River Fishing Tips | 5 tips to catch more roach on hemp

The prime time to catch big river roach on hemp is now! Here are five tips to help you get the most from the seed…

Regulate your feeding

No two days are ever the same when it comes to feeding hemp. A little and often loosefeed approach works on some rivers, while others respond to feeding larger amounts with a pole cup and then fishing over it. The standard approach, though, is to loosefeed with a catapult, around 20 or 30 grains of hemp each time and, using a slow-falling rig, catch fish as the bait settles. If the roach show signs of coming up in the water to get to the loosefeed, break out the pole cup and get them back on the bottom with
a good helping of hemp fed in one go.

Every day is different when it comes to feeding with hemp. Watch how the fish behave.

Stop nuisance ‘shot bites’

A normal pole rig for fishing hemp consists of a light float and small shot strung evenly down the line to give the hookbait a slow fall. Sometimes, though, fish grab those shot, mistaking them for grains of hemp. So switch to cylindrical styl weights instead. The slow fall of the bait is still guaranteed but there’s no longer a danger of the fish grabbing them.

Look out for fish taking the shot instead

Hook it right

MANY anglers have difficulty in getting hemp to stay on the hook. But it’s easy when you know how. There are two ways to hook hemp, but first ensure the grain has a full split in its side but isn’t falling apart. The quickest way is to push the bend of the hook into the split so the sides of the grain grip the hook point and shank. You’ll get a more secure hookhold by punching a hole in the flat end of the grain with a baiting needle and threading the hook point, bend and shank through until the seed hangs off the bend. You can catch several fish on the same grain before it will need replacing.

There’s no need to struggle hooking hemp

Switch hookbaits

Hemp isn’t the only option you have to put on the hook. When the roach are present in numbers, bigger fish can be picked off using tares, and on some rivers even elderberries will catch their share! Tares are a hard particle used as pigeon feed, but when cooked they turn soft, are easy to hook, and have the knack of catching the bigger roach in a shoal. Don’t spend too long fishing them without bites, though, as you’ll either catch quickly on them or not at all. Elderberries are an old-fashioned bait rarely used today, but especially on rivers where elderberry bushes line the banks, the berries are eaten by roach and slipping one on the hook might just mean lift-off for the peg!

There are some great alternative baits to fish alongside hemp feed

Use small floats for a slow fall

To create that slow fall of the bait with the small strung-out shotting pattern, the pole float you use needs to be on the light side. You’re not after stability from the rig when fishing hemp, so even in 10ft of water, a 0.5g slim-bodied float will be ample and, in shallower swims, you can go even lighter.

You want the bait to fall slowly through the water with hemp, so use as light a float as you can get away with