I love fishing with boilies as well as spodding, but at certain times of the year boilies are a winner! They can be brilliant bait nearly every carp angler uses them. Nevertheless, I have a few little tips that make mine stand out from the crowd 365 days of the year.

My favourites at the moment are TNT and Liver Pro from Hydra Baits. TNT, meaning tiger nut and toffee, really is a special combination of flavours. With high milk proteins this really is great winter bait! The Liver Pro is highly nutritious, having the highest liver content on the market, and is my choice when tackling really hard waters where you want the fish coming back to eat the bait time and time again.

In spring I like to add salt into all my baits, but particularly boilies because they really hold the salt. If you were putting it in spod mix it could get lost in liquids dripping out before the cast. This gives me a massive edge over anglers who throw their boilies straight out. The carp also need the minerals from salt to keep them healthy, so they’re naturally looking for it post spawning.

In summer I tend to use a lot of oily boilies, glugging them in sunflower oil. This leaves a great big oily slick rising through the water column for hours. I believe that this can drag this fish down from the layers and get them feeding really well.

In autumn I tend to put out large areas of boilies. This is because I think the carp really get their heads down just before going in to winter! I have had brilliant results fishing over large areas of bait.

In winter I really cut back on the bait. I’ll use a small solid bag but if I think there’s a good chance of getting a hit I love to do something a bit crafty.

Firstly, I’ll take the matching glug and coat all the boilies in my bag with it. Then I like to sprinkle a matching groundbait, stick mix or crumb over the boilies. I’ve found that a groundbait that has bits of small particle that rise off the bait to work best. Once all the boilies are covered I leave them for around 48 hours so the flavours can soak in. This can be a really good edge over and I have had great results doing this in recent years.

Lewis