Fishing on small and extremely difficult waters

Fishing on a narrow river where even a small kid with poor equipment can easily cast over to the other side.. Where is the best place to cast in your bait? In the middle or as shallow as you can on the other side?

It is very difficult waters, you can forget to catch them with tigernuts or boilies. Mielies takes forever to get a bite. One small floatie on a small hook seems to be the only thing that works better. Bigger than 10kg have been taken there, but it might even be your only fish for the day, despite many fish showing themselves. Sometimes I think it must be all the barbels that scare all the carp away. That river is overstocked on barbels.

I think I will try SWD next, I have not fished with SWD in years as where I used to fish mielies worked more than good enough. But now at this new venue I must change my style. What can you guys suggest I try to get more takes at this difficult waters?

Since the waters is small and the fish is everywhere, do I even need a feeding spot, or have to fish with a mieliebomb as feed? Perhaps they are so full of all the feed that they do not take your baitThey might have learned to stay away from those big yellow feeding balls.

If the flow is not too strong try a piece of white bread crust on a hook, not squeezed on just hooked through. You can also try boiled potato, quite big(egg size).(You can use the ones you buy in a supermarket). Pull the trace through the potato and the hook inside and put a stopper on, freeze them and then they don't fall off so easy. As you mention the river is so narrow this may not be necessary.

Noise at where you are fishing is also important on small quite venues, this can scare them off.

I would cast in the middle or far bank and also definitely if I see some action close to a specific spot, I would put one bait there.

A while ago me and my brother in law also went to a place with a very narrow stretch of river and did this and eventually landed two nice ones for the day half day we spent there. One carp kept surfacing in a specific area and I very quietly drop a bait close in there and bingo.

Egg size? Seems a bit big. Chicken egg, ostridge or small bird eggs
I've heard before of people catching barbels with potatoes, but never carp. Seems there is a first for anything.

Chicken egg size, just as they come out of the tin. Next time you catch a sizer carp check the size of it's mouth.

I feel like a real fisherman again::tight: I was at another venue yesterday and caught 27 carp for the day. That means that if I cannot even get a bite at the venue I talked about in post one, that there must be a problem at that venue, or it needs a totally different approach...
Only 4 of the 27 fish were caught on boilies, tigernuts and a popup. All the rest was caught on a humble single piece of corn conventional style. I am confident again, but how long that will last at the other venue remains to be seen.