Corn is one of the most versatile, effective, cheap and easily accessible carp fishing bait on the bait market today and can sometimes beat all the new modern baits such as boilies and pellets in the right conditions.
Few fish species won’t pick up corn in the water, and carp is far from an exception. They seem to love it.
Sweetcorn doesn’t look like or taste like any of carp’s natural diet, so many people can find asking, why do carp like corn?
In this post, I’m going to take a good look into why carp like sweetcorn and the few different types of corn you can use for fishing and which is usually the most effective.
Why Do Carp Like Corn?
One prominent reason carp like corn is its bright and striking colour. A single piece of corn can be very easily spotted in clear or even murky water against the grey, browns and greens at the bottom of the water.
When fished alongside darker coloured baits, the bright yellow of the corn helps bring fish from the surrounding areas into your swim, not just carp.
Another reason carp can’t get enough of corn is to do with its nutritional value.
Corn has relatively high protein and carbohydrate values (for vegetables), providing the carp with a filling and nutritionally balanced meal with plenty of energy.
Due to its protein content, sweetcorn is also naturally full of amino acids, which have been proven through various studies to be highly attractive to carp and actually stimulate their feeding.
The vitamins present in corn also provide large benefits to carp, and is another reason why they are so fond of it.
Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5), which is present in corn, is vital in converting nutrients from foods into usable energy to encourage muscle growth, brain stimulations and a healthy nervous system.
Since carp don’t have stomachs and get their nutrients from digesting food through their intestinal walls as the food passes through, you can see why vitamin B5 is a massive benefit to them as it aids in converting what they consume into usable energy.
Types of Corn
I’m sure you can now see why corn is an extremely effective carp fishing bait and why many anglers swear it is the best bait available to anglers across the world.
There is a few variants of corn that we can use for our fishing approaches, some better than others, so I’ll go over a few of them here so you can choose what you think will be the most effective for your next outing.
Full Salt and Sugar
Tins of sweetcorn with full salt and sugar content are the best and most effective carp baits in my opinion. You can easily pick up a tin from nearly any supermarket or corner shop.
The added sugar and salt content aids in the attractiveness of the bait.
The sugar and salt will dissolve in the water and create trails around the bait pile. The carp can easily pick up on this using their advanced olfactory system and track down your bait.
Imitation Corn
Imitation corn is another variant you can try. It is essentially coloured plastic pieces shaped like corn.
As you can imagine, this removes a lot of the benefits with no nutritional value and no sugar, salt or amino acids to pull in carp from the surrounding area.
I would only really recommend using this paired with other baits as a visual attracter.
If the carp are used to eating sweetcorn in the venue, this might be not too bad to use as the carp assume it will be the usual tasty nutritional variety.
The main benefit of using imitation corn is it will stay on a hook far better than real.
Bulk Feed Corn
Feed corn can be bought in large quantities for cheaper than tinner corn. The downside here is you will need to boil it or soak it in water for half a dayish until it becomes soft and can be placed on a hook.
This corn also won’t benefit from the sugar and salt content unless you add this to the water when soaking.
A benefit of using this type of corn is it is usually larger and tougher kernels that will stay on your hair rig for longer and are less likely to be plucked by nuisance fish.
Coloured Corn
You can also buy pre-coloured and flavoured corn from tackle shops. This is slightly more expensive than the normal shop-bought corn, but adding colourings and flavourings can help a lot.
If you are fishing a popular venue, the carp will be more than used to seeing standard corn and may become wary and tend to avoid it.
A switch up of colour or added flavourings could be enough to entice them back in and get them feeding happily on it again.
That’s All
You should now have plenty of information on why carp like corn and why you should be using it in your fishing approach. It has everything you need to get the fish feeding and biting and can be used in nearly all fishing approaches, whether it be mixed with ground bait, added to feeder mixes, used as a hook bait or even mixed with spod mix.
If you aren’t already, you can now confidently give corn a go on your next carp fishing trip.
If you have any questions or anything you’d like to add, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below, and I’ll get back to you ASAP.
