River carp fishing – rigs and tips
I’ve started fishing a new section of the River Lea and on my first visit I spotted some decent carp. This was too much for me to resist, as I love river carping and this article includes some of the river carp fishing rigs and tips I used to land some cracking carp!
I decided on a stalking approach with a single rod, this allows me to cover as much water as possible, looking and learning as I move along the river. As I’ve not fished this stretch before, I was really keen to see what it holds. I love this pioneering approach of exploring the river, not knowing what I’m going to catch and setting a few traps for carp along the way.
Watching and waiting – the trap is set
My most successful river carp fishing rigs and tips are very different to my approach for catching barbel. As the river bed can hold a load of little twigs and debris, a solid PVA bag is the best way to present my hookbait and free offerings. I’ve used this method many times before and I know it works.
A solid bag stem drops the lead to the bottom of the PVA bag and allows me to seal the bag neatly with PVA string around the stem.
Inside the PVA bag I drop in a 3oz inline lead on a solid bag stem. A short rig of 35lb Avid coated braid has a couple of inches stripped back to allow the hook to turn. This was tied to a curve shank hook, a blow-back rig and a couple of Sonubaits Pellet O’s on the hook. I filled the PVA bag with 4 and 6mm pellets – a deadly combination for river carp fishing.
My go-to rig for river carp fishing
My first carp came at the start of the campaign, and it stood out like a sore thumb. It was weirdly coloured koi carp that must have come from someone’s garden pond. Ornamental carp are not really my thing, but this little character was one to remember and proved my rigs are working.
This koi must have come from someone’s garden pond – crazy creature
While walking along the stretch I spotted some decent carp, but I also saw a load of bream and some clunkers too. It wasn’t too long before I landed a decent bream that had homed in on the pellets in my PVA bag.
That’s probably my biggest bream from the river – but not what I was after
A change of tactics
I needed to think carefully about what to do to avoid the bream and target the carp. Bream absolutely love pellets, so I decided to switch to artificial corn on the hook and thought about changing to boilies, if the bream became a real nuisance.
A change of hookbait to plastic corn to help avoid the bream in my swim
My next visit to the river was for a few hours before it got dark. My solid PVA bag hadn’t been out for long and I was getting line bites. I was wondering whether it was bream or carp, and didn’t have to wait long to find out as a fish tore off and was hooked. After a short, frantic fight in a tight swim, I was slipping my net under a beautiful little river carp. Result !
A stunning, chunky common carp from the River Lea
It’s hit and hold tactics when you hook a carp in a small river and my Korum Opportunist Xtnd rod was up to the task. It’s a fairly powerful rod when coupled with 15lb mainline.
After all the commotion of landing the carp, I wasn’t feeling too confident of another bite. It was also getting dark, so I packed up and decided to pop back the following day for a few hours before work.
The trap is set, just waiting for a river carp to pick up my hookbait
On my next session there were again loads of bream in the swim and I was pleasantly surprised not to have more pick-ups from them. If I’d been using lighter tackle, I may have been inundated with them, so maybe the change to plastic corn had worked.
The weather was really warm and I fished a few more early morning sessions. It didn’t get below 20 degrees last night and I’m on the bank at dawn in my shorts. The carp were playing hard to get and sometimes they didn’t show up at all. Maybe there aren’t as many in this stretch than I’d hoped.
Another bream in the net, at least it shows my rig is working
I was still catching the odd bream and I’d seen some pretty big ones too, probably twice the size of the biggest I’d caught, but my focus remained on the river carp.
Top tips to catch river carp
I use back leads to pin everything down to help avoid line bites
If you’re wanting to reuse your rigs, it’s important to make sure your rig is completely dry before it goes into your PVA bag. I dust the rig with groundbait to help dry it off, and this adds a bit more attraction in your bag of pellets too.
Top tip – a little bit of groundbait helps to dry out my rig and stop the PVA from melting too quickly.
Top tip – a little bit of groundbait helps to dry out my rig and stop the PVA from melting too quickly.
I’d been doing a few short sessions before work and it was proving quite a challenge. You can’t catch them if your rod is not in the water, so I decided to try a few hours at dusk, to see if that improved my chances of catching a big river carp.
As the light levels dropped, I had a take and was into a big fish. It was putting up a good fight and I was really pleased to slip the net under a dark, gnarly mirror carp.
It was a clonking carp from a small river and looked a lot bigger than it weighed. The scales dropped to 21lb 7oz and I was a very happy bunny.
My biggest carp from the river campaign at 21lb 7oz
So we got there in the end. I had to put in a lot of effort for very few carp, but the ones I did catch were special to me as they were from a new stretch of river. I’ll certainly be back next season. I this article and my river carp fishing rigs and tips help you to bag a few carp from the river.