By Sean Manning

Competitive Feeding

I would like to take a bit of time to discuss the topic of competitive feeding and the simple reasons on why we as anglers 'chum' or 'bait up' a swim. There are a few theories that I have heard over the years and many provoke the thought as to ‘Why’ we do this... the most common being that we want to draw fish into the area and hold them so that we have a chance of them picking up our hook-bait. Yes this is indeed the case, but taking it one step further I think we have to look into what actually happens when fish (more than one) either ‘come across’ or are ‘attracted to’ the bait that we have distributed. In an ideal situation (which I hope you have all experienced) the fish feed in a very competitive nature meaning that their guard is lowered because of the natural 'greed' factor kicking in. Basically an instinct with the fish not wanting to ‘lose out’ to other fish cleaning up the food before them.

This is the situation that is ideally created in match or competition fishing where a good number of fish can be captured in a relatively short period of time. Obviously the fish have to be present or drawn into the swim but once there, the correct baiting approach needs to be followed to create the maximum ‘competition factor’ amongst the fish. From my own experiences I have found that 'area baiting’ works incredibly well.

Area Baiting

Lets look at this for a moment in comparison with a 'tightly baited spot' approach such as a PVA Bag. My own theory on this is that there is far more opportunity for a single fish to clear a tightly baited spot much more quickly thus depriving other fish of the opportunity (alright for Mr. Greedy guts but not good for you.... unless its a forty ay? ;-)) to get on the bait.... you’re likely in for one run and one fish unless you bait up again also...something to be considered maybe? An excellent approach in many situations, however not necessarily practical if there are many fish present and you wish to maximize your chances of catching more than one fish.

With an area baiting strategy we take something the size of say a tennis court and throughout the entire area bait is scattered both in tight spots and also in a random nature, but covering the entire area. This will create a few positives for you the angler. If one fish is drawn into the area he has a very high chance of finding your bait, getting a taste for it and staying in the area giving you more of a chance that he will come across your hook bait. You may want to take the entire area and break it up into sections. If you have a large area to cover you may want to group together a few 'tennis court ' sized areas ...maybe 4 or 6 and take the approach another step by treating each section as a seperate entity. By this I mean that you could have just one section that was pre-baited purely with particles....say for example maize or maybe a particular flavour of boilie that you want to try against an already established bait. Your approach to breaking down the sections is limitless but I have found taking something the size of a tennis court or other familiar sized entity will help you to visualize where the sections of water break down in front of you as apposed to being overwhelmed with a too large expanse of water. It's also a good idea to pick markers on the opposite bank, such as trees for example, to aid in this...again the use of a diagram may be of help to you.

More than one fish is a good situation..The Carp will realize there is more like food present as they will come across it, get a taste for it...and if its any good they will continue to search out for more of the same (don't believe a word when someone tells you that all boilies are equal. If the food source isn't any good believe me you'll know it, and you'll maybe pick up one or two fish at the most) they will find that there is quite a bit of food around as they are constantly coming across either lone baits or small piles of bait.

The chance of them moving out of the swim at this point is very slim. There’s food right under their noses wherever they swim. They are eating machines and if the opportunity is presented to them that is exactly what they will do. So we then have maybe one or two carp with their heads down 'grazing' and they are coming across bait in quite a large area...there seems to be quite a bit of it wherever they go (I have seen Carp 'about face' when coming to the edge of a baited area and with a flick of the tail get themselves back in the feeding zone pretty quickly.) and so their instinct is I think to find the other bait in the area (the last 5 minutes has proven to them that there is more to be had if they search for it). This can and will encourage other fish to enter into the area also. I personally believe that the carp will ‘hear’ others feeding and if hungry (aside from spawning when aren't they ;-)) investigate the commotion ‘heard’ through the water, which as we know acts as an amplifier. Their pharyngeal teeth crushing some hard boilies I'm thinking may be the reason why other fish will investigate the area, along with any other disturbance caused by the feeding fish such as the discoloration of water due to sediment being disturbed. This in turn will perpetuate the situation to another level. This is then the opportunity for you to pick up a number of fish, as Wane, Dave and myself were lucky enough to do in Austin in 2004. We had 'area baited ' a then fishless swim the day before, but because of the topography of the surrounding area and general ‘feel’ of the swim (sorry can't be any more scientific than that ;-)...it just screamed big carp to me we randomly scattered CSL pellets, maize, hemp and corn over the entire area for a session the following day. The occasional small pile and then a lone bait etc.

The next day we were fortunate enough to have the session of a lifetime and I was lucky enough to catch a couple of Town Lake's Royalty...

I firmly believe that the 'area baiting' approach helped here immensely...we caught a great many fish over a 12 hour period that were not going to move from that spot for love nor money because of the baiting strategy that was used. The fish were spread out enough so that the carp being caught did not spook the rest of the shoal in any manner. There was a definite competitive feeding situation happening...the entire session counted for 2 forties and countless upper twenties and thirties. We did top up the swim from the bank after each fish captured with boilies from a throwing stick, which seemed to really work a treat.

So in closing I can highly recommend this approach for a lengthy session. I think you'll find that you will maximize the pick-ups by carp in the area and create a situation where they are feeding with much less caution than if you are feeding over a tightly baited area. Its not the best way to approach a swim if you only have a few hours because you may only get the chance for one fish in that time frame so a PVA bag or a method ball would maybe be a better choice. But if you ever come across a swim that just has that 'feel' about it...hmm.you may want to try the area baiting approach.