A Stealthy Approach: Freelining Maize

This good size mirror was landed on freelined
maize, and effective way to catch fussy carp.

I've written many times on this blog about freelining both bread and mulberries.  This past week I have been freelining maize a lot and have had good success doing it. Maize is large and tough corn that you buy in feed stores as "whole corn".  You boil it for about half and hour to soften it up before use.

Freelining maize involves
just using the hook and one
piece of bait. Toss this into
a chum pile in close to shore.

Freelining is a simple yet very effective technique.  It involves just using a small hook (suggest #8) with no weight, no hooklink, no hardware. The hook is tied to the end of your line.  The bait is then put directly on the hook. There's little weight here so casting is tough.  The fish must be feeding right near you for this to work.
This works especially well when you have spooky, sensitive fish feeding in close to shore in shallow water. I found a spot just like this description this week.  When I arrive at this spot I toss in a handful of maize into the water.  That scares off the wary carp that are there.  I then toss my freelined maize right into the pile of bait, find a quiet location to sit, and wait with the rod in my hand. After about 10 minutes the curious carp return to check out the maize and begin to feed.  I can there quietly and watch a feeding carp pick up my hooked piece of maize.  As it takes off, I pull. The fight of that hooked carp and the landing of it often scares off the others, but they return after 10 minutes of so.
Freelining is just another method in the bag of tricks many experienced carp fishermen use. For fussy and sensitive fish, it is a very effective way to catch them.