What to do While Waiting for Carp to Bite?

I am still a carp fishing novice with less than one year's experience at this point. My typical carp fishing day goes something like this:

• Buy panko bread crumbs
• Buy cans of cream corn
• Mix bread crumbs and corn
• Pack vehicle
• Travel to fishing venue
• Unload vehicle
• Bait up
• Cast
• Set up chairs
• Organize gear
• Sit back and relax waiting for the carp to bite

Some days are better than others, but waiting for bites can eat up hours of time on the bank. I have had days where the fish were biting within 5 minutes of my first cast, but I have had other days waiting 4 or 5 hours before the first run.

I enjoy sitting back and relaxing enjoying the great outdoors as much as anyone. I typically work 50 hours a week and sometimes work from home a few hours on weekends, so I appreciate the down time. I really do. But this spring, I am going to try to leverage my time on the bank waiting for bites into something more productive. (I don't consider texting and checking Facebook as productive.)

So what should I do?

Here are some options I have come up with:

• Visit with other anglers, if any are present
• Read a newspaper
• Read a book
• Spend the time studying a foreign language
• Become a better chess player
• Eat snack foods
• Just chill

I am a true beginner level chess player and even less experienced with chess than I am with carp fishing, so I have a lot to learn.

Lucky for me I have a Smart Phone and there are plenty of free mobile chess apps available!

Photo credit: Chess.com

I have been experimenting with a few of the free chess apps today and the mobile app from Chess.com seems to work pretty well.

I'd like to say that I could spend that time studying a foreign language, but I'm just not sure I could concentrate well enough to pull that off. I had two years of high school of high school French and another semester in college. Sadly, I've lost it all since I didn't use it regularly later on.

If I get real ambitious I'll take an actual chess board and play for real, but I make no promises. Based on my results with online chess today, maybe I need to stick to plain old checkers. :-)

I am open to other ideas for how others like to spend their down time while carp fishing. Please post your suggestions in the comments below.