When talking about carp, we are talking about omnivores. This means fishing this particular species is not that hard, as long as you understand how to lure them. The most basic idea is understanding their food preferences. Worth noting that every fish is different and they like different feeding. So, what does carp eat in the wild? Here is the break-down of carp’s feeding preference to help you make the best bait possible.
Carp Natural Food
The best way to make your fishing successful is by understanding their feeding behavior. Just like people, to attract someone you need to know what they like, their habitual, and what the best for them, so they will look at you. Think about the carp just like your love target and get to know what their natural food is. In this case, you should know that carp are peaceful omnivorous fish that consume a wide range of different natural foods.
Simply said, they are not a picky eater and rather enjoy lots of food. From the planktonic crustaceans, insects, some tender parts and seeds of aquatic plants, larvae and fish eggs, and also smaller fish. They are such an opportunistic fish. Once they find food sources in certain locations, most likely they will return to the location. Which is later create a habit that anglers exploit this as fishing tactics.
As a large fish species, this particular fish will need to eat quite often and in large quantities. That is why the answer to what natural food for carp? will be easy to get. Aquatic vegetation, invertebrates, insects, leeches, crayfish, snails and other crustaceans, nuts and berries, insect, zebra mussels, freshwater clams, and detritus are the main natural food source for them. You can find them in the location with this food source around.
Best Bait To Catch Carp
How about the best bait for this omnivorous fish? Can you make it from anything? Yes, you can consider using their natural food source as bait, using homemade bait, or just simple unnatural ones. If you opt for natural bait, the best solution is earthworms, maggots, and bloodworms. Which also include other kinds of insect such as snails, grasshopper, or moth. However, worth noting that this fish enjoys living around the other non-aggressive fish.
Which makes natural baits as the secondary option. In this case, you can use homemade carp bait insisting some ingredients, or use it as it is. Some of those brilliant baits are corn /sweet corn or maize, bread, boilies, tiger nuts, and pop-ups. You can use the corn and bread just by attach it to the lure or mix the materials in a homemade bait recipe. Combined with other flavors, you can eventually make the attractants for Carp’s best bait to lure the fish in.
Best Flavor For Carp
Carp may not that picky when in terms of food varieties, but they can be quite fickle about it. Very often carp will come and see your bait or natural food, ingesting it, but later spit it back out again. Most likely they are interested in the food source but decide to repeat this process over and over to figure out whether the object is edible or not. So, you can make them come and try by using bait with a certain flavor.
Again, every fish is attracted to different kinds of food. Thus, it is granted that they also have preferred flavors. You can see that catfish really enjoy and come directly to a bait that stinky, and have strong flavors. It is the same with this species, which have different attractants for Carp. Unexpectedly, there are numerous flavors or taste you can use. The first one is Vanilla that represents summer smell which is perfect for spring to winter fishing.
There is also honey flavor, some fruits such as peach, pineapple, banana, strawberry, plum, and a mixture of them. Do you think only human that love caramel? No. As funny as it sounds, even though not as popular, but sometime this flavor gives a very good efficiency. It is also said by many fishermen, that hemp flavor is one of the most basic bait you can use. And the last is garlic that combined with other smells such as garlic + honey.
Homemade Carp Bait
Since you know what the best bait and the flavor, now you can either choose to buy or make your bait. In this case, other than saving some money you can also enjoy the process. you can say that at some point fishing can be very boring, especially if you can’t experience something. Buying bait from the tackle shop baits is very easy and fast, but from time to time, it can be boring. Thus, opting for making your homemade bait is a solution.
Since you know the answer to what does carp eat in the wild? now you can try to make bait. Most of the online recipe is easy and doesn’t need much material and budget. You can make using kitchen essential, adding some extracts to add flavor, add some natural carp foods, or just experimenting. It doesn’t even need advanced tools; you can just mix it using your hand. However, you need to know the best flavor and baits for carp which you can have to learn in this article.
The Weather Effect To Feeding Behavior
Ready to jump into fishing practice? There is some other information you should consider though. You should know about the weather, the season, and also the location. The weather effect on their feeding behavior is also an important piece of information. Naturally, carp can withstand high water temperature and weather quite well. But at some point, they inhibit a location where the oxygen, temperature, cover, and source food is.
In this case, the weather plays a key factor in these habitats. One thing you should know is that to go on the shallow and calm water. You might be able to see the fish clearly, but that is not the case. Carp doesn’t like this kind of spot. If you want to land some hefty carp on the wavy windy day, you should consider drop off into deeper pockets area to cast your homemade carp bait. Carp will gather around deeper bodies of water to find food.
When the windy weather settling in, it will eventually produce waves in the water. The shallow water will hinder the fish’s eyesight and movement, which is why carp loves to be inside deeper water. The waves that stir up the sediment on the bottom, will help carp search and gather food. So, don’t forget to bring the best flavor for carp items as your bait. At the same time, the waves will help increase oxygen level which leads to greater carp activity.
The Temperature Effects
Other than that, temperature also affects carp activities. Carp are very versatile and can hold temperature very well. Most of the time, common carp are very active in feeding when the temperature is around 18 – 20 Celsius. However, often time they can also withstand higher water temperatures around 28 – 30 degrees Celsius. But most likely, temperature around 20 – 25 Celsius is the optimum heat. If the temperature drops, they will mostly hibernate.
Practically, when the water temperature drops to or under 8 Celsius carp will not seeking for food. And at the lower temperature (5 degrees Celsius), carp will hibernate in a group close in the mud of deeper waters. From here, you can say that spring is the best season with mid-afternoon in early spring and early morning or later afternoon in the middle of spring. Summer and fall will be better for early morning, late afternoon, or night fishing. And winter at mid-day.
The Feeding Spot
Don’t forget about the location! You need to know the hotspot where abundance carps reside or found their food source. Since you know how they find food and what carp feed, now it is about where to find them. There are some areas in bodies of water you should consider when fishing carp. River mouths where a river empties into a larger body of water. Shallow bays with deep water that offer warmer water during spring and fall.
While bringing your best bait to catch carp, go to the River bends where many deepwater pockets are. Or found carp habitat by scouting tools such as google earth. You can zoom and find the water level, use internet preference, and many more. If you are contemplating, you can also follow fellow anglers. Ask their opinion, about the fishing hotspot, the bait ideas, technique, or even tips and trick to land carps, and lastly enjoy the time together.
Carp is not a picky eater. They have large varieties of food preferences, which help to make or selecting baits easier. At the same time, this omnivore fish has high water temperature tolerance that makes them available for a longer time. You don’t even need to think a lot about deciding the best bait. You can use bread, corn, boilies, tiger nuts, natural insects, even the bizarre pop-ups. All in all, understanding their behavior is necessary.
