Spring Carp Fishing My Way: Ian Russell on Finding Fish, Baiting Smart & Beating the Crowds
Spring always feels like the starting gun. One minute you’ve got the best carp fishing lakes to yourself, the next the car parks are full, the buzz is back, and everyone’s convinced this is the trip where it all happens. Speaking with Ian Russell, what stands out isn’t just his spring carp fishing results—it’s how differently he approaches this time of year...
"Watch the interview this article is based on at OMC Fishing TV"
I always think spring is when a lot of anglers get it slightly wrong—not massively wrong, but just enough to miss out. Everyone’s buzzing, everyone’s back on it, and naturally the banks get busy. That’s the first thing that changes my fishing. I don’t really want to be in the thick of it, especially on somewhere like a syndicate like Frimley, where lads have paid good money to be there all year.
So I’ll do my last couple of quiet trips and then I’ll move. Day tickets, places like Linear—they’re busy too, of course—but it’s a different kind of busy. You can work around it if you think it through properly. And that’s the key word for me in spring: thinking differently.
Most of us older anglers turn up and go looking for fish (quite rightly, location is everything). That’s how we were all brought up, walking, watching, finding them. But the reality on pressured venues, especially somewhere like Linear, the carp have learned. They know where the lines are. And more often than not, they’ll avoid it.
So instead of chasing them where everyone is, I do the opposite. I find the empty peg, the safe area if you will and more often than not, I will find one where fish have snuck into. I've become quite good at angling in that style, just dropping in, even on busy lakes.
"Day ticket fishing now is just as much about finding an empty peg as it is finding fish"
It sounds too simple, but it’s been one of the most consistent edges I’ve had over the years. You drop into an area with no pressure, no lines, and quite often the fish drift into you anyway. Not all of them, but enough. I’ll start with solid bags or little zigs, just nick a couple of quick bites if they’re there, and only then will I think about introducing bait.
You might push them out for a bit once you start feeding, but here’s the thing—you’re now the last one putting fresh bait in. That works in your favour more often than not.
"Zigs will get you quick bites with minimal disturbance"
When it comes to location in spring, people always talk about going shallow, and yes, that’s part of it—but it’s not as simple as just chucking it into three feet of water. Everything is relative.
If you’re fishing a lake that’s 25 or 26 foot deep, then 15 or 16 foot is shallow. That’s where a lot of people get caught out. They think shallow means margins or the top shelf, but actually it just means warmer water.
I’ve seen it loads of times—fish moving into an area that’s only a degree or two warmer. That’s all it takes. On one of the lakes I fish, there’s a deep trench out in front, and every year coming into spring, the carp seem to appear along a particular stretch just off that deeper water. I can’t tell you exactly why—they don’t read the rulebook—but they do it, year after year. That’s just time on the bank, watching and remembering.
The other thing you notice in spring is the timing of the bites. In winter, you can get those after dark hits, first light, proper cold-water bites. But as spring creeps in, it shifts.
I’ve had it where nights are completely dead, and then between eight and eleven in the morning it just switches on. A couple of bites, maybe a little flurry, and then it’s gone again.
You can almost picture what’s happening. The sun gets up, warms a certain area of the lake—often a bank that gets the light for longer—and the fish move in for that slight temperature increase. Feed a bit, then drift back out.
It doesn’t mean you ignore the nights, but you definitely stay sharper during the day.
As the lake wakes up, so does the natural food. Fresh weed starting to come through is a massive edge. Proper clean, crunchy weed—it’s full of life, and the carp know it.
If I see that starting to develop, I’m interested straight away. Not necessarily fishing right in the thick of it, but around it, on the edges, on the little clear spots nearby. It’s just another natural pull.
And that ties into bait as well, because spring is where I start to move away from all the wriggly stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, maggots and worms have their place and they’ve caught me loads of fish, especially in winter. But as things warm up, I want to get them onto proper food—boilies, pellets, corn, that sort of thing. Something with a bit of substance to it.
Now baiting levels… that’s where people want a rule, and there just isn’t one.
I’ve had winters where I’ve absolutely piled it in—bucket loads of bait in deep water—and caught some of the biggest fish of my life doing it. And then I’ve had other venues where I’ve fished tiny little PVA bags, barely any disturbance, and had the same results.
That’s carp fishing. You’ve got to read the water in front of you and adjust. If you turn up and just do what you always do regardless, you’re limiting yourself straight away.
Rigs are probably the simplest part of it all for me, and I know that surprises people.
I don’t chop and change because it’s spring. My rigs are tidy, they’re reliable, and they do the job. A Ronnie, a wafter rig, a solid bag setup, maybe a short zig—that’s about it.
People talk about rigs “blowing” or fish getting wary of them, but I’ve never really bought into that. If you get carp feeding properly, competing, heads down, they’re not inspecting every component of your setup. The water’s coloured up, debris is flying around, and it becomes instinct. Find them. Get them feeding. That’s the hard part. The rig just finishes the job.
Solid bags deserve a mention on their own, to be honest, because I use them all the time. They’re not just a winter thing or a last resort—they’re a proper tool.
They’re great for searching, great for fishing over bait, and they keep everything tight and tidy. If I’m putting pellet out, for example, a solid bag with a little wafter over the top just makes perfect sense. It matches what’s going on down there and gives you a really clean presentation every time.
"Solid Bags just make so much sense, with a Ronnie inside, even better!"
If there’s one thing I’d say about spring carp fishing, it’s this: don’t get caught up in what everyone else is doing.
It’s easy to fall into that trap. You turn up, see people spodding hard, and you feel like you’ve got to follow suit. But some of my best results have come from doing the exact opposite—going quiet, going subtle, or just going somewhere no one else wanted to be.
At the end of the day, I go fishing to catch fish. I’m not there to sit it out and hope. I’m always trying to make something happen, whether that’s moving swims, changing baiting, or just thinking a bit differently. And that doesn’t change with the seasons.
Spring’s a brilliant time to be out there. The weather’s better, the fish are waking up, and anything can happen in a very short space of time. So get out, enjoy it, and don’t overcomplicate it.
Find a good area. Trust what you’re doing. And go and nick a couple.
