How to fish winter commercials

Here’s our extensive fishing guide to help you keep on catching on pole, waggler and feeder on commercial carp fisheries during the colder winter months.

It’s packed with handy hints, tips and advice that is sure to keep your float going under and your quivertip slamming around.

So, whatever style of fishing you prefer, take a good look through this in-depth guide and you’ll soon know exactly what changes you need to make to ensure you keep busy on the bank throughout November to April.

WHERE TO FISH

This is absolutely key to ensuring that you continue having fairly hectic sessions that will not only boost your confidence, but help keep you warm too as there’s nothing worse than sitting motionless for hours in damp and cold conditions!

Three key tips we can give you here:

Fish a commercial that you have fished during the summer.

Fish a commercial that’s well stocked with not only carp, but also roach, skimmer bream and chub if you can.

And choose a commercial that’s not too deep – average depth of 4ft with 2ft margins will be ideal.

Here’s the reasons why we suggest you follow those tips when picking a particular winter commercial water…

If you fish a certain venue in summer you will know where the lilies are and where any weed beds might well be. You’ll also know the depths of some swims so that will provide a lot of knowledge that will put you ahead of the game when picking a swim.

Carp will hold up within or very close to submerged lily stems and weeds during the winter – and that’s well worth remembering.

Picking a venue that’s heavily stocked with fish is an obvious one, but nevertheless some anglers keep on trying to catch from venues that are already difficult to fish in the summer – they don’t stand a chance when it’s cold!

The depth of the venue is key, and if there are shallower parts and deeper areas of around 4ft you are onto a winner because the fish may well be in the deeper water first thing in the morning (as the water will be warmest there) but then if it’s a sunny day with little wind the water will warm up significantly in the shallow areas and that’s where the carp will move during the afternoon.

PICKING THE RIGHT SWIM

Watercraft, past experiences in the summer and asking the right questions will all play an absolutely crucial role in finding the fish in winter.

When you arrive at the water, ask the bailiff or the owner where the fish were caught yesterday. It’s dead simple and it could put you on masses of carp.

If there’s no-one to ask, then watercraft and previous experiences come into play.

Watch the water closely to see any signs of life. Look for swirls, clouded water, bubbles – anything that could give away the presence of any carp. Even just the one small swirl at the surface could give away a huge shoal of fish as they pack together tightly during the winter so where you find one carp you’ll normally find masses of them.

Finally, past experiences will tell you where the lilies and weeds were during the summer. If you haven’t got anyone to ask and you see no signs of fish life, head for areas that used to be weedy as the carp won’t be too far away from those spots.

WATCH THE WEATHER

If you’ve got just the one day to go fishing and you’re going to go regardless, most of this section doesn’t count as you’ll not have a choice. But if you’ve got a week off and you could go any time during that break, choose your day wisely.

The very best time to go to a commercial carp water during the winter is after a few days of settled and mild weather. That’s when the water temperature will have risen and the fish will have become a little more active.

Note any direction of wind too. A southerly breeze is perfect as it brings with it milder temperatures and the promise of better sport.

If there is a wind blowing when you arrive at your lake, opt to fish with the wind hitting your back. Not only will you be more comfortable (as you can set up a brolly for protection) but the fish may well be sitting it out in the sheltered part of the lake as it will be warmer there.

We regularly use the internet for weather forecasts and there really is none better than Metcheck. It’s a free website that has provided us with near perfect forecasts for years.

THE BAIT TO TAKE

Less is more when it comes to commercial carp water fishing when it’s cold. Basically, you won’t need much bait, and below is a list of the typical feed and hookbaits that really work on a stillwater in winter and why. We don’t recommend you take them all – three feed baits will see you through a typical session.

Sweetcorn

Two tins will be enough. This sweet-scented bait is brilliant in the cold. Why? Because the smell disperses easily and will draw fish into your swim readily, plus the bright colour can be easily seen by fish. There’s no need to flavour it – just use it straight from the can. But remember to take your can home, or bin it properly. Carp, chub, bigger roach and skimmer bream love sweetcorn.

Fluoro pinkies

These brightly coloured mid-sized maggots are brilliant when it’s cold as they stand out well in the clear water, they don’t fill the fish up and all commercial fishery species are fond of them. One pint of fluoro pinkies should be more than enough for a day.

Worms

One of the very best attractors during cold weather is chopped worms. Dendrobaenas are by far the best for chopping up because they can be bought in bulk fairly cheaply, they emit lots of attractive juices and the worms are large enough to provide you with a multitude of different sized pieces to use on the hook.

The chopped worm pieces can be introduced by hand in the margins, cupped in over your pole line or added to your groundbait each time you fill the feeder up or throw a ball in.

Bread

A small chunk of bread flake works wonders on clear coldwater commercials. It stands out well and because of the lightness of bread, it flutters down to the bottom very slowly, ensuring that any nearby carp, roach or skimmer bream can see it and make a move to take it.

Bread is best fished in conjunction with a punch crumb groundbait, available from all good tackle shops. This groundbait needs mixing very carefully and it should be riddled after mixing to remove any large lumps.

Pellets

Both hard pellets and soft expander pellets will catch fish when its cold. If you do intend to use expander pellets on the hook, you should feed hard pellets as well to hold the fish in your swim.

Expander pellets are available pre-prepared, or you could simply pump them yourself.

The best feed pellets to catapult or cup in to your swim around your expander pellet hookbait are small ones – 4mm is about right during winter. The reason you should use smaller pellets is because they won’t fill the fish up so readily, and they break down quicker than large pellets to release a scent trail through the water.

Casters

These are well known fish-catchers when it’s cold. Half a pint of good quality casters (meaning a varied selection of light to dark colours) will be enough as they don’t wriggle into the bottom silt, so they won’t vanish out of your swim. Feed them very sparingly, or simply just use them as a change bait over the top of your loosefed fluoro pinkies or chopped worms.

Meat

Cubes of shop-bought luncheon meat work very well for winter carp. From half-centimetre to 2cm cubed chunks, they all work very well indeed. But care must be taken when fishing meat in winter as it is a very filling bait so only use chunks of meat on the hook and fish it over either small feed pellets (4mm or even micro pellets are best), or fish it over meat that has been cut into thin slices and pushed through a maggot riddle to form tiny morsels that can be squeezed into small nuggets and fed by hand, or introduced via a pole cup.

HOW TO FISH

There are a few fundamental changes you will need to take into account to ensure you keep catching throughout the winter, and they are all detailed right here…

Fining down

You may well have heard this phrase mentioned a lot when anglers talk of winter fishing. Basically it means whatever tackle you used in summer, reduce it for winter fishing.

If you used size 16 hooks in summer, use size 18 or even 20 in winter. If you used 0.14mm hooklengths in summer, use 0.12mm or even 0.10mm in winter. And straight wagglers should be replace with insert wagglers as they are more delicate to help spot tentative bites.

The same goes for pole floats too – use a slightly lighter rig than you would normally use in the summer, incorporating small micro shot rather than an olivette or bulk shot.

Quivertips need scaling down too - use the lightest glass tips you have to see those shy, gentle bites. You may even need a target board positioned at the tip of your rod so that you can see the bites.

Your pole elastic and reel mainlines can be reduced in strength too as the fish aren’t going to fight anywhere near as hard during the winter. No12 elastic maximum and 4lb mainline should do the trick on most commercials during the winter.

Swap power float rods for normal waggler rods, and Method feeder rods for straightforward leger rods.

Start on the bottom

If you are float fishing, always start your session fishing with your bait set overdepth as the fish are far more likely to be swimming around close to the bottom. As the session progresses you might get more bites if you use a shirt button style shotting pattern so that your bait falls gently through the bottom half of the water to get bites on the drop.

Feed very little

Tentative feeding is key in winter. Just a pinch of fluoro pinkies, casters or pellets, or three grains of sweetcorn is all it will take when you reach for your catapult or pole pot. And only re-feed your swim after you get a fish or you may end up simply filling the fish up with your loosefeed rather than catching it!

Search the water

Finding the fish is the hardest part of winter commercial fishing, and one of the best ways to find them is to use a leger rod and an Arlesey bomb. Create a simple leger rig, use a fairly light 2ft-long hooklength of around 0.12mm diameter high-tech line and a grain of sweetcorn on as size 18 hook.

Cast the rig out to a likely looking spot a fair distance from your peg and tighten up the line gently to create a slight bend in the quivertip. Now wait for 5 minutes to see if you either get a bite or spot a line bite.

Bites will be the usual ‘pull round’ of the quivertip, while line bites are quick plucks on the tip made by fish swimming into your submerged mainline.

If you start to see line bites that means there are fish in front of you, but they are somewhere closer than where you cast, so retrieve the rig and cast 10ft or so shorter than you did before.

Keep doing this until your rig lands amongst the fish and you start to get proper bites. And when you’ve found one carp, you’re very likely to find many more as they shoal together in winter.

Many match anglers use this searching technique during the winter, and may matches have been won using it too.

How to spod

For baiting up a carp swim when fishing at range there can be no better technique than spodding - and no better tool to use than a spod. Here is our guide showing you how and what you need to spod effectively…

What is a spod?

A spod is basically a cylindrical bait rocket with a buoyant nose cone. The spod is filled with bait - pellets, corn, boilies or particles – and is then cast into the swim.

The buoyant nose cone makes the spod flip end up in the water allowing it to deposit its payload on a sixpence every time.

Spods come in a variety of types and sizes, from the tiny Gardner Pocket Rocket through to larger models, like the Korda Skyliner spod that is capable of carrying almost half-a-pint of bait at a time.

Apart from their size difference, some spods have many holes in their side and some have none at all. The side holes help water flow when you’re retrieving the spod.

However, if you’re looking to spod maggots or very small items like hemp and micro pellets, it’s better to use a spod with few or no holes in the side.

Spodding is a method used by many carp anglers as it enables the angler to very quickly bait up a swim with light or small baits beyond catapult range.

However, if you do a lot of feeder fishing for bream and tench for example, it’s well worth investing in a spodding outfit.

Rather than making a dozen casts with a feeder in order to prime the swim, quicken the whole process by simply filling your spod with groundbait.

The tackle you'll need...

An ordinary 2.5lb or 2.75lb test curve rod coupled with a standard free spool reel loaded with 12lb line could just about cope with spodding a small amount of bait short distances, but to get the most from this deadly technique you'll need a special set-up.

Large-spooled big pit reels loaded with braided line and a strong mono shockleader are best as they will take the brunt of a powerful cast, yet the large spool and thin diameter braid will not slow the spod down as it flies.

The best rods are specialiy designed spod rods having test curves of around the 4lb to 5lb mark. These will easily be able to cope with the stresses of casting filled spods that could weigh in excess of 6oz - maybe even 10oz in some circumstances.

Great baits for spodding…

Boilies can be catapulted out, but if you want to get them in a tighter grouping, it’s better to spod them.

Another advantage of spodding boilies is that regardless of what size of bait you’re using, you can still get them 100-yards plus.

Pellets come in various types and sizes and it is always better to mix them in order to fool the fish. These should be spodded out and not catapulted. To add casting weight, dunk the spod under the water prior to casting.

Similar to pellets, the amount of different particles that you can use is legion. Again, as most particles are quite light, it pays to use a larger spod in order to give you a little bit more casting weight. Spods come in a variety of different shapes and sizes.

How to hit the same spot every time...

1. Cast out your marker float set-up or straight lead in order to find any areas of clean gravel or silt.
2. Once you’ve found the spot to fish over, cast an empty spod until you hit the marker float.
3. Now that you’re happy with your casting distance, place the mainline into the reel’s line clip.
4. Wind in the spod, fill it up with bait and cast towards the marker – making sure you hit the line clip.

QUICK TIP

After you have cast out your spod into the swim, leave it for a few seconds in order to allow the spod time to fully empty. Also, prior to retrieving the spod, make a strike; this is to ensure that the spod is completely empty.

How to catch from commercials in winter

Temperatures are dropping, the water’s getting cold and the fish are getting lethargic, but you shouldn’t. Even if there’s ice in the margins of your local commercial water you will still catch, but only if you fish intelligently and accurately.

Some anglers will tell you to avoid stillwaters when it’s cold, claiming that it’s best to tackle flowing water, but this isn’t always the case. Fish might at times, feed better in flowing water when it’s cold – they have to replace energy lost when battling against the flow – but there may be only a few fish in your river swim. Pick a swim on a commercial carp water and there could be literally thousands of fish in front of you. If you follow our guide to catching in the cold you will be able to tempt a lot of them to feed, be it roach, chub, skimmers or even decent-sized carp.

In this, the first of a three-part series, we detail the most productive float and feeder rigs, the most productive baits and the best swims to fish when it’s cold, plus detail some of the experts’ top tips for cold-water commercial fishing.

The best swims

Below is an overhead view of a typical commercial carp fishery. It features an island, overhanging trees and variations in depth. We have shown a typical winter wind, one that blows cold air from the north-east. The passage of the sun, as it rises in the east and settles in the west, has been marked on the diagram too. Taking the wind, any shelter from the trees, banks or island, the passage of the sun and the depths into account, we can figure out which swim offers the best chance of catching using either float or feeder tactics. Here’s a run-down of each swim, detailing whether it’s worth fishing or not and why...

Swims 1 and 2

THESE could be decent float or feeder swims. There’s a good depth immediately in front of you, plus the wind is blowing over your shoulder so the water will be calm, allowing you perfect float presentation. The sun will also gradually warm the water of these swims from mid-day onwards.

Swim 3

THE water in front of you here is likely to be rippled, plus it’s only 3ft deep between the margins and the island making floatfishing difficult. But look to the right of the island and there’s 4ft, so a feeder or straight lead cast to this slightly deeper water may well pay off.

Swims 4 and 5

HERE the water is likely to be pretty windswept, plus there’s not a great depth between the margins and the island. Fishing here will be tough in these conditions. On a calm day, though, you may catch on a straight lead or small feeder cast into the shallower water by the island as this 2ft deep water will warm quickly in the sunshine.

Swims 6, 7, 8 and 9

IF YOU are brave enough to fish into a cold wind, these swims might prove very productive for you. The water behind the island will be sheltered and calm, plus the sun hits this part for most of the day. You could easily fish these swims with waggler or feeder tactics. In the afternoon the water here will have warmed slightly – especially close to the island where it’s shallow – so you may do well fishing tight to the island or at the bottom of the 3ft ledge surrounding it.

Swim 10

HERE’S a very interesting swim. In a wind it may prove uncomfortable as the breeze will hit you head on, but look closely at the depths in front of the peg. There’s 4ft on the float line, and a 2ft plateau alongside the island. The 4ft deep water will be heavily rippled, but it may hold many fish as it’s deep. Here a long, large and straight waggler fished well overdepth may pay off. The water alongside the island will be sheltered and it will gradually warm throughout the day. Here a leger rig could

account for carp and chub.

Swims 11 and 12

IF YOU can locate the deeper water and you are happy fishing with a wind hitting you in the face, these swims could prove extremely productive when fishing a leger rig. A single grain of sweetcorn presented on a running rig and cast to various parts of the lake will eventually find fish, and once you have located a shoal try a small maggot feeder cast to the same spot.

Swim 13

UNLUCKY for some, swim 13 has good potential. The deepest part of the lake lies directly in front of you so again try a leger rig in this deeper water to locate fish tucked up at the bottom. But look to your right and you will find sheltered and shallow water alongside those trees that will become gradually warmer as the day progresses. Here an insert waggler, fished at full depth, could account for numerous roach, chub, skimmers and carp that will tend to move into the warmer water in the afternoon.

4 top cold water rigs

Here are the four top running-line rigs you should be using when tackling commercial waters during the colder months...

Simple running leger rig

THIS incredibly simple leger rig is easy to construct and it is absolutely deadly for locating carp. Many match anglers use it with a single side hooked or hair-rigged grain of sweetcorn, casting the rig to various parts of the lake trying to find the carp. Once they spot the bright yellow, sweetly scented corn they find it hard to resist.

Use a 4lb to 6lb breaking strain main line and thread on an Arlesey bomb followed by a rubber bead. Take the main line and fold it over and tie a double overhand knot to create an eight-inch loop. Using the same knot, tie a tiny loop in the end of the larger loop. This is used to attach your hooklength.

When a fish picks up the bait and moves away with it, the line will pass through the swivel of the bomb. When the loop passes right through the swivel the fish will feel the resistance and it should bolt off, hooking itself as it does so.

Use a strong and reliable hook, in a size to suit the number of sweetcorn grains you are using – a size 16 suits one grain, while a 14 suits two. Your hooklength needs to be robust too; try a 0.12mm (around 3lb) high-tech line.

Maggot feeder rig

THIS set-up is ideal for all species and unlike the running leger rig, this is best cast to the same area and left in the swim for quite some time. It’s easy to tie – use the same method as the running rig – but replace the straight lead with a blockend feeder.

As the fish won’t be feeding so avidly in the cold water, it pays to decrease the amount of feed going into your swim. You could either half-fill the feeder to introduce fewer morsels, but a half-full feeder empties very quickly. An alternative is to tape up the vast majority of the feeder’s holes and cram it full of maggots. This slows the escape rate of the baits, meaning that you can leave the rig in the water for a long duration, safe in the knowledge that the swim will be fed constantly.

Flavoured maggots – those given a coating of spices – might help in your quest for a good bag of cold water fish as most species respond to the strong scent drifting through the water.

You will have to scale down your terminal tackle when using this rig. A size 20 or 18 hook is ideal, coupled with 0.08mm or 0.1mm (11 ⁄2lb or 2lb) hightech hooklength material.

Calm-water float rig

DURING winter fish don’t bite as freely as they do when it’s warm. Quite often, bites can be mere knocks on the float. This means that you need to use the most sensitive set-up you can, and using a sensitive set-up is easily possible when fishing in calm water. A delicate insert waggler is called for in these circumstances. The slender sight tip can be dotted down to a mere pimple so that the merest touch of the bait is registered on the float.

When fishing with this style of float it pays to plumb up carefully and set your rig so that the bait just touches the bottom. Once the rig settles, the main line will be straight from float to bait, therefore a fish only has to sniff the bait and the float tip will dip.

Place a small bulk of shot more than halfway down the rig and follow this with a series of micro-shot. The bulk will push the bait down to the bottom quickly and the micro-shot will provide a natural fall of the bait in the last few inches of water.

In calm conditions it is possible to fish this rig with your line on the surface; doing this gives you a much faster strike.

Rippled-water float rig

WHEN the wind blows, the water will be rippled and there may be a strong undertow. In these conditions you will need to use a float rig that won’t be dragged off line. A very long, straight peacock waggler is required. The rig needs to be fished overdepth, with anything up to 3ft of line on the bottom to ensure that the float and the bait remain stationary in your swim. This rig works best when fishing over clean bottoms.

Use the longest and the thickest waggler you have as this ensures that the shot locking the float is set well under the water and away from surface drift. Place a reasonable bulk of shot below half-depth and follow this with a series of micro-shot, like No8s.

Set the float so that around an inch protrudes and start fishing the rig 12 inches overdepth. You may well find that the rig drifts through the swim, with the float dipping slightly and then popping up as the hook snags slightly on bottom debris.

The dipping of the float cannot be helped, but you can add further depth to the rig to anchor it in one position. You will find that you will still get sail-away bites, even with up to three feet of line on the bottom.

Sinking your main line will also help keep the float stationary.

Top fish tempters Some baits that typical commercial fishery species will accept, even on the hardest days...

Baits commonly associated with huge summer commercial carp fishery hauls don’t have the same effect when used during winter. Take paste, for example. Paste is a phenomenal warm-weather bait that accounts for incredible carp hauls, but it never seems to work in winter. Chum Mixers, bread and high oil-content trout pellets are the same.

Carp won’t readily feed off the top when it’s cold and the oils within trout pellets won’t disperse in ice-cold water.

MAGGOTS

During the summer maggots can be a frustrating bait to use on a mixed species commercial water; they are often taken by small silver fish long before a carp, tench or bream has chance to find them. But in winter the tables turn. These tiny creatures make a great cold-water bait that carp, chub and skimmer bream simply adore. They are small enough not to overfeed the fish, plus the protein content is high compared to the size of bait. They should be fed very sparingly to ensure constant interest in your swim. Finally, choose your maggot colour carefully – red or fluoros work best.

CASTERS

The story behind casters is very similar to maggots. They are often smashed to smithereens by small fish during the summer, but feed them sparingly and fish a single caster well overdepth and you stand a very high chance of latching into a proper fish. Carp are suckers for the crunchy shell and high protein content within the bait. Also, not only do casters make great baits when used as feed and as hookers, they also combine very well with chopped worms for chub, carp, quality roach, perch and bream – they find the scent too irresistible to ignore. You need to store them as you would in summer, in just enough water to cover all the baits so they don’t take on air and become floaters.

WORMS

Unlike perch, chub and bream, carp rarely seem to respond well to worms when it’s warm; they prefer more substantial baits. But feed a helping of chopped worms – dendrobaenas are best – when it’s cold and you stand a very high chance of rousing carp from their cold-water slumber. Take a small handful of worms, rinse them thoroughly in the mesh of a fine landing net head or riddle and chop them into fine pieces with scissors. The mush can be fed via a feeder or introduced by hand at close range. The scent will disperse quickly, drawing fish in. Fish half a worm over the top and you are most likely to tempt perch first, quickly followed by larger carp, chub and bream.

HEMP

Cooked hempseed isn’t a great commercial-water hook bait, but it is a superb fish attractant. Problem is, many commercial waters ban the use of particles like hemp, but if it is allowed it is certainly worth catapulting a good helping around your float rig. It’s the scent that oozes from the small back seeds that will draw-in roach first, then carp and chub. Bream and perch don’t really respond to hemp, but they might respond to other fish that have been drawn-in by the smell. A small piece of meat, a worm or a grain of sweetcorn presented over the seeds could prove extremely effective.

CARP PELLETS

You will notice that we have classed carp pellets as a top winter bait. Those darker, trout pellets that contain a lot of oil are not listed purely because the oils will not disperse in very cold water so they lose their effectiveness. Vegetable-based carp pellets disperse their scent easily in cold water, plus they provide the fish with ample nutrients. Drip-feed a few sinking pellets over your float and fish a softened Expanda pellet over the top, or a hard carp pellet that has been attached to the hook using a bait band. Pellets won’t just account for carp though – bream, tench and chub respond to them too; you may even catch the odd quality roach on them.

MEAT

Here is another great year round bait that accounts for most of our larger native stillwater species. Standard shop-bought meat will work through the winter, but you cannot beat a torn section of flavoured meat, especially a piece that has been heavily flavoured with strong spices. The intense flavour seeps through the cold water attracting nearby fish, especially if the meat is presented over a small bed of small carp pellets or a bed of finely-chopped meat. The easiest way to achieve this is to slice the meat into half-centimetre strips and then push the strips through a riddle. You will end up with thousands of tiny segments of meat that can be squeezed into small balls and thrown right over your float.

PINKIES

Like maggots, these baits are often frustrating to use in summer as the smaller fish intercept them before the larger carp, chub, bream and tench. But in winter the tables turn. Try casting a couple of fluoro pinkies, presented overdepth on a size 18 hook, to various parts of the lake. These brightly-coloured baits stand out like a sore thumb, tempting fish to intercept the bait as it falls. Leave the bait in the swim for at least five minutes and then re-cast to a separate area, searching for fish all the time. Once you have cast among a shoal you are very likely to gain a bite, and once you gain one bite you ought to cast to the same area as you may well catch more.

SWEETCORN

Forget to put a tin of sweetcorn in your tackle bag and you are missing out on a great winter catch. Sweetcorn is the finest winter bait because it stands out well, it smells great and, being totally natural, the scent disperses easily and quickly to the noses of the fish. A grain of hair-rigged or side hooked sweetcorn presented on a running-leger rig is a winning setup. Simply cast it to various spots around the lake and you will eventually find a tightly packed shoal. Once you find the fish, continue casting to the same spot and more will follow.

How to fish the pellet cone

Pellet cones are great little tools for making compressed cylinders of micro pellets that sit on your hooklength, just above your baited hook.

These little parcels of strongly-scented goodies will quickly draw the attention of nearby carp, tench and bream, leading them to follow the smelly trail and quickly find your hook bait.

When cast out they put the micro pellet loosefeed in a small area around your hookbait - absolutely perfect.

It’s best fished on a straight lead rig with hair-rigged hookbaits such as mini boilies, corn and pellets, and is ideal for fishing for carp, tench and bream on commercials.

Use a rig which allows you to clip your 12ins hooklength on and off your rig. And it's also advisable to tie quite a few spare rigs too, just in case you suffer a breakage, the hook becomes blunt or the hair becomes damaged in any way.

Here's how to set up and use a pellet cone in five quick and easy steps... 

Step 1

Soak a pint of 2mm or 3mm micro pellets in cold water for around 30secs, then drain and leave for 30mins. This should make them soft enough to stick together.

Step 2

Select the required size of cone and fill with pellets. Compress the pellets inside the cone tightly to ensure they are well packed in.

Step 3

Thread a baiting needle through the cone and pull your baited hooklength back through the cone by attaching the loop in the end of the hooklength to the needle.

Step 4

Pull the hook into the cone so that the hookbait sits directly underneath the cone. Remove the pellet cone by pushing at the thin end of the cone and slide it off your hooklength.

Step 5

Clip the loop on the end of the hooklength back into the snap link swivel, then you are ready to cast out.

How to fish for carp with a bagging waggler

The Method catches fish on the bottom, right? Wrong! With the right tackle it’s possible to fish the Method just under the surface and catch even more than you would when fishing it on the deck. Don’t believe us? Prepare to be amazed

Ian Chestney knows his stuff. He fishes the Midlands commercial fishery match circuit, and he’s very good. In fact he’s almost unstoppable when it comes to fishing the Method feeder.

But like all good anglers, he is prepared to play around with techniques and baits until he is confident that they catch more consistently.

As he is a matchman, the desire to catch more and catch faster is strong, and this desire led Ian to experiment with the Method – a renowned carp-catching technique – and turn it into something a bit special.

Now, when conditions allow he fishes the Method off the bottom, using a float, catching only inches deep. Here’s how he does it....

What’s it all about?

IF YOU do not know how the original Method works, it goes something like this… A sticky, often fishmeal-based groundbait is moulded around a heavy frame feeder. A short hooklength, sometimes only a couple of inches long, is attached to the line below the feeder and baited. The hooklength can be left to dangle from the feeder, or it can be stuck on to the feeder using a little more groundbait. Then the whole lot is cast out and left on the bottom.

The carp will pick up the scent, home in on the ball of sticky groundbait and begin attacking it, trying to get at any larger food particles in the groundbait. Eventually the carp will find the hookbait, take it and hook themselves against the weight of the feeder. This results in violent takes and arm-aching action.

Ian Chestney’s technique works upon a very similar principle, but the tackle required, groundbait used and weight of the feeder differs greatly.

Use powerful gear

IAN USES huge Method Floats made by Kobra. They are very similar to pike floats in that they are thick, long balsa floats but these have plastic ribcage-like frames on the base and a small weight in the centre.

They are buoyant enough to float even with a healthy amount of groundbait moulded around the frame.

Ian’s rod is an old, but powerful Daiwa Amorphous Stillwater, but he reckons a 12ft, 2lb test-curve carp rod is even better.

The main line is 6lb Maxima, but Ian ties a 20ft 8lb Maxima shockleader below it to take the brunt of the cast. The feeder is attached to this leader.

Ian’s groundbait mix

IAN CHESTNEY is the National Sales Coordinator for R&G Cats and Dogs baits and therefore uses their groundbaits all the time. He has also helped design their baits and as he’s such a fan of the floating Method he helped with a groundbait specifically for the job. It’s called Bagging Waggler – because that’s you’ll do when you use it!

This contains all the ingredients that carp love. It is sticky enough to hold together for casting, and active enough to cloud the water instantly.

“You simply cannot use a standard Method feeder groundbait when fishing like this as it’s too sticky,” he says. “Normal Method groundbait won’t cloud the water. You will have to add another groundbait to soften it, or go for one of the fast-acting Method mixes that are now available.”

Ian adds a full bag of Supercarp Netbuster – another sticky groundbait – and a good helping of Hemp Porridge to his Bagging Waggler groundbait.

A lot of groundbait is required when fishing this technique and that’s why Ian bulks his out with Netbuster. Once the two dry groundbaits are mixed together he scoops about a pint of water from the lake and stirs in a good helping of hemp porridge to the water. Ian adds this milky water to the groundbait a little at a time, mixing it vigorously until the groundbait just holds together when squeezed.

For today’s session at Gerrard’s Carp Lake near Maxey, Cambs, Ian mixed his groundbait a little drier than he would normally because he decided to add some soaked expander pellets to give the carp something to feed upon.

Squeeze the groundbait around the feeder and drop it in the margins first to check whether it peels away from the feeder and also to find out how much groundbait the float will take before it sinks.

The best rig to use with the Method float

IAN’S rig is very simple, and versatile too.

Working from the rod, there are two silicone float stops, a snap link swivel, a bead and finally a swivel tied on the end of the line. To this he ties a 2ft hair-rig hooklength. The line he uses is very strong 0.18mm FAPS Dynamite Power high-tech line (around 7lb breaking strain) and the hook is a barbless size 10 ESP Raptor G-4.

Ian prefers to hair-rig his bait for two reasons. Firstly luncheon meat – ideal for this method – will remain on the rig through a powerful cast, and hair-rigging a bait means that the hook point never becomes masked by the bait.

The large float is clipped directly to the snap link swivel. Doing this allows him to switch quickly between either a red or a black tipped float if light conditions change on the water.

This rig can be fished in two ways. The two silicone float stops can be pushed down the line to lock the float in place.

This creates a bolt rig effect whereby the taking fish will instantly feel the resistance of the very buoyant float and try to swim away from it. Ian fishes the rig in this way when the carp are really feeding well.

When the fish are a little slower to respond Ian pushes the float stops up the line. This gives the carp a little more time to take the bait and swim off with it before they feel the buoyancy of the float.

Where will it work?

The floating Method will work anywhere where the normal Method works, or used to work. It’s better suited to larger venues though as casting such a large weight makes an enormous splash!

Aim to fish it in water of four or five feet or more and well out from the bank. This method won’t work in the margins as the fish won’t have the confidence to feed up in the water close to the edge of a lake.

So how does it work?

THE BAGGING waggler works on a simple principle. Unlike the Method feeder, whose groundbait remains fairly inactive on the bottom, the floating Method feeder’s groundbait needs to be very active. As soon as the float hits the water the groundbait, so long as it is correctly mixed, starts to peel away from the frame creating a hanging cloud.

The carp respond to the splash, they will swim over to find out what’s going on, see the cloud, smell the food and try to suck in any particles streaming from the float. The problem is there are no really large particles for the taking – except for the one on the hook hanging there enticingly within the cloud.

“When fished correctly this is an extremely busy method. Even when it is squeezed really hard, the groundbait moulded around the frame should fall away in between two and four minutes,” states Ian. “When the fish are really having it, it could take seconds because they come straight to the splash and attack the groundbait, knocking it off. So, to fish the bagging waggler effectively you need to keep a continuous stream of groundbait going in, and this means casting every four or five minutes.”

You can actually see if all the groundbait has come away from the float as it will gradually rise in the water as the groundbait peels away from the frame. When it begins to sway, chances are all the groundbait has fallen away and the float is just sitting vertically under the small weight at the base.

It pays to place your rod in the rests at an angle and to use a free spool reel when fishing with a Method float as bites can be extremely violent.

The best baits

IAN chose to use luncheon meat on this session, but he confidently stated that when the carp are really having it you could put anything on the hook and they will take it.

When the fish are being a little more selective some of the better baits are meat, maggots, slow-sinking hooker pellets and bread. Casters tend to disintegrate too quickly and sweetcorn sinks too fast. Ideally the bait needs to drop through the cloud steadily so that the fish can see it easily and therefore take it.

The session

BEFORE attaching a hooklength and after mixing his groundbait Ian squeezes a good handful of groundbait around the frame and makes six casts towards the centre of Gerard’s Carp Lake. He tries to keep all the casts in the same area so that one continuous cloud is created.

Next he baits the hair with a small piece of luncheon meat, moulds more groundbait around the feeder and casts to the same spot. The float hits the water with an almighty splash, pops to the surface and starts to do its work.

Meanwhile the bait drifts downwards, but before the two foot hooklength has time to straighten the float shoots under and Ian’s rod is nearly ripped from the rest. His first carp is hooked within 10 seconds of the bait being in the water!

“This is the stupidest method I have ever fished! It can be like this all day long with fish hooked on almost every single cast!” he says, keeping the rod tip low and pumping the first of many carp to the landing net.

“The first time I saw someone fishing this method was at a match on Drayton Reservoir. I nearly wet myself with laughter but soon had the smile wiped from my face when that angler beat me by 150lb!” exclaimed Ian.

As he had explained earlier, Ian rebaited the feeder and cast every four minutes to keep the cloud lingering. But this wasn’t going to be one of those red letter days – the weather saw to that. One minute it was blazing sunshine, calm and hot, the next minute the clouds came over and a light, cold wind blew. Ideally it needs to be bright, calm and warm throughout the day for this method to really show its mettle.

Ian kept casting, introducing feed regularly. He switched between a long and a short hooklength and between a fixed and a sliding rig and caught the occasional carp. He finished with nearly 50lb which by this method’s standards was almost disappointing! We’d love to see Ian and the floating feeder when the everything’s right – 200lb anyone?

10 STEPS TO METHOD FLOAT SUCCESS

1 You will need to use a powerful rod and strong line. A lightweight carp rod and 8lb line is ideal.

2 Cast the Method float into open water, preferably of four feet and deeper.

3 Use the right groundbait. Ideally the mix should peel away from the float causing a cloud in less than five minutes.

4 Test it first. Before casting out drop a loaded Method float in the margins to see how it sits and whether your groundbait is working correctly.

5 Fish the right venue. This technique works best on carp waters that already respond to the Method.

6 Experiment with hooklengths. Swap between long hooklengths, say around 2ft, and short hooklengths to find the depth the carp are feeding at.

7 Hair rig soft baits like meat or hooker pellets as this prevents them falling off the hook when punching out a cast.

8 Wait until it’s warm. Carp are more likely to feed just under the surface when the water is warm.

9 Do not point your rod directly at the float. If you are using rests put them at an angle so that the taking carp can pull the tip round and give you chance to grab it before it’s pulled in!

10 Use a free spool reel as this will pay out line to a taking fish and give you time to respond to the take.