Commercial Fishing Tips | Carp on the bomb with Darren Cox

The bomb is often seen as a winter method, when fishing a single hookbait with no feed is needed, but it works well at this time of year too, as Andy Bennett showed recently by winning Fish O’Mania using it.

Carp of all sizes can be caught on the bomb

Carp of all sizes can be caught on the bomb

It’s a good tactic when there are a lot of fish feeding over a lot of bait, because if you use a large stand-out hookbait you can catch them quicker. Two bright, hard pellets or a grain of corn are brilliant, because they are easy for the fish to find in among the loosefed pellets that you’ve been catapulting over the top.

I’ll also have a bomb set up if I am fishing the pellet waggler, as some fish will remain on the bottom, having followed the loosefed pellets down. A few chucks on the bomb can nick a few extra fish if the waggler goes a bit quiet.

Go easy on the feeding. You don’t want five or six carp hunting about when there’s 300 pellets on the bottom, as this will make them harder to catch. The idea is to give them just enough to be feeding on, almost trying to starve them into taking your hookbait. 

The bomb rig

The bomb rig

Rig components

  1. Mainline - 8lb Shimano Technium with a 5ins twizzled loop above hooklength

  2. Hooklength -10ins -14 ins of 0.20mm Garbolino Super Soft attached to feeder bead

  3. Bomb - 0.5oz Guru Square clipped to a feeder link which runs on the twizzled section of mainline

  4. Hook & bait - Size 12 or 14 Guru QM1 with a grain of corn or two hard pellets.