Commercial Fishing Tips | Six tips to get the most out of soft pellets - Lee Kerry

It's time to make the seasonal switch to soft pellets! Here are six tips to get the most out of them…

SOAK THE FEED PELLETS

My No1 cold water feed pellet is a soaked 2mm. Referred to as micros, I soak mine heavily, submerging them in a Pellet Wetter for three to four minutes so they dissolve as the fish eat them.

MIX UP HOOKBAIT SIZES

You can’t beat an expander pellet on the hook. A 4mm bait is the optimum size, but I have a mix of 3mm, 4mm and 6mm expanders on the go and change them depending on the size of fish I’m catching.

HOOKING EXPANDERS

I like to thread the hook fully through the pellet, getting as much hook into the bait as possible. This makes it less likely that the hook will pull out of the bait when you strike or lift and drop the rig.

Try to get as much hook into the bait as possible

THE RIGHT RIGS

When fishing pellets, you need complete control of your bait. I use a maximum of a 4ins hooklength so that as soon as a fish picks up the bait, the bite registers on the float, even if the indication is tiny.

You need the bite to register on the float as soon as the fish picks up the bait

BALANCE YOUR KIT

The lighter the hooklength you use, the more bites you’ll get. I love the Preston Innovations 9h Hollo elastic, with a stiff mainline such as 0.18mm Accu Power, but hooklengths down to 0.10mm if required.

The lighter hooklink you use, the more bites you will get

THEY MIGHT NOT WORK!

Sometimes soft pellets won’t catch that well. If you’re on a difficult water, then soft pellets are a good choice. However, if you are getting lots of fish you don’t want to target, go for a hard pellet or corn.

If you are getting lots of bites from small fish, try switching to hard pellets or corn