Most carp anglers if not all dream or aim to catch the biggest carp in the water they fish. For that reason catches of real big carp will always dominate the magazines and press. It’s almost a bit like the Holy Grail. People like to read and learn about the ways that lead to this sort of success. 



Targeting individual (big) carp is in fact a sport in a sport. Some people see it as the highest and ultimate form of carp angling. I don't necessarily think it is, it is just a specialised form of angling, like you can specialise in surface fishing or long distance casting. To me, the main reason why I do it is because I enjoy it so much. Holding an exceptional big carp that might be older than yourself that you have been chasing down for months, maybe years can give you such an overwhelming feeling once it is in the net, it is one of the deepest and finest emotions you can experience as an angler. The feeling of finally reaching you’re goal is pure deep joy. And I believe that enjoying it, should always be the main reason for practising it, be it catching countless doubles from a runs water, fishing a carp match or targeting individual big fish. You must love it. If you do it for other reasons, whatever they are, you will burn out and will stop it sooner or later.

I have been carp fishing for over 25 years, the last ten years most (notall) of my angling time had been in search of big carp. On a lot of waters Ihave been successful (not on all) but if I would not have loved this way of fishing I just would have quiet it.  It is not that I don't enjoy catching smaller carp, I do but my main aimis always to catch the bigger specimens in a lake. I suppose that after a considering amount of years you end up doing so. To me it was a natural progression. I haven't always fished solely for the bigger fish. When I first starting carp fishing I didn’t even know that you could optimise you're chances to catch the bigger fish. I just fished like most anglers still do for a bite from any carp. I just believed that if you fished long enough sooner or later that big fish would come you're way. It probably does to a degree but it is far from a successful method for catching the biggest carp in a lake.  


In the first years of my fishing I was like a lot of anglers very much searching for the ultimate bait or rig. Neither of those exist I do know these days. Off course you have poor, good and better rigs and bait, but there is nobait or rig that will bring you success all of the time. There are too many parameters that plays a roll in catching or not catching, things that are beyond control as well, weather conditions, limited fishing space etc. If you want to fish for individual big carp you have to be single minded. Big carp often live in sparsely stocked waters (in my country anyway)and therefore you must be prepared to sit it out for a long time without abite. You need enough confidence and determination to go all the way. Some ofthe big carp I hunted came very quick others like ‘the big mountain lake common’ took me up till now 68 nights and I don’t think I’m one bit closer catching it then when I started.

The lake where this fish live is so hard, so unpredictable and cruel that you have to experience it yourself to believe it.Its three years now since it was caught last time so maybe this year the fishwill make a mistake. At the end of the day, you can’t win every time and you have to accept that, although it is an unfinished affair. Sooner than later I’ll pick up the line again. The preparation for going after large Carp can be the most important aspect,gathering all the knowledge of the waters inhabitants and their movements, the prevoius catch history are some of the factors to which Alijn engages to bringhim succsess. My season is usually spent on one water at a time in the hope of catching one or several big fish from that water. I select waters purely on the base of holding real big fish (25 kg+). But I consider every carp over 20 kg (44lb) as big. You have to understand that the average weight is higher on the continent. 

All my fishing is long term based. I try to track down as much aspossible from the lake. This includes everything that has something to do with the water and his inhabitants. Every bit of info can be interesting to adegree. I’m also much interested in the previous catches of the fish I’m after.I’ll talk to other anglers who caught those fish in the past, I talk to locals and I try to make a visual picture in my mind of the fish I like to catch. What it does, what it likes, where it resides etc? There all parts of the jigsaw you have to put together. You must try to think like the fish, you have to become that carp yourself. Most anglers think too much as a human being and make it more complex that it really is. Carp are in fact very basic beings. They have three main concerns in their lives being food, surviving and sex.  Everything in their lives is situated around these three. 

Everthing you do to try to catch them must always be with you in your mind. They only have sex once in a year and they are almost impossible to catch then, so leave them in peace during that brief spell. Food and surviving are the ones we must take into count. I’ll come back on food (bait)further on. Surviving means that they have to look out for danger, well carp have only one real ‘predator’ once they are adult and that is us, anglers. Inpopular belief to what most anglers think carp can NOT think or remind earlier experience like we do! In fact they can only remind their last three seconds! They react pure by instinct. That can be triggered with what they see, smell, taste or feel. When they feel an anglers line against their body or smell a certain bait their reaction to it is based on instinct. This does not mean they don’t detect the danger, we all know too well they do far more then we would like, it is just that they react to it from ‘another point of view’ than we do. An example: it is known that carp can be scared of large beds of bait when they have been caught on this method several times. It is a wonderful method but one that can blow easily once it is practised for a longer period. Then carp will avoid larger bait beds.



I don’t believe that it is so much as a visual thing, as they can’t see the difference between 20, 200 or 2OOO baits, after all they can’t count, I believe it has to do with the concentration of bait in a relatively small area that is creating a stronger food smell that makes them scary in such circumstances. This is the reason why you can still catch them on single hookbaits or smaller bait quantities in those circumstances. If you use the same quantity of bait but spread over a much wider area you can avoid the problem and still give them enough confidence. If you don’t bother other anglers by doing so of course!. We all know waters that responded very well to one or several kind of particles (being sweet corn, tigers or hemp) but after some time it stopped doing so. Anglers stop using these methods and search for new tactics or bait. Well, once water responds well to a method it will do again in the future, as long as you give it enough time. If carp were capable of remembering that they have been caught on a tiger nut or over a bed of hemp in the past, well you would never ever catch them again!