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Most carp anglers probably fish bottom baits or pop-ups for most of their fishing with the occasional dabble at floater fishing on hot sunny days when the fish can be seen on the surface. There are a few anglers (Chris Ball, Brian Skoyles etc.) who devote a lot of time fishing the surface and have excellent results when others are struggling. Floater fishing can be very productive on some waters at many times of the year. Even in Winter, carp can be taken off the top. If you can find an area of overhanging bushes or branches there will probably be a few carp lurking underneath. With a steady introduction of floating baits into such areas, carp can be tempted to take a bait off the surface, just keep trickling baits past their noses and wait. Don't be too hasty; wait until they are feeding confidently before placing a hookbait amongst them. The Chum mixer is probably the most widely used bait, but on some well-fished waters carp are wary of them. However, there are plenty of other floating baits that can be used, various different cat and dog biscuits, floating seed baits, floating pellets, bread, maggots. I haven't tried it yet, but there are a couple of companies producing a fake floating bread flake that could be very effective. Floater cake is not widely used these days, but it can be very effective. Due to its consistency it will not be whittled away by small fry. You should see Kevin Maddocks' Carp Fever book for various recipes.
Floater fishing can be very exciting and great fun, so if you can give it a go. RIGS FOR FLOATER FISHING
12lb greased mainline or less if you can get away with it, depends on the size of fish.
6 to 8 foot hooklength 12lb or less greased mono or fluorocarbon.
Hooks; I like to use as small a hook as possible with a straight point, sharp and light.
Controllers: The are plenty of them on the market but I prefer the bubble floats that come in various sizes and adding some water gives extra weight for casting longer distances.
Controllers can be easily made on the bank with a wine cork drilled out with the swivel jammed into end or use floating putty moulded around swivel. CHUM MIXERS
Used widely on many waters and have been successful for many years, here are some variations on attachment. File groove in bottom of mixer and superglue to hook. 
| Mixer drilled out and attached on to a hair. |
Attach bait band to hook shank as shown, use hinge type small baiting needle. Chum mixers can be dyed various colours and flavoured which can be effective. One thing with mixers is that they don't last too long on the hook but when the carp are feeding confidently a cork ball or shaped piece of cork will be accepted. Cut slit in cork ball and jam hookshank into slit. 
I like to use this method as the hook is not visible to the fish.
Cut slit in cork ball as above and jam hook into slit, on opposite side drill hole in cork ball and fill with split shot or lead putty, this will cause cork ball to turn over so that hook sits on top, very effective!
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