Flota Rota Action

It's 4pm on a Sunday afternoon, the temperature is in the mid 20s and I've got a couple of hours spare. There's only one thing for it and that's a little bit of flota rota! cue the drum and bass music.

Surface fishing has got to be one of my most favourite methods for catching carp and I don't mean catapulting a load of floating pellets out and launching a controller float out amongst them. I mean get them fish competing amongst each other, comfortably taking floaters off the surface and slowly draw them closer to the bank. Then with my polarised sunglasses and a free lined trimmed down pop up, select which one you want to catch and cast that pop up right in front of their nose! 

When I'm free lining I tend to use a size 8 Hex gape hook, a micro ring swivel and with a length of bait floss I thread on the trimmed down pop up, trim down the tag ends and blob them with a lighter. I then take a hook bead and slide it down the shank towards the eye of the hook. By leaving a couple of millimetres of separation it allows the hookbait to move more freely when it's in the water and allows the hook point to remain facing downwards. (In theory nailing them in the bottom lip) My pop up of choice is the Salamino pop ups from Bait Guru. I have mega confidence in the Salamino range and at this time of year they are deadly.  

This one's not too shabby for my first fish off the surface on a new venue.  

When it comes to my freebies on the surface I do like to use quite small floating pellets, with a good helping of larger ones chucked in for good measure. I normally give them a good coating of Jungle Mix oil and then a dusting off with the matching solid bag mix. The oil creates a nice slick over the surface while the solid bag mix releases particles, creating attraction up and down the water column, drawing the carp into your area and up to the surface.

 The second and in my opinion the better one out of the two. Not bad for a couple of hours, with minimal gear trying to Nick a bite off the surface.