Most of my sessions are short--two to five hours--so I typically only bring one bait: sweet corn, maize, or bread. When I don't catch, I usually conclude that the carp weren't hungry, but recently I've been wondering whether I might have caught had I used another bait.

When you fish multiple rods, how often do you use more than one type of bait (on otherwise identical rigs)? Do you often catch a lot of carp on one bait but not another, or do you generally catch a few carp on all of your baits?

"Do you often catch a lot of carp on one bait but not another[?"]

All of the time! I usually have about 4 or 5 different hookbaits and go from there depending on what they want. Of course, during a short session you won't have enough time to figure out what they want exactly so the safe choices will be sweet corn, doughbaits, and bread.