Fish a waggler and catch more island carp
Before the advent of super-long poles and Method feeders, the only way to catch carp when faced with an island in front of you was with the waggler. But even though this float has gone out of fashion a bit in recent years, it’s still hard to beat.
Versatility remains the waggler’s greatest virtue, allowing you to fish at any depth and distance close to or away from the island.
You can also cast around the island, following the fish if they move or trying to land the bait on the nose of any fish you can see.
None of this can be done with a feeder, and if you’ve ever wrestled with 16m or more of pole across to an island, you’ll know what a back-breaking job it is!
Say ‘waggler’, though, and you may think ‘pellet waggler’, short dumpy floats that look like mini pike bungs. Instead, I prefer classic streamlined crystal wagglers with a loading at the base to fish on the bottom with banded pellets.
Why fish the waggler?
F1s can be caught at all sorts of distances, from open water to right across to an island or far bank, but where carp are concerned, my experiences suggest that with an island on offer they won’t tend to stray too far from this feature.
This means that to catch them you need to land the bait inches from the bank. You can’t do this when the island is out of long pole range – with the waggler you can! In fact, the tighter you can get to the island, the more carp you will catch. Land the float a metre away and you will still get bites, but these will normally be from F1s.
Casting around
I don’t clip up, even when fishing up to an island. This allows me to try different areas along the far bank as opposed to casting to the same spot as often. I can then cast to fish I see moving about for an instant bite.
More importantly, though, if a hooked fish charges off I cannot get broken on the line clip!
I aim to get the waggler to land just short of the island with the hookbait plopping beyond it, as tight to the bank as possible.
Perseverance is essential, so I rarely leave the float in the water for more than 20 seconds before reeling in and recasting.
The right float
I like a float that will cast well without making too much of a splash. Drennan’s loaded Pellet Wagglers are ideal as they fly perfectly and don’t submerge too much when they land. In terms of size, it all depends on how far away the island is so this could be a 4g float or as much as a 10g model!
Occasionally the float might dive a little too much, which can scare the fish, so I’ll slip on a plastic ‘dive disc’ which works like a brake.
My only other waggler of choice for hot days when the fish may be sitting just inches deep is a shorter, chunkier hand-made design. These floats don’t look pretty but they work well.
What depth?
It’s rare to find more than a few feet of depth around an island, so fishing shallow gives me no advantage. Instead, I try and set the waggler so that the hookbait just touches the bottom, with no shot down the line on the rig for a natural fall of the bait.
That way, most of my bites happen within seconds of the float hitting the water. Only on windy days will I set the waggler slightly deeper to deal with any tow created. Flicking the
rod-tip sharply to sink the line also helps on windy days.
Feeding
If you are not casting then you need to be feeding at all times. I’ll kick off the swim with several pouches of 6mm or 8mm hard pellets to create a target area to fish over. I then regularly fire in more pellets as often as possible, normally before I cast out, once the float has landed and while I am unhooking a fish in the landing net.
The amounts can be just four or five pellets at a time on hard days or a much bigger pouchful on really good days. Always carry a variety of pellet sizes so that you can tailor them to the day.
For example, if the wind gets up, a 6mm pellet won’t reach so I’ll change to an 8mm.