Tares, maples and peanuts are quite different in size, weight and texture and each is suited to different ways of feeding.

Tares
The small, light tares are not suited to catapulting and should be fed either inside PVA bags or in a spod. Tares are ideal for mixing with groundbait.

Tares should be dried a little if using them inside a PVA bag on their own, but when mixing with groundbait the powder will stop the bag melting.

Because the tares are small they can be used in large quantities as a carpet of bait and they will not overfeed the carp.

Be careful not to get the carp too preoccupied with the small tares at the expense of being attracted to your hook bait.

Use a small hook bait where possible when feeding tares or other small particles such as hemp.

Maples
These are one of the best carp baits of all time and have been around for years. Because they are heavier and larger than tares, maples will catapult much further.

However, they are also perfect for spodding and a full spod of maples will provide sufficient casting weight for feeding at range.

Maples have proven a good carpet feed particle when fishing boilies on the hook, but experiment with various hook baits including the maples themselves.

Maple will melt a PVA bag if they are left in the bag for too long before casting.

One excellent tip is to use maples on waters where boilies are banned – they will catch a lot of carp on the right day.

Many waters have bans on nuts and sometimes specifically peanuts.

Peanuts
These are a very under-rated particle bait and on waters where they have not been used a lot, they can out-score the more popular tiger nuts.

Peanut oil is an excellent carp attractor in warmer water and can be a top additive, in small amounts, to other particles and even groundbait mixes.

It is very important to use peanuts in small quantities as carp can find digesting large numbers of peanuts very difficult.

 Many waters have bans on nuts and sometimes specifically peanuts. Check first, or don’t use them.