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
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
Rig components
Mainline - 8lb Shimano Technium with a 5ins twizzled loop above hooklength
Hooklength -10ins -14 ins of 0.20mm Garbolino Super Soft attached to feeder bead
Bomb - 0.5oz Guru Square clipped to a feeder link which runs on the twizzled section of mainline
Hook & bait - Size 12 or 14 Guru QM1 with a grain of corn or two hard pellets.
Feeder Fishing Tips - Knowing the depth on the bomb or feeder - Mick Vials
A rule of thumb states that a 1oz leger bomb will sink around 2ft 6ins for every second you count, so a count of eight means that point you’ve cast to is around 20ft deep. The trick is to start short at, say, 30 yards, then work your way out by a few yards at a time.This way, you will soon work out the contours of the lake and identify where it is shallower, where it deepens off and where there are any ledges or plateaux.
I believe it’s not so important to find the depth, more to find how the bottom of the lake varies and where the fish will be.
To get a count, I clip up on my reel, cast the bomb to the clip then, with the quivertip still bent, begin counting as soon as the bomb hits the water. When the tip springs back slack the bomb has hit bottom and you can stop the count.
A rule of thumb states that a 1oz leger bomb will sink around 2ft 6ins for every second you count