In early spring when carp are the target on commercial match waters, it is worth spending the first 15 minutes of a match simply searching your peg with a bait on the hook, but without feeding anything.

At this time of year carp tend to sit where they want to be on a venue, and they will not move. However, if you find yourself on a little knot of fish and start to feed, it can be the kiss of death until the water starts to warm up.
 This lesson was brought home to me on a recent trip to Partridge Lakes near Warrington. A friend had drawn a peg where there were some carp showing from the start and in the first hour he caught one every put in.
However, after an hour the peg had died. After the match I quizzed him about his day and he bemoaned the fact the fish had shut up shop after a good initial 60 minutes. I asked what he had done and he told me he had started feeding and the bites decreased.
Take it from me, there are days when carp just want to be in a peg and a case in point came on March 7 this year when I set a new venue record at Wrightington Fishery, near Wigan, with 127lb of carp. I caught 32 fish in the five-hour contest so they were averaging around 4lb apiece. I used a 4mm Sonubaits Fin Perfect expander pellet on a PR32 size 20 hook...but I never fed a single pellet all day.
The fish were in the peg by choice. I set a tiny .20g Inter 1 pole float three feet deep in five feet of water, and waited for fish swimming at this depth to come along and suck in the pellet.
The only type of carp that I will feed for properly in winter are F1s, but with pure strains of carp it is better to feed next to nothing, and wait for them to switch on.
Carp really do not want to expend any energy feeding when the water is cold, so one bait, with the hook in it, has a better chance of being sucked in than if you present carp with 20 pellets to choose from!