How to Catch Carp with Corn? – Full Guide

Most Brits are taking advantage of the stretch of great weather and going on plenty of fishing trips. Wherever you go, you’ll come across families, groups of friends, and neighbours all enjoying a raucous day on the water. You’ll see fathers teaching their sons the correct way to fish a boilie and older anglers imparting carp fishing advice to beginners.

One of those essential pieces of advice always includes using simple baits correctly for the best results. One such highly effective simple bait is corn. Corn is a highly versatile bait that is a favourite among most experienced anglers. The newer generation of anglers, however, favours boilies and other store-bought baits in favour of corn. That is a shame because corn is one of the best baits to use for various reasons.

But what are those reasons, and why don’t we hear them more?

In this article, we’ll tell you all the reasons why catching carp with corn is so great and how you can become a pro at it too. Let’s dive in, then!

Why Use Sweetcorn?

There are plenty of baits to choose from when it comes to catching coarse fish and especially carp. Since carp fishing is one of the most popular pastimes in Britain, many people have developed new and innovative baits to catch carp with much more efficiency than before.

However, that doesn’t mean we don’t use simplistic baits like corn and bread because some anglers score some of their biggest catches with these baits. So, why use sweet corn? Let’s find out.

Great Aroma

Its smell is one of the reasons behind its great success as a carp fishing bait. Sweetcorn is naturally loaded with amino acids which attract the carp in such a way that you’re sure to get a bite if you use it in the right way. Many anglers add sweetcorn to other baits as well, such as groundbait, PVA bags, and method feeder mixes for greater results.

Suitable For Winters

In the winters, carp are mostly unresponsive unless they see something particularly bright or aromatic that they can’t resist. Since corn is both these things, many anglers use carp in the winter months to shake the carp out of their sleep and force them to respond to irresistible bait. You can add some aromatic dips to make the corn even more attractive.

Attractive Taste

This benefit is specific to the canned variety. The can, along with preservatives, contains a high salt and sugar content, making sweetcorn irresistible to fish. If you’re not buying the canned variety, you can add the salt and sugar when you’re boiling the corn if you want to add to the taste.

You can add some Betalin or honey as well if you’re reluctant to use sugar for any reason.

Easily Available

While you’ll have to go to specific tackle shops to get those boilies you like using; corn is readily available anywhere. Just walk into any supermarket and grab a can! However, if you’d like corn with specific additives, you’ll need to buy them from a bait shop. Those additives will make corn even more irresistible to the fish.

If you want to take a cheaper route — just buy the corn from wherever you’d like and add the additives separately. Doing so will also allow you to have some control over what kind of flavour and colour you’d like your sweetcorn to have. It’ll also allow you to decide how hard or soft you want your corn to be. Just boil them for as long as it takes for them to have the perfect structure.

Very Customisable

Corn is an easily customizable bait. Because of its small size, you can add it to any method feeder mix, bait it with pellets or add it to your boilies. The smell and colour of the corn will supplement the other bait and make you quite a success on the water.

In addition, the carp will be very attracted to the unique taste and will surely not be as wary of your new bait combination as they are of traditional baits. This one is a neat trick for crowded avenues where you’re not succeeding with any of the new more modern baits.

Affordable Rates

Carp fishing can sometimes become an expensive hobby. Constantly buying baits, new equipment, rigs, and other such accessories can cost a pretty penny. If you’d like to save a little money, buying corn as bait is a terrific idea because you don’t have to compromise on quality while saving up some money.

You can even buy and prepare some in advance and then freeze it for later use.

Well, that’s all on why it’s such a popular choice of bait among coarse anglers. We hope this list has convinced you to give this classic bait a try yourself! You’d be surprised by how useful it is.

Using Sweetcorn For Pre-Baiting Mixes

Corn is an excellent choice for pre-baiting mixes or  in PVA bags or method feeders. While most people use different combinations of micropellets to fill these bags, you can also add corn for extra attraction.

But how can you do that? Won’t the wet canned corn dissolve the PVA bags? Will it fit into the method feeder? Don’t worry if you have an army of questions because we’re here to answer!

Using Corn In PVA Bags

PVA bags are excellent for transporting large amounts of bait with a lot of accuracies. They’re also great for targeting the bottom-feeding carp as they land straight to the bottom after being fished. In addition, they are cheap and easy to use. But how can you incorporate corn in this technique? Let’s see.

You cannot fill wet bait in PVA bags because these bags disintegrate upon contact with water. Since corn usually comes in cans filled with water, or you have to boil corn to get it ready for the carp, you cannot just fill PVA bags with it.

Don’t worry because all hope is not lost. Anglers use a neat little trick to make corn ready for PVA bags that we’re about to tell you too. Are you ready?

Drain the water from the corn and make sure all of it is gone. Then, empty the contents into a tub and dunk some salt into it. Make sure that you rub the salt all over your corn and then let it rest for a few minutes. Doing so will allow you to make sure that the salt has thoroughly mixed with the corn. Since saltwater does not damage PVA bags, your corn is good to go.

In addition, salt makes corn even more attractive to the carp, so it’s a win-win!

Another way to dry up your corn is to mix it with groundbait and let it rest. The groundbait will absorb the moisture, and your corn will now have some extra flavour to attract the fish further.

Using Corn For Method Feeders

Using corn for method feeders is much simpler than using it in PVA bags, as you just have to empty a can of sweetcorn into a tub of groundbait or micropellets. This technique will ensure that the sweet and salty corn juice makes the mix even more attractive, while the corn’s colour and the scent adds a fresh dimension to the groundbait mix.

Just pop them into the method feeder, and voila! You’re guaranteed a successful day on the water.

Using Corn As Hookbait

Corn can be used simply as a hookbait when you’re having a slow fishing day. It spices things up, and the fish give you quite a merry chase with a sweetcorn hookbait.

It can be as simple as passing a 14 hook through the narrow side of the corn, with the hook showing. If you want to take it one step further, you can hook more than one piece of sweetcorn on a size eight hook. Doing so will keep your hook stocked with bait even if one grain of corn falls off.

When you are passing your hook through the corn, make sure that it is not too soft or not too hard. It’ll fall off if it’s too soft and will be hard to hook if it’s too hard.

A better way you can hook use corn as a hookbait is by using a hair. You can find more on this in the last section of this post.

Types Of Corn You Can Use As Bait

You’re probably wondering if there is any variety at all to such a simple bait. Surprise! There are quite a few different varieties to choose from when it comes to corn. Let’s see what those are.

Canned Sweetcorn

This one is the most commonly used corn bait. The sweet and salty liquid combined with the soft quality of the corns makes it an ideal choice for carp bait. The great thing about this corn type is that it’s very cheap too.

Feed Corn

Feed corn is much larger than regular corn and will also last much longer if left outdoors. You can buy huge bags of this from your local feed store at very economical rates. In short, it is even cheaper than the corn that people buy for themselves.

You’ll need to boil it or soak it in water for half a day to make it soft enough to put on the hook, though. So, if you’re planning on using feed corn as bait, make sure to plan a few days ahead.

Frozen Corn

Frozen corn is exactly what it sounds like: corn, frozen but ready to hook. It thaws when it goes in the water and is easy to store, which is why many people prefer it to canned corn. You can add some flavoured dips to your frozen corn to spice things up if you’d like.

Imitation Corn

Yes, you read that right. Imitation corn looks like actual corn, acts like corn but isn’t corn. This kind of corn is made out of plastic. Its structure allows anglers to reuse it. However, one needs to cover it in some attractive scents to add the attraction of real corn.

Well, these are some of the types of corn that anglers use to catch carp. Nowadays, many tackle shops sell flavoured corn bait. It combines the natural goodness of corn with additives that make it even more attractive to the carp. However, they’re more expensive than the options listed above so that, we won’t go into that.

How To Prepare Your Own Corn For Carp Fishing

If you’re ambitious, you can also prepare your corn as bait for carp fishing. It’s a very easy process and results in quite a lot of corn for you to store for later use. Just make sure that you have enough space in your freezer, though!

So, what do you need to do to prepare the corn? Let’s find out.

1. Get a packet of whole corn from your local supermarket.
2. Soak it in clean water for up to 24 hours, with the water always an inch above the corn level.
3. After the 24 hours are over, boil the corn in some water.
4. Let it simmer for 40-50 minutes. Doing so will ensure that the corn is soft enough to be hooked but not soft enough to disintegrate on the hook.
5. You can use your corn as soon as it cools down.
6. Freeze the leftovers in small packs that you can defrost for use later.

You can also add about three to five millilitres of Betalin per kilogram of dry corn in the soaking period to impart some sweetness to the corn. However, this step is optional and can be skipped if you can’t find Betalin anywhere. Many people try this technique because of its easy steps and huge payoff.

How To Hook Corn On A Hair Rig

So, how can you hook corn on a hair rig? Let’s find out.

You’re going to need a needle with the stopper on it. To hook it through the corn, you need to make sure that the stopper is vertical. Once you’ve done that, you can pass the needle and the stopper straight through the corn. After that, change the stopper’s position to horizontal so that the corn doesn’t slide out of the needle.

That was not hard at all, was it? We hope you think that too!

The Takeaway

The world of carp fishing is very vast and colourful. A good angler always explores new possibilities and sticks to old ones that bring results, such as using corn as bait while trying to catch carp.

Corn is cheap, easy to use, easy to store, and very attractive to carp. It can be modified to fill a PVA bag, and you can mix it in the method feeder mix. If you’re looking for something simple, hook it to a hair rig! As you can see, the possibilities are endless when it comes to corn.

This summer, take your coarse fishing to another level entirely by using corn in all the ways described above. What are you waiting for, then?