River Fishing Tips | Roach on hemp with Alex Bates
Few baits are more synonymous with roach than hempseed.
Whether as feed or on the hook, it’s a must-have with the handy knack of picking out the better stamp of fish.
Match anglers know the value of hemp for bumping up their weight in the closing stages of a competition on rivers, drains and canals, while for the pleasure angler it’s a bait that works from the word go.
There are a few downsides to using hemp, mainly because it can be a faff to get a grain on the hook and that sometimes, for some strange reason, the roach just don’t want to know.
The positives outweigh the negatives, though, and hemp remains a cheap and effective feed to put into groundbait or introduce via a catapult, avoiding nuisance species such as bleak and tiny rudd and dace.
It’s not just roach that like the stuff either – barbel and chub anglers on big rivers will pile the ‘seed’ in to great effect.
For me, though, hemp remains a bait to use in the final few hours, even on a pleasure session. This week I’ll explain why that is and show how going away from the little-and-often loosefeeding ploy of old works miles better and ensures that every time the float goes under, it’s a stamp roach…
ALL in the timing
For how long can you catch on hemp? Unless you are on a lot of fish and they take hemp from the word go, I plan to concentrate on fishing the seed in the final 90 minutes to an hour of a session, especially on the narrow drains and rivers of the Fens.
Over time, the roach that you’ll be catching on breadpunch or pinkies down the middle of your peg will slowly move across to seek some sanctuary, and you need to be ready to follow them over and keep catching.
If I don’t catch on hemp at first I will go back to fishing my other lines, keep feeding and try again in 20-30 minutes. Traditionally, the last hour, when the light begins to fade, is normally when the hemp line is solid with fish.
Find the depth
A lot of far-bank swims on venues like the Old River Nene at March are on the shallow side, so that makes finding a sensible depth to fish in vital. This is 2ft 6ins, enough water to catch in consistently without spooking the shoal too much. A feature really helps as well, so pegs with a moored boat or some reeds are prime hemp territory.
If the ideal depth is a good few metres off the far bank I’m not concerned – as long as I am fishing going up the far-bank slope into the shallower water, that’ll do. My advice is to set the rig to 2ft 6ins and then plumb around until you find what you’re looking for.
Clear water best
Roach feed well in coloured water when I’m fishing pinkies, maggots and groundbait, but I find that this isn’t the case with hemp.
Whether it’s a sight thing I don’t know, but when the river or drain has a lot of colour in it, hemp is never that good. Catch a venue with just a tinge in the water and you’re in business.
When conditions are gin-clear it’s often hemp that can get a few bites when you’re struggling on other baits.
Different feeding
I find that the more hemp that you feed, the less you catch, so you don’t want to be firing it in all day. All this does is pull in even more small fish.
That goes against the classic way of feeding hemp, which used to be a dozen grains fired in over the float every couple of minutes – but if you want that better stamp of roach, you need to keep the catapult on your side tray and not in your hands!
My feeding sees a full 250ml pole pot of hemp go in at the start and I’ll then loosefeed 40 to 50 grains every 10 minutes until I actually begin fishing across on hemp.
I then feed nothing at all unless I think the roach are backing away down the peg or going further across the swim.
Then, giving them another big pouchful of seed will bring them back to where you want them.
Dripping hemp in little-and-often will still catch, but I find you miss more bites and catch a much smaller size of roach.
Home-cooked hemp
Tinned hemp is not much use for the hook, so I cook my own by soaking it for a day before cooking the seeds for an hour in a saucepan on the hob.
However, I also remove a few handfuls to use for the hook just before I finish cooking, as these seeds won’t have split as much.
Tinned hemp is okay for feed, but I like to cook my own as that way I can always be sure of the size and quality of the grains.
This is where so many people struggle and end up vowing never to fish hemp again! The reality is that it is dead easy to hook if your hemp is cooked correctly, and there are two common ways to do it.
Hooking hemp
The first involves punching a hole in the back of the grain and then hooking it as you would a maggot. You can catch several fish on the same grain, making it good for really solid pegs. My prefered method, though, is to push the hook into the split of the grain then move it round so it locks into place but pulls through on the strike. Choose a grain with a small split and it will grip perfectly.
Hemp rigs
Because you are fishing shallow water, pole rigs need to be super-light. My favourite is a 0.1g Sensas Basey, shotted with strung tiny No12 shot across the bottom half of the rig.
The end result is a super slow fall of the hemp, but I only strike when the float buries totally, ignoring any knocks as the rig is settling. In clear water, this slow fall, I am positive, allows the roach to see the hemp, follow it down and take it.
Lines are equally light, with 0.12mm mainline and a 0.09mm hooklink and a size 19 Hayabusa 128 wide gape hook. Elastic is a solid No4. A light elastic is important, as it will prevent hooked fish being pulled up in the water to splash on the surface, which can in turn spook its mates.
