Commercial Fishing Tips | Sort your shotting with Steve Ringer
Shotting patterns – now there’s a topic you could argue about long into the night! What’s best for deep-water bream? What about the margins, or fishing up to an island?
I get asked questions about this a lot and it’s always hard to answer because the key lies in responding and altering your shotting to how the fish are feeding.
Some days, a straight bulk and two droppers pattern will be best while on others, spreading the shot out for a slower fall catches more. There’s no right and wrong answer and my biggest bit of advice would be to experiment. If you’re not catching as well as you’d like, slide the shot about to see if it makes a difference!
That said, for much of my fishing, whether on a commercial carp fishery or an Irish lough, I have two patterns that have served me well for years – the strung bulk and the straight bulk. I love using a strung bulk due to its versatility, as it allows me to change from quite a positive way of presenting the bait to a more refined one simply by moving the shots further apart.
The key lies in responding and altering your shotting to how the fish are feeding
Tailor your weights
For floats of 1g and upwards, use an olivette and below this, shot. A 0.8g float may seem to need too many shot and risk tangles, but that won’t happen if you use bigger-sized shot.
For floats of 1g and upwards, use an olivette
Shot sizes to use
When using rigs of 0.6g to 0.8g I’ll use No8 and No9 shot. For rigs below 0.6g I’ll use No10 and occasionally No9s. Lighter floats let you present the bait falling more slowly through the water.
Carry a variety of shot with you
Versatile pattern
I rate a strung bulk pattern. This consists of shot spaced 1ins apart in the bottom half of the rig. I space the shots further apart for a slower fall of the bait or create a bulk if I need it to get down quickly.
Strung shotting aids a slow fall of the hookbait
A solid bulk
Solid bulks tend to be an olivette for bream rigs, and are fished with two or three dropper shot below it. If I’ve got only shot on the line, I’ll group it together for fishing in the margins.
A bulk will help get the bait down quick for species like bream