An ancient way of survival turned hobby, fishing, is cherished by many for its relaxing, natural setup. But if you think fishing is all about throwing the line in the water and oozing down in your fold-up chair while getting a tan, think again. Sometimes fishing is hard work! Especially carp fishing. Read on and youll find out why

You dont have to be an extremely experienced fisherman to recognize this scenario: you prepare for a fruitful day of carp fishing, thinking you got the right bait, the right rod, the right line and so forth but several hours pass without any luck for you. When you look up just a few hundred meters away, some random guy using the same tools and same bait is pulling out big carps every now and then. How come hes catching them regularly, while you end up empty handed at the end of the day? When you ask him about it, he just winks at you and through his smirk, he says Its all about luck, mate!. But you know it cant be simply a matter of luck, its too plain obvious. Chances should be equal for both of you

And heres where most fisherman go wrong, thinking carp fishing is only about chance. What they dont understand is that fish arent always equally spread out in a lake and they prefer certain areas and certain depths more than other. Actually, experienced fisherman agree that the biggest challenges of carp fishing are choosing the right bait and choosing the right fishing spot. Well discuss the bait part a bit later, but first lets see how you set your position up so that you maximize your chances of landing the cast near some fat carps.

Its well known that carps are fish that tend to stay deep, near the floor of the lake but how can we know what deep means without knowing the exact topography of the lake youre fishing in? One direct, but rather blunt way is to ride off in a boat, using an extendable pole to check the exact depth of the area and try to cover several positions so that you get an approximate clue to what the lakes topography is.

Of course, this carp fishing method has 2 major disadvantages. One would be that riding off in a motor boat in what youll find to be excellent fishing spots might scare the carps away, which means that youll have to wait a while before you can fish in that particular area. The other disadvantage is that the lake (or at least some areas) will simply be way too deep for an extendable pole to handle. But if you know for a fact that the lake is shallow enough to allow for some floor poking then its a relatively efficient method, especially that youll only have to do it once, write down the numbers, try to approximate the topography and then use the blue prints over and over again each time you fish there.

An alternative method of testing the depth of a lake that is becoming more and more popular amongst experienced carp fisherman is the so-called plumbing rod. This requires a spare rod armed with a 3 oz lead sinker with a free running barrel swivel attached. At the end of the line, tie a large bobber so that the lead is allowed to run freely on the line until it hits the float. Cast the rod and wind the line until the float has hit the lead on the bottom. Congratulations, you just found out the depth of that particular spot, now all you need to do is measure it. Slowly let out the line approximately one foot at a time until the float comes up. The number of feet the float rises from the bottom is directly proportional to the number of feet of line you let off the reel, so keep count of the line and youll have a pretty accurate measurement of that spot at the end.

Like I stated above, choosing the right bait is equally important to choosing the right spot when it comes to carp fishing (well this is generally important to all sorts of fishing types, but even more so to carp fishing). Lets start off the subject by saying that as a general term, particle bait is the best type of bait you could use in carp fishing. This includes a wide array of baits such as beans, corn, peas, vegetables, nuts and even peanuts. The problem is that although generally effective, you cant say that is the best for carp fishing. It depends on so many factors such as water type, depth, natural food sources of the fish in that particular lake (and we can go on an on), that it would be rather inaccurate to state such a thing. Personal experience will make a huge difference here so its best if you try them all for a while, or why not a combination of two or more particle beans on the same cast.

What happened to the poor, old, standard worm-in-the-hook you may ask? Well the problem with worms or any other wiggly meat baits is not that the carp wont be attracted to it (by God, a worm must be the royalty of meals in every fishes menu) but that other, faster, more aggressive fish will see and grab it first. So its best if we use the above-mentioned particle baits which are not very tempting for other fish, but equally delicious for carps.

A popular technique used in carp fishing is pre-baiting. This means that once you have zeroed-in on the spot youre about to fish in, you take a short on-boat trip to where youll figure the casts will land and spray the water with bait of all kinds in order to attract the carps (and inevitably other fish too). After the panic caused by your boat settles in, you can start casting. Dont worry about the fish choosing the pre-bait before the one in your hook, since by the time you cast, there will be plenty of carps there banging their forks and knives to the table, waiting for food and your bait-filled hook sliding down to the bottom will surely grab their attention.

Now that you know how to choose your carp fishing spot and what to place in the hook, start exercising your arm muscles since theres going to be a lot of hard work and pulling to be done, getting those fat carps to the tip of your rod. Oh and if you see a poor fellow fisherman sitting a few feet away from you, frustrated by the fact that hes empty handed while youre reeling in carps like theres no tomorrow, just give him a wink and a smirk and say Its all about luck, mate!secrets are meant to be kept ;).