight as a Hair stop so the hookbait sits at the right level in the water; and match what you're feeding with hookbait.
Tools of the trade. Mat uses this Zig Line as a reel line and hooklink material as it’s harder for fish to detect than standard lines.
Baiting on the surface at range couldn’t be easier or quieter
Liver Oily Floaters. Carp love them and they last a good while as hook -baits, too
Some lakes Mat finds that coloured controllers are actually less of an issue for the carp than clear ones
The two-tone reel line has the perfect properties for floater angling
The hookbait is attached via a dacron Hair on the shank. This stops the last inch of hooklink going underwater.
A solid mid-twenty ghosts behind a chunk of bread, another surface winner
The super sharp hook is a large one; a size 6, as Mat is usually fishing very weedy venues