Resting your swim is an excellent way to get more fish on the bank by fishing less. In my opinion, it is one of the most underrated tricks in carp fishing and is especially suited to commercial waters and longer sessions. You can do this as one of two ways, either resting the whole swim or resting part of the swim. The whole swim method works best with the past sim technique a good side option for getting a fish out from a different spot later in your session. Here I’ll cover tips on both.
Resting your whole swim
This mean sitting in your swim with no rods in and it can be tough to stay disciplined enough to get the full effect. Here you put your bait in and wait a set amount of time before putting your rods in. It can be very tempting to cast in at the first sign of a carp on your spots but the idea is to get a few in the swim and feeding confidently before casting in. Despite what you may think catching one from your spot will not spook the rest.
Imagine turning up at a lake like Linear and arriving for a 48-hour session on a peg that had been rested and baited up for you. This is what you are aiming for. By taking your time you can almost draw the fish into your peg while all the other pegs are pressured.
Resting your whole swim tips
1 – Keep the bait going in
Make sure they have some bait to eat without spodding every 5 minutes. A good way to do this is to get your spodded bait out early if you want to spod at all, and then top up regularly using a throwing stick. This keeps a good stream of bait going in without creating too much disturbance. Personally I’d set up two baited areas in my swim, one would be an area that is well baited from a spod or spomb, and one that has purely high leakage boilies going in. The little and often baiting technique is again a rare one to see on popular commercial waters. From what I’ve seen underwater filming and watching other underwater films the carp are more likely to keep visiting a spot to pick up bits of bait rather than steaming through heavily baited spots.
2 – Set a time and stick to it
I’ve spoken to a number of carpers about this and most find the temptation gets too much for them. After a few hours of resting the rods go in and it becomes almost a normal session. I find it is best to set a time in your mind that you are going to put the rods in and stick to it.
3 – Soak your hook baits so they match
If you’re feeding food source boilies and fishing them it may be beneficial to soak your hook baits for a while so they blend in with the bait that is still on the bottom. The theory here is that if there are some baits on the bottom after 24 hours they will look significantly more soaked and washed out than newer bait going in. This may just help to edge out a wise old carp out of the lake.
4 – Keep the disturbance to a minimum
As mentioned above if you are spodding then I would advise only doing this at the start of your session and not constantly throughout it. The carp are well aware of the usual noises and by leaving the rods out and keep ing it quiet it can help to draw more fish into your swim. Get your rods ready and clipped up to go at the start of the session so as soon as it is rods in time you can cast them in with the minimum disturbance on the bank and in the water.
All in all, this is an excellent technique to getting more out of your session even if it feels a little weird sitting in a swim with your rods out!
Here is a video of one of my top team members Riccardo (Insta: @backonthebank_) resting his swim for 24 hours of a 72-hour session at Farlows-
Resting part of your swim tips
This is not my chosen method as it still means having line pressure in the water at all times. The size of your swim will dictate how effective you can be with this. Again it takes discipline to be successful.
Here is an example of how to keep half your swim clear of rods –
On most waters you would find people fishing out in the middle and keeping an area baited in the margin can produce results. This would work best using a little and often strategy with a throwing stick popping boilies in at a regular rate. Depending on the length of your session you could leave it a while knowing your rods were on another spot and us it as a spot for the last few days. Alternatively, keep your eye on it on a shorter session and put a rod on it when you see some carp activity in the area.
The advantage of doing this on a margin spot, depending on the size of the margin, is you can usually get your rod in quietly if its a shorter cast or an option to drop in and walk back with your rod. Keeping the disturbance to a minimum really helps this technique work at its best. If in the example you were in peg 8 then I would be keeping as quiet as I could on the bank to not add any disturbance coming from my peg.
I hope these tips will help you in resting your swim and catching more carp! If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch in the following ways:
Insta: @casualcarper
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