Fish a waggler on clear rivers and catch more
It’s a sad fact that so many opening weeks of the river season coincide with low and clear water.
Thoughts of bream-filled keepnets evaporate and the day often ends up to be a case of scratching around for a few bites. The tactics and feeding you had in mind before getting to the bank go out of the window.
You could carry on, hoping that things change, but this rarely works. The obvious answer is to set up something totally different.
In most situations, this means abandoning the pole and changing over to running line float tactics to get further out into the swim and offer a very different presentation of the bait.
England international Cameron Hughes is your guide to fishing the waggler on a slow, clear river.
Why the waggler rules
“On a summer river that’s in need of rain, the fish will always be in the flow, not out of it where the pace is sluggish.
“This flow tends to be well away from the bank, where activity can spook the fish, and when deciding where to feed and fish the waggler I always ensure there’s a great enough distance away from any other line I may have on the go so that I’m not running the risk of splitting up the fish in the peg. I really want two dedicated areas that won’t get in each others’ way.
“The waggler also allows me to cover so much water by running the float well down the peg, which you can’t do with the pole.
“Also, there’s not the shadow of the pole being cast across the swim, which in shallow water can be the kiss of death.”
Fish and feed downstream
“Don’t be tempted to cast and feed directly in front of you.
“There are two reasons for this. First, the bulk of the fish will be naturally downstream of where you’re sitting and second, casting slightly down the river means you can get all the line behind the float and let it run smoothly.
“I may be looking at running the float around 40 yards down the river – any further than this will be a waste of time. There won’t be many fish there, owing to the loosefeed hitting bottom in a rough area on the trot.
“Past this there will be little feed carried downstream and therefore no fish.
“I’ll feed a pouchful of maggots on each run through, fishing double white or red maggot on
the hook.”
Light tackle is a must
Although there’s the chance of big fish you can’t fish too heavy on the waggler or you won’t get bites.
Typically I fish 2.5lb Maxima mainline to a hooklink of 0.12mm Daiwa TDR Rig Line and a size 18 Kamasan B520 hook. This gets me more bites but means there’s less chance of landing big fish, whereas going all out with a size 16 and 0.14mm line will mean next to no bites. It’s amazing what difference these small changes makes.
The float is a 2.5g loaded Drennan Insert waggler that has just a few No8 shot spread down the line and I fish this 18ins overdepth to really slow the bait down and drag it through the swim.
I also ensure that the shot nearest the hook is off bottom, otherwise this would lead to the float being dragged under if it was resting on the riverbed.
Big fish time
When small fish bites cease this normally means that a big fish is about – usually a perch or a chub on a low, clear river such as the Trent. Although I fish relatively strong gear, getting a big fish in is no done deal, especially where a peg has lots of weed close in.
Using a long rod will help you no end and I fish a 15ft Daiwa Tournament which not only lets me control the float better when running it down the river but also permits a hooked big fish to pop up further out into the swim, away from the weed, ready for netting.
The trick is to get the rod above the fish and pull them up. Stand up to do this and try to net them first time.