Steve Ringer's 101 greatest stillwater tips

1 How often to cast when fishing the Method is a question I get asked a lot. Every day is different and it pays to vary it during the day anyway. Start by leaving the feeder out for 5 mins at a time and then time how long it takes to get a bite.

If you’re getting bites within a minute then there’s no point leaving the feeder out there. This may change later in the day so have a few longer casts later on.

2 When it comes to fishing for F1 hybrids there are times when your swim might only be 18ins deep, especially against an island but such shallow water can holds lots of fish. When this is the case you want to be getting positive bites and the key to this is to use a heavier than normal float.

I wouldn’t think twice about using a 10 x No11 Mick Wilkinson F1 float shotted with strung out No11 shot with the bottom shot 5ins from the hook and the others spaced at half-centimetre intervals above. This then allows me to get the hookbait straight to the bottom where the better fish are located

3 Regulating the amount of bait you wrap around a Method feeder is an important part of feeder fishing, but one that most anglers don’t even consider. ‘Double skinning’ is something I’ve been doing a lot of in recent years and allows me to pile in more bait per cast, perfect for when the fish are having it. Basically I fill the feeder up as normal then instead of casting out I put another layer of pellets on. This is done by putting more pellets into the mould and pressing the already loaded feeder back into the mould to give it a second skin of pellets and so double the amount of bait on the feeder.

4 To kick off a swim for skimmers and carp I will start by casting at least 10 medium cage feeders full of groundbait and micros to put a bed of bait down on the bottom and get the fish feeding. I’ll then drop down to a small cage feeder to begin fishing because bream don’t like big feeders on their heads while they’re eating.

5 When it comes to using micro pellets on the Method feeder, don’t be afraid to mould them really hard with lots of pressure as you’ll be surprised how quickly they come off once in the water.

6 Commercial fisheries hold such a range of fish nowadays and skimmers and crucians can be just as important as carp. So you need to have the right balance when it comes to elastic. Provided I’m not going to hook any huge carp and am fishing a good mixed fishery then I’d use doubled up No5 elastic set on the soft side in conjunction with a side puller kit so I can tighten the elastic on bigger fish.

7 Paste consistency is one of the most important parts of paste fishing in that the softer you have your paste the more bites you will get. The problem, of course, is that the softer the paste the harder it can be to keep it on the hook. To help with this I mix my paste to a relatively stiff consistency to start with and then tweak it as required throughout the session by dipping the paste in a tub of water before putting it on the hook.

8 It's a simple tip, but make sure you carry a whole range of sizes and weights of Method, blockend, and groundbait feeders ranging from tiny feeders that hold just a pinch of maggots to much bigger versions to get more bait in. This allows you to tailor the amount of bait you feed and also covers you for hitting the spot should the weather conditions change.

9 Meat and hemp is a great combo throughout the summer for margin fishing, but some anglers get it wrong when it comes to the ratio of each bait to feed. You don’t want to feed much meat as this is going on the hook, so to kick off a margin swim I feed three large 250ml pots full of hemp with an odd cube of meat mixed in and because this is normally a swim for the last two hours of a session I’ll then look to top it up with another full pot every 30 minutes, using the same ratio of meat to hemp.

10 I first got my hands on a little bottle of Kiana Carp Goo Almond Smoke Bait Spray this winter and it’s awesome on bread. Fluoro pink in colour with a strong almond-based flavour that leaks off a fish attracting cloud, it also changes the colour of the bread which allows me to offer the carp something different  to everyone else casting out standard white bread.

11 When potting in a lot of hemp I want a hookbait that really stands out for the fish to come into the swim and home in on. Meat is best but don’t go down the route of fishing the same-sized cube as you’re feeding. Sometimes a ridiculous-sized bait can catch well and a large 10mm cube is my first choice.

12 On mixed waters with both skimmers and carp I use an 8ins hooklength of 0.17 (6lb) Guru N Gauge on my groundbait feeder rigs. This might seem slightly on the heavy side for skimmers, but it ensures I’ll be able to land carp if I hook one. Hook choice is a size 18 or 20 Guru MWG – light, but tough for both species.

13 Most anglers like to clean their worms off but when fishing shallow water or up in the water I’ve found it better to keep the soil and peat on the worms as this helps to form a cloud which in turn attracts fish.

14 When I fished canals for roach I was always taught to completely bury the hook in a caster but where commercial fisheries are concerned, whether fishing for roach or carp, I like to thread the bait on the hook leaving the point showing as I find I hit more bites this way. If I can’t catch leaving the hook point showing, as can happen, then in my opinion there aren’t enough fish in the swim to make fishing for them viable.

15 Dead maggots are a great bait for margin carp or fishing on the Method feeder and to prepare them I put the cleaned maggots in a large bowl and add cold water until they’re just covered. I then slowly pour boiling water on the maggots while stirring them and once all of the maggots are dead I then add more cold water to prevent them scalding. Drain them and seal them in a plastic bag until needed.

16 When faced with a typical swim, rather than fishing straight out in front I like to fish at a slight angle of either 10 o’clock or two o’clock if we take 12 o’clock as being central. This way when I hook a fish I can steer it away from the baited area and keep disturbance to a minimum. This is important when trying to catch a lot of fish from one spot because playing fish on top of where you are trying to fish is not conducive to a quick bite once the fish has been landed.

17 My running loop feeder rig is a set up that’s caught me lots of fish where allowed and tying it couldn’t be easier. Firstly take a snap link swivel and thread it on to the mainline, then tie a 6ins loop with the snap link swivel trapped inside.

Push the snap link up to the knot and tie three small loops in the big loop below the snap link swivel, trapping the snap link swivel in a 2ins loop.

The series of small loops creates a stiff boom and stops the rig from tangling on the cast. My hooklength attaches to the bottom loop via the loop-to-loop method.

18 Most anglers put the hookbait on the outside of the Method ball believing the fish will come to the hookbait first – don’t! Once the pellets fall off the feeder, so does your hookbait. Put a layer of pellets on first so the bait is in the middle of the feed.

19 When fishing big baits for big fish you need to use strong, wide gape hooks. The wide gape is especially important as this helps you hook bigger baits like catmeat or multiple baits such as double corn or luncheon meat. Even though the bait may fill the hook you can leave plenty of hookpoint showing.

20 You can catch fish from anywhere in a commercial peg, but I like to look for a particular spot in my swim at the bottom of the near slope, where the bottom levels out and the depth is constant – this is a natural holding spot for fish where food gathers. This is typically around 5m or 6m out and is especially good in the latter part of the session provided you feed it regularly by hand from the word go.

21 When pole fishing, sometimes resting a swim can give it a new lease of life. It’s difficult to come off a swim that you are nicking an odd fish on, so you can drop on one where you know you might not get a bite, but over the course of five hours it’s something that can be worth doing just to keep the one good swim going.

22 Maggots can be a brilliant bait but you can’t fish the same sort of rig that you’d use for pellets as you’ll miss out on a lot of bites. I bin the bulked shotting pattern on my pellet rigs. Instead I use a finer, strung out pattern that you’d normally see on rivers or canals, as even in coloured water I think the fish watch the maggots fall through the water.

23 The obvious place to cast when faced with an island is as tight as possible to the overhanging grass. But it can pay to cast 2ft short to start with before going tight to the bank as this will give you the chance of catching for longer later in the day.

24 Big baits are great on the Method when there are a lot of fish in the swim as they appeal to a fish’s greedy nature.

When there are fewer fish about and they can afford to be picky, a large hookbait can often go ignored. This is when you need to scale down and use small baits that almost blend in with your feed, such as a single dead maggot fished on a small size 18 hook.

25 When bites are few and far between there are still things you can do in order to draw a few more fish into the swim. One such thing is to pile finely chopped worm through the feeder and nothing else other than groundbait to hold it in place. The finely chopped worm releases loads of attraction into your swim without putting in too much feed that could soon fill up the fish.

26 It might look daft but there will be times when fishing with meat that I thread three or four cubes on the hook. It looks like a type of ‘stringer’ that big carp anglers use but I think that its bizarreness means it can actually throw the fish off guard, especially early in a session when they’re not that wary.

27 When maggot fishing I like to fish as short a line as possible between pole tip and float and depending on fishery rules this is often as short as 6ins. The shorter line means I am much more direct on the float – in other words I can hold a short tight line to the float and once I get a bite I’m on it instantly.

28 It might sound odd but when I’m using big baits for proper carp then I like to fish with a strung bulk shotting pattern, even in shallow water. This gives the bait a slow fall and also gives the rig increased stability. This pattern is also extremely versatile and due to the number of shots on the line I can quickly change should I need to put line on the bottom and drag a couple of shots should the need arise.

29 Flavouring dead maggots is something I’ve started to do a lot more of recently.

This is done by firstly killing the maggots and then once they are dead and have cooled I give them a squirt of Mainline Activ-8 liquid flavouring, a real favourite with big carp anglers, which helps to give them a boost.

30 Believe it or not reel choice is important for feeder fishing because a bigger than normal reel will increase your casting distance. Bigger reels have bigger spools in comparison to standard match reels, which allows for better line lay as the coils aren’t so tightly packed. This can put as much as an extra 10 yards on your cast.

31 I catch loads of carp on boilies so that got me thinking why not try crushing a few up and using them in a PVA bag? The great thing about boilies is that there are so many colours available, meaning that the combinations I can use are endless. I will feed them with other baits like pellet.

32 When fishing corn on the pole the best bit of advice I can give is to make sure you always fish at dead depth, provided conditions allow you to do so. The reason for this is so that if a carp sucks the bait in it will register on the float as either a dip or sometimes a slight lift, either of which should be struck at.

33 Often only thought of as a winter bait, worms can actually be best in warm weather and on venues where you’re looking to catch skimmers, F1s, small barbel and carp. A chopped worm feeder cast tight to an island can be lethal.

34 Once your Method feeder has moved for any reason, whether knocked by a fish or moved by a liner, then you need to reel it in. For the Method to work properly you are reliant on a fish feeding on the groundbait/pellets around the feeder and once the feeder has moved your hookbait is no longer in the right place.

35 Slapping your rig on the surface is a deadly way of catching fish shallow.As a rule I ship out, loosefeed three times over the float and then slap the rig in three times in succession. On the third slap let it fish. If the float doesn’t bury I lift the rig and slap it again three times.

36 Too many anglers think that expander pellets are only to be used on the hook but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Waters such as Barston Lakes respond to mashed expanders, which are basically pellets given a blast with a cordless mixing drill to create a rough ‘hash’ of pellet that can be fed either as a ball or loose in a pole cup.

37 When fishing with sweetcorn for carp most anglers tend to fish only a single grain of corn on the hook, but I have caught an awful lot of fish using double hookbaits too. Maybe it’s to do with the colour or simply the sheer size that looks completely different to anything you might be feeding.

38 A good little tip when fishing shallow is to use a Dacron connector. This helps stop your rig from tangling around your pole tip, something which can happen a lot when slapping your rig.

39 Ever thought about fishing a feeder in the margins? This is a great tactic on some waters where the fish can spook away from a pole over their heads. It’s best done with a Method and if you’ve got a platform next to you, cast your baited feeder to the deep hole in front of the peg that has been scoured out by keepnets.

40 Maggots are a great F1 bait and surprisingly for these delicate feeders, a double bait often outscores a single offering so if you’re struggling, try increasing the bait size.

41 Always look at the weather conditions and your target weight to decide how much you need to feed. If conditions are good (overcast with a good ripple on) then I will attack it with more bait. Equally if it’s flat calm and bright sunshine then a more cautious approach normally pays dividends.

42 So many anglers fish with one small pot on the end of their pole but have you ever thought of fishing with two? As a match progresses and more and more fish move into the swim then I will often switch to double potting. This is done to increase the amount of bait I’m introducing into the swim and really push my catch rate up a notch or two.

43 When I’m getting lots of indications on a plastic cage feeder but not many bites I put my hooklength through the middle of my feeder, leaving the bait protruding about an inch below the bottom of the feeder. This way when the contents of the feeder break out my hookbait is in among them.

44 A key part to catching well is to fish a float that offers perfect stability and I reckon the fibre glass-stemmed Mick Wilkinson Diamond is the best all-round pattern for fishing depths between 4ft and 7ft.

45 Groundbait in the margins has become popular in recent years, but feed the mix loose as opposed to in a ball so it spreads out and coats the bottom in the shallow water rather than going down in a solid ball.

46 Wetting your line before casting also helps you to cast further as dry line never casts particularly well. The ‘wetting’ can be done by spraying the line or alternatively soaking the spool to make sure all the line comes into contact with the water.

47 Straight from the tin, luncheon meat is very fatty and can be like handling a bar of wet soap when putting it on the hook. A top tip is to pop the cubed meat in a bait tub of water, which will dissolve the excess fat and make the cubes easier to use.

48 Try giving your paste mix a bit of extra oomph. Crushed hemp can be good to put a bit of activity into the swim, while finely crushed pellets create a bit of added crunch.

49 One trick I have been using to good effect is to pick an out of the way area of the swim but still in the deep water of my peg and then trickle maggots into it. Fish it in the last hour and you’ll often catch some big F1s.

50 Lift, drop, and drag your pole rig around your swim. To do this I simply lift the float around 8ins to 12ins clear of the water before slowly lowering it back in again while for dragging, move your float slowly to the left or right.

51 When skimmers are grubbing around on the bottom picking up small offerings such as micro pellets, they seem to pick up a smaller hookbait far more readily so in this situation I’ll scale right down and use two 4mm expanders on a hair-rig.

52 If you want to cast a long way, give it some welly. Hold your rod properly with one hand on the bottom of the handle and the other around the reel and really punch the feeder out by compressing the rod fully on the backward swing.

53 Just lately I’ve found laying my rig in to be far more effective and to do this I flick the rig out to the side and then hold a tight line between float and tip. This causes the hookbait to fall in an arc and bites come as the float settles.

54 The weight of your feeder is crucial for ensuring fish hook themselves when using short hooklengths so make sure your empty feeder has enough weight.

55 If I'm in doubt as to how I should feed at a new venue I always work two swims – one I feed negatively and the other positively. This way I can quickly work out which is best on the day.

56 I never go fishing on a commercial where bream and skimmers are likely to show without 2mm or micro pellets. They are perfect for adding to a groundbait mix or for wrapping around a Method feeder, but they must be dampened beforehand to make sure they all sink as from the bag they tend to float about.

57 When suffering from lost fish through hookpulls don’t change to a bigger hook. You want the fish to suck in your hookbait in a confident manner and the way to achieve this is to use a small hook so your hookbait behaves in a more natural manner.

58 When feeding baits like meat I’m a big believer in using different-sized pieces so that the fish are hunting around continually. I’ll cube up 4mm and 6mm pieces using a meat cutter and then feed them with finely minced bits for a real ‘Bombay mix’ style of meat.

59 A great trick to try in the last hour of your match is to unclip your feeder and cast as far as you can past your main baited feed area. Big carp can sit back from any disturbance sometimes and you can often pick up a few big fish.

60 Keep your groundbait covered. Dried out crumb can reduce your catch rate as a session goes on, so always keep an eye on your mix and if it dries out add more water or, better still, cover the bowl with damp towel to retain the moisture.

61 Target hookbaits are a must when fishing the Method feeder to create a bait that stands out in terms of colour. For example, an 8mm white bread disc fished in combination with dyed red micro pellets is something that the fish can easily home in on.

62 If bream, skimmers, and F1s are the target, then I add wetted down, 2mm micro pellets to my groundbait mix to increase the food content and give the fish something to grub  around on.

63 Don't just think cage feeders are only for groundbait. I use them for feeding 6mm cubes of meat, mushed meat, softened micro pellets, and expanders too. The key for me is their rapid release of the bait when you’ve got fish feeding in your swim.

64 For bream fishing on the feeder at range I now like to feed via a spod rather than making a dozen casts with an open-end feeder. Particles are key for keeping bream in your swim for long periods and I use a mixture of baits that give both attraction and hold the fish. Micro pellets keep bream grubbing around for ages and we all know that they love casters, while chopped worm helps to put a scent in the water. Hemp is an underused feed for bream but they love the oils it gives off.

65 Sweet or fishmeal? That’s the choice we have to make when picking a groundbait for commercial waters and today most bait companies make a specific sweet fishmeal groundbait for the job. Being coarse textured they’re the perfect choice for piling in a big carpet of feed.

66 Any hookbait that has extra attraction will catch more fish and dusting baits is a great option. A sticky liquid additive coats the hookbait, to which you can pour on your chosen groundbait or powdered additive. Give them a good shake to disperse the crumb and the baits are good to go.

67 The biggest mistake anglers make when trying to cast a long way is that they try to cast off a line that is too short. On a 13ft rod look to cast with at least 5ft of line between feeder and rod tip, swing the feeder in front and then as it swings back take the rod back as well. Once the feeder pulls on the rod tip behind me I know it’s in the optimum position for casting. This fluid motion helps with distance.

68 When bites are few and far between there are still things you can do to draw a few more fish into the swim. One tip is to pile finely chopped worm through a feeder with nothing else other than groundbait to hold it in place. The worm, prepared almost to a mush, then releases loads of attraction into the water without putting that much feed into the peg.

69 Bread and maggots, worm and caster – both great, old school cocktails of bait and ones that still work and can give you a very different presentation to what other anglers are using. If I can make my bait stand out from the crowd then I’ll always have an advantage.

70 One of my favourite lines to fish is known as the ‘5m meat line’ and it’s an area where you’ll find big fish patrolling later on in the day. As the name suggests it’s a swim I like fishing with cubes of meat but bizarrely it’s not always at 5m out. Instead I will plumb out from the bank until I find the spot where the bottom levels out and aim to fish here which can be 5m, 6m, or even 7m out.

71 A neat little trick when adding sloped lead weights to your maggot feeders is to reverse the lead so that its bulk is at the top of the feeder. This helps the feeder to fly much better when casting into the wind and also cuts down on tangles.

72 Something you hear anglers talk about is how many turns they have fished, for instance 80 turns. This refers to how many turns of the reel handle it takes to wind the feeder back from the swim. This is useful if I have to unclip as I know exactly how far out I was actually fishing.

73 Ever been caught without a paste on the bank? Mixed correctly, you can form a perfectly usable paste from groundbait and I liberally over-wet the groundbait so it has the consistency of a slop, then after a minute or two the groundbait will absorb the excess water and you’ll be left with virtually perfect paste.

74 You might think that the Method feeder is a positive approach for big weights but there will be times when the fish are finicky and you need a more refined attack. I’d scale down to small baits, such as a single dead maggot or a 4mm pellet fished on a size 18 hook.

75 Most anglers will tell you that the Method feeder is at its best fished either at long range or against an island. It’s just as effective at short range, in fact just off the end of the rod top. Feed a particle-rich groundbait at the bottom of the near shelf and underarm a small Method over the top using use a big bait like corn.

76 Never chop all of your worms in one go at the start. Not only will this tempt you to overfeed the swim but also will see the worms dry out as the day progresses, meaning those

all-important fish-catching juices are lost.

77 Until a few years ago corn skins were something I’d read a lot about but never got round to trying. When I used them they were a revelation, especially for F1s. To make a corn skin simply squeeze the insides out so you are left with just the skin.

78 Carp love spicy baits so it makes sense to use chilli hemp to try and get an edge. If there are 10 anglers in a line all feeding the same bait and I’m feeding something different then my bait will stand out and I’ll catch more.

79 I've lost count of the times when I’ve been fishing the open-end feeder with no sign of a carp only to switch to the Method and get a 10lb-plus fish first drop. Next time you’re faced with a big, mixed venue, start on the open end, and be prepared to switch to a Method feeder later in the day, it can make a massive difference to your final weight.

80 Using a shockleader can make a difference to the distance you can cast. Load your reel with 4lb mainline and tie a 2ins overhand loop in the end. Then take a heavier line, around 8lb, and tie it to the loop using a bloodknot. Wind the 8lb line through the rod rings so you have just one or two turns on the reel once the end of the line is in the casting position. This way you are casting off the 8lb line but once the cast is made you have less friction going through the rings.

81 One problem with fishing worms is that they can fold over the hook point and lead to bumped fish. I find it much better to hair-rig my worms as this means that not only is the hook point always clear but it also means I can get away with using a smaller hook than would normally be the case. This in turn leads to better presentation which should lead to more bites.

82 Bream can become preoccupied with groundbait and pellets and ignore your hookbaits after a while on the open-end feeder, so it can then pay to put on a Method feeder and bury your hookbait into the ball of feed. The fish will suck it in without even realising.

83 On big waters the further out I can fish the more I’m likely to catch, but it’s no good fishing at range if you can’t reach it with your feed. Most anglers feed 8mm pellets but I prefer 11mm hard pellets, which can be fired out that bit further and that gives me a real edge over those around me as I’m always going to be first on the fish. If I feed it well I can keep the fish out of range of my neighbouring anglers too.

84 Think carefully about the type of feeder you’re using because different types give you different bait presentations. Method and pellet feeders are great when fish are feeding tight and coming to the feeder quickly, but if you want to spread out your bait to keep a shoal of fish in the area then you should opt for blocke

85 If you're fishing in shallow water use cage feeders with large holes so your bait can come out of the feeder quickly – the larger the holes the better, in my opinion.

86 Carp can often be attracted to a bait that looks different and my ‘capped’ pellets have caught fish when all else has failed. They are dead simple to prepare and are effectively a hair-rigged hard pellet ‘capped’ off with the end of a dumbbell-shaped high-visibility boilie.

87 When it comes to getting the distance then long rods definitely reign supreme. A 12ft rod will cast a long way but not as far as 13 footers – the longer the rod, the longer the potential cast.

88 Dobbing bread has been very much the ‘in’ method on a lot of snake lakes this winter and that won’t change in spring. One thing I have noticed is that the sloppier your bread is, the quicker you get bites so I carry an atomiser to spray the bread before I punch a piece for the hook. Bread can take quite a bit of time to go soggy once in the water so by spraying it before hooking I am just speeding up this process.

89 Hard pellets are a great bait but I like to take them that extra level and let them swell up even further to what I call ‘blown up’ pellets. I’ll take normal 8mm hard pellets and double pump them in a pellet pump before leaving them overnight in a sealed bag of water. This creates massive, but super soft hookbaits. Here’s how to make them...

A) To prepare the hard pellets put the required amount in a pellet pump and then fill the pump with water.

B) I like to pump the pellets twice, as this will quickly make them take on water and become super-soft.

C) Drain the water off and put the pellets in a plastic bag with enough covering water to keep them wet.

D) Place in the fridge overnight, and in the morning they will have blown up and are ready for the hook.

90 Soft expander pellets can catch picky carp and F1 hybrids on most commercials, but when roach descend on your peg then these baits are pretty much useless. One trick is to punch meat out to the size of the pellet and leave to dry a little in the open air.

They’ll develop a thick outer skin and will then become small-fish-proof while looking like a pellet.

91 Looking for a cheap but effective addition to a groundbait mix for filling it in at the start? Corn is the answer and I’ll often add two whole tins of corn to my crumb when fishing places like Larford Lakes where the carp like a bit of bait. The beauty of corn is that it’s a very visual, large-sized particle bait the carp can easily spot and because it offers a decent reward it will hold bigger carp in the swim for longer. It’s also heavy so stays on the bottom well and won’t be picked off by little fish while you’re waiting for the big fish to appear.

92 Adding extra lead to your feeders is vital for distance and I’ve found one large lead is much better than a couple of smaller ones as it is much more aerodynamic.

93 The question I get asked the most is why do I fish with red groundbait at times? Well, carp seem to love feeding over red mixes in heavily coloured water. It’s also very visible and I can easily spot a red cloud of crumb being kicked up when a carp starts feeding close in over the groundbait.

94 There's only one way to feed pellets on the far bank of snake lakes and that’s with a Kinder pot but I’ve found that tipping them in loose can produce a lot of line bites as the bait fans out as it sinks. By pressing the pellets tightly into the cup the end result is a ball that will ‘plop’ into the water, sink quickly and break up in a relatively tight spot, thus keeping the fish in one spot.

95 When striving for distance I find carbon quivertips are better than glass as they don’t flex as much on the cast as glass and a 2oz or 3oz tip is best.

96 There are times when the fish come straight to groundbait in an open-end feeder and often ignore a hookbait as close as four inches away. The solution to this is to fish it like a Method version, tucking the hookbait in the feeder on a short tail so that when the groundbait is released from the feeder the bait will be in among it.

97 Look in my bag of feeders and you’ll see some Methods that are what I like to call double leaded, weighing the best part of 50g. These are ideal for extra casting distance and keeping the feeder static when fishing on a slope.

98 Even though I may be feeding big 11mm pellets I actually still prefer to use an 8mm pellet on the hook because they’re taken more readily by a feeding carp and fewer fish get hooked outside the mouth, something which can be a real problem on the pellet waggler when using big baits.

99 Light baits, such as pellets and meat, can get churned up all over the place when fishing down the edge. For that reason I always like to use hemp as it is a heavy bait and when fed in bulk creates a great carpet that pulls in the fish quickly.

100 Some Method feeders have long stems attached to them and this helps them to fly through the air with accuracy on long casts. Opt for short stems for fishing tight to features and shorter range.

101 While visibility is no doubt sweetcorn’s key characteristic, it doesn’t give off much in terms of flavour attraction. When the water is coloured after rain I feel it can lose its effectiveness somewhat. A quick squirt of liquid Scopex before letting the grains stand for 30 minutes to fully absorb it all will do the trick.