TO FEED OR NOT TO FEED ???

The whole issue of bait and how much to feed is certainly a complex and for some a confusing subject and because there are no hard and fast rules I can to a certain extent understand why. The mags and in particular articles by anglers with bait sponsorships merely confuse the matter further . Headlines like" Jim Smelley catches record brace over 40 kilos of latest super wonder bait "....leads anglers to believe this is the way forward .Whether this is the truth or quite possibly is not  we'll never know, but one thing that it is for sure is good marketing... in a "the more you put in the more you catch" sort of way.
 So the answer to the million dollar question .....exactly how much bait should we use?? It is my honest opinion that in MOST circumstances we'd be best suited and certainly stand more chance of catching by using very little free bait at all! When I used to match fish in my younger years I was lucky enough to fish alongside some of the finest Trent anglers in the form of John Dean, Wayne Swinscoe and Tom Pickering to name just a few and their advice was always "little and often " and "you can always put a bit more in.. but never take out what you've already put in " These old sayings will always ring true and if you follow this advice I believe you will rarely go far wrong  after all it',s all to easy to fill it in and then wish you hadn't .
  Fishing with Laney in the crystal clear waters at Dinton this year  was a real eye opener when immediately after landing a fish we would go out to cane markers in our boats to re-bait, more often than not from the original dozen baits and a sprinkling of hemp only 3 or four baits had actually been taken before the carp had made the mistake and picked up the pop-up. This was a common occurrence , in fact the norm. we were able to see the absolute TRUTH of what had happened with our eyes, no guessing at all and if we had not been able to do so and had either been fishing without the boat or in coloured water I'm sure we'd have both assumed that all the bait had been eaten and  fired in loads more bait because they were obviously having it. We both had our best catches from the venue  of 8 and 9 fish in a two day session ...fishing over no more than a hand full of bait!
 The important thing to remember is to fish for a bite at a time and do not overfeed , little and often will create competition  amongst the feeding fish, which will in turn bring about a mistake from mr. carp and an alarm heralding a bite for we the angler . Overfeed and it's possible that any fish that were about will become lazy, picky and then disinterested in anything offered by the angler. If in doubt I would normally err on the side of caution and can honestly say that I've caught more fish on single hookbaits than over big beds of bait, especially so where big carp are concerned. If you think about the zig fishing , well that really is a prime example of single baiting and just how many fish fall for that trick!

 Don't get me wrong I have caught fish over plenty of bait but only when the fish have let me know that  THEY WANTED IT and even then on that rare occasion when it does all go off , I prefer to feed often rather than all in one big dollop, WE DO AFTER ALL GO FISHING TO CATCH THEM RATHER THAN FEED THEM..........DON'T WE??