Carp Fishing Tips | How long should you glug baits for? - Steve Cliff
There’s no single answer to this – it all depends on what it is that you are glugging. You can over-glug pop-ups with certain liquids.
Glugs such as Sticky L-Zero-30T are naturally quite heavy, so with pop-ups I would either give them a little coating of the thicker liquids, or a healthy amount of bait spray.
Sprays are ideal for pumping extra attraction into your hookbait as the thin liquid penetrates right through to the centre.
If you are planning on glugging freebies, there really isn’t any limit! I stick to natural liquids such as Pure Krill Liquid, the more the merrier, as fish love it.
The only other liquid I use is oil, predominantly Hemp Oil, adding only a light glaze to baits. This tends to be enough for it to do its job.
Hemp oil is great for adding a light glaze to your baits
Carp Fishing Tips | Bait for post-spawning carp - Simon Scott
Spawning is a highly energetic and physically demanding event for the carp. Females will have been through an incredibly stressful few days, as their ovaries go through the last stages of preparation for ovulation and then they actually spawn, releasing their eggs. It is common for both male and female fish to lose scales along their flanks and to scratch themselves during the rough and tumble of spawning.
Spawning is a highly energetic and physically demanding event for the carp
These physical injuries mean that their ability to regulate their internal salt/water balance may be compromised. The injuries also create holes in their bodies, which could become infected.
So spawning is a potentially dangerous time for carp and after they have finished they will need to rebuild their strength and heal any damage. Because of this they are often really hungry, and they commonly feed hard in the weeks following spawning in order to regain strength.
After spawning carp will be very hungry!
To capitalise upon this big feed-up it’s best to use a high-quality bait to give the fish lots of nutrients – for example, high-quality fishmeal boilies or pellets. These will be very popular with the fish which will, of course, all benefit from the quality of the feed.
If the weather is not too hot and the fish are clearly feeding hard, don’t be afraid to give them a fair bit of bait – they will thank you for it, and you might just catch a fair few along the way.
High-quality fishmeal boilies are best post-spawning
Commercial Fishing Tips | What to feed when paste fishing - Darren Cox
I try to feed as little as possible when I’m actually fishing, relying more on the paste itself to keep the fish fed.
Before I start, though, I’ll pot in a ball of micro pellets and perhaps the odd one every now and then when I’m fishing other lines, just to keep the swim primed.
Once I begin using paste, I’ll add just a sprinkling of micros to the pot I’m putting the paste into before shipping out.
These tiny pellets will stick to the paste and make it look a bit different, as well as giving it an unusual texture.
I know some people like to strike the paste off the hook every few minutes to keep some feed in the swim, but I’ve always found that the paste on its own is enough to keep lining the fish up – it’s filling stuff.
If all goes well, you won’t need to strike the bait off, because you’ll get a bite within 60 seconds.
Paste is a great bait in the warmer months and you only need to feed a pot of micros to kick start the swim!
Match Fishing Tips | When you should use dead maggots - Rob Wootton
Dead maggots are a superb bait when fished in big bunches for carp in the margins. I also find they have the knack of singling out the bigger fish as they don’t wriggle about like live maggots, so they tend to attract fewer little nuisance species.
They’re also very good on the feeder as, unlike live maggots, they don’t cause your hooklength to spin up and twist when winding in.
I always freeze maggots to kill them – I think the old method of scalding them with hot water seems to have gone out of fashion. The way I do it is to get the maggots and riddle off any maize or sawdust so they are totally clean. Then I pop them in a plastic bag, remove all the air, tie it off and pop the bag in the freezer.
It’s important not to freeze them for too long, as they can deteriorate if you do. I usually prepare them two days before I’m fishing and take them out the night before to defrost.
Dead red maggots
Carp Fishing Tips | Do fish see colour like we do? - Simon Scott
Yes, but it’s a completely different spectrum.
Pink is the last colour that they see fade out in deep water so, in very clear water, a brightly-coloured bait will easily be seen.
However, in murky water fish rely very little on sight and that’s when scent takes over.
The only variant on this is when fish are swimming well off the bottom of a river or lake. In this instance, they can see the difference between a light and a dark-coloured bait as a silhouette.
Commercial Fishing Tips | Get your groundbait right for winter silvers with Adam Wakelin
Read many a typical match report and you’ll see anglers say ‘I put in six balls of groundbait on the long pole line’.
This is only telling half the story, though, because it raises a lot of questions if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty.
For example, what was the groundbait? What colour was it? How big were the balls? What was in them? The answers to these can be wide-ranging depending on the venue, the head of fish, water colour and temperature – and that’s just for starters.
Groundbait is essential for silver fish at any time of year but in winter it’s vitally important to use it correctly. Getting it wrong can wreck a swim before it has a chance to get going, so this week I’m taking a look at how throwing in a few balls for roach and skimmers can vary so much…
Ball it in!
The best way to get a lot of bait into a swim fast is to throw in several large balls, known as ‘balling in’. You’ll see this a lot on big, deep, natural venues where small fish are the target. A massive hit kicks the swim off quickly, but the big decision to make is how many balls to throw in.
There’s little point scrimping in this situation so I’d go for 10 or 12 large balls and throw them in on the pole line over an area a metre square. This also makes a lot of noise to pull fish in, but the groundbait has to be on the wet side to hold together and not break up in mid-air.
Loose groundbait
There are times when cupping in groundbait loose and not squeezing it into a ball is better, and this is in very shallow water of 3ft or less. I find that a loose mix gets things underway much faster, as the groundbait is already broken down. It is important the mix is wet, though, so it has the weight to get down quickly and stay put on the bottom without any danger of drifting off.
Adding goodies
Groundbait alone is not enough to keep the fish in the swim, and because you want them to eat the hookbait, you have to add the same into the feed. For me that means dead pinkies and dead maggots and casters where silver fish are concerned. These will be my three main hookbaits.
In the opening balling in of feed there’s next to nothing added, and it all goes into those rich balls that are potted in.
On a hard day this amount may be just a sprinkling, but on a mild day with colour in the water I’ll pile it in, packing each ball to the maximum.
Dead pinkies are especially good as they are soft, highly visible and small enough to get the fish really grubbing about.
Ball size
I’ve already talked about the opening balls being proper two-handed jobs, but any top-up should be much smaller. This is normally a single-handed squeeze to produce something that resembles a sausage.
Topping up is done to get the fish back to where you want them so the groundbait is just a carrier for the particles, which is what the fish will be hunting for.
Loosefeeding over the top
There are times when groundbait alone isn’t enough to keep catching – firing in loosefeed over the top keeps the swim simmering along nicely.
Picking up the catapult gives you two bites of the cherry, in that you can get bites over the groundbait but also as the hookbait falls in amid the loosefeed at a range of depths.
How much and how regularly you feed is governed by how many fish are in front of you so, in a solid peg, I may even ‘double pouch’ (fire in two lots every time). But as a rule it’s just the one load and only 10-20 maggots or casters each time. Maggots are good for a range of fish sizes but quality counts in a match, and I’d always go for casters to find a better stamp of roach or skimmer.
What about loosefeeding on its own? If I knew the fish were already there and I didn’t need to add any groundbait at the start, then this would be viable, but I always feel groundbait gives you a quick start and pulls fish in immediately, whereas pinging bait in is more of a slow burner.
Pot in a richer groundbait
The pole pot comes into play once I’ve thrown those big balls in. That’s because the opening hit gets fish into an area, but I then want them to move and concentrate on the spot that I’m going to be putting my rig over.
Five more balls go in with the pot in the same place, but these are ‘richer’ in that they hold more particles.
All things being equal, the fish should come to the balling in noise and then find those rich balls and stick around. When they do back off, they won’t go far and it only needs another rich ball potted in to bring them back.
Potting is also advisable on very hard days when bites will be at a premium and you need to wring every last fish out of the peg.
I will also use a pot as opposed to balling if there are a lot of pike about, as the balling pulls small fish in and the pike follow.
Commercial Fishing Tips | Hard pellets for winter carp with Jamie Hughes
When you think of winter pellet fishing an image of fishing small expanders over micros immediately springs to mind.
But while this may be spot-on for catching F1s, for ‘proper’ carp hard pellets are my choice.
These baits are associated with the bagging days of summer, but they can still be effective in winter if you use them correctly.
I think these baits are better suited to commons and mirrors, and a small quantity of 4mm or 6mm baits is all you need for a day’s fishing.
Setting Traps
The way I fish hard pellets is to rotate a few lines on the pole, tapping in just a small amount of 6mm or 4mm baits and holding my rig right over the top.
I’m setting little traps all around my peg and am waiting for the carp to slip up.
And ‘waiting’ is a key word – you’ve got to be patient at this time of year. You may only get 10 bites, but when they’re from proper fish it’s worth doing.
It’s always worth having a good plumb around to find the different depths of your peg, and you can then try these various areas to find where the fish are sat.
Accuracy is Key
When fishing this way, being accurate is essential, and I will feed almost exclusively with a small pole pot.
Catapults are brilliant in summer, but in winter they spread your bait around a bit too much, and when you’re only feeding tiny amounts this isn’t right.
My rigs reflect this pinpoint approach, and I see no place for strung-out rigs that work through the water.
I opt for heavy floats shotted positively. These are very stable and help to keep my bait firmly in place while I await a bite.
On tackle, I never go too light when fishing for proper carp and wouldn’t go below 0.12mm hooklengths and No8-12 elastics.
Last Resort Micros
If the fishing is absolutely rock-hard then I’ll reach for micro pellets, as these can scrape out a fish when nothing else can. But this really is a last resort.
Micros bring small silvers into the peg, and when you’re after proper carp this is the last thing you want to happen.
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.
River Fishing Tips | Punch for winter roach with Alex Bates
Few baits are cheaper and easier to use than bread, whether you’re in search of a big autumn river chub or a monster carp off the top in summer.
For the winter match and pleasure angler, a bag of Warburtons sliced comes into its own on rivers, canals and drains when roach are on the agenda.
Fished as ‘punch’, small discs of bread that swell up once in the water, bread seems to have the knack of catching when all else fails and often picks up a better class of roach than maggots, casters or pinkies. This makes it a must-have in cold weather and on clear venues.
The basics of breadpunch fishing are relatively easy to follow, but according to top matchman Alex Bates, it is in the feeding where the men are sorted from the boys, so to speak.
Get it wrong and your catch rate will falter, but sort the feeding out early on and a truly massive net of roach is on the cards.
Tackle & Bates tackle shop boss Alex has been brought up fishing his local Old River Nene in March, where breadpunch reigns supreme in winter, and has seen how fishing with this bait has evolved over the years. It’s gone from an attacking method with regular balls of feed thrown in, to a more austere feeding and fishing ‘in-out’ line of attack.
Many fish on his local drains and rivers respond to bread so he took the Angling Times cameras to the River Welland in the Lincolnshire market town on Spalding to run through the do’s and don’ts of winter punch fishing.
Alex’s advice was a bit of an eye-opener on a venue packed with so many fish!
It’s all about feeding
“The first thing to say about punch fishing is that it’s not about throwing in a ball every chuck, even on pegs that are full of fish!” Alex warned. “I find this only ever works if you have a lot of little roach in front of you, but we always want to catch as big a stamp of fish as we can so you have to feed differently.
“My approach is to introduce bread feed as you would on a canal, a ball at a time, and then fish it out. This basically means adding another ball only when the size of the fish has dropped, or they show signs of moving down the peg. So, if you start getting plagued by little roach or the bites are coming miles down the peg, that’s the time to feed again.”
Small balls work best
“Don’t be tempted to feed too much of the bread mix as this can make the peg worse rather than better,” he revealed.
“I make a ball roughly the size of a golf ball or a little bigger, and I know it will stay where it’s landed. Punch crumb is heavy and doesn’t get wafted about if the pace of the river changes or, as can happen in March and Spalding, it begins to flow the other way completely!”
What depth?
“Punch fishing to me is all about finding the better stamp of fish, so you’ll need to change depth from a few inches off bottom to an inch or two overdepth.
“If there are few little fish about, fishing off deck can work well and this is when the pencil float is best – but on the SF2 pole float I fish this just overdepth to help slow it down,” he said.
Simple bread rigs
“There’s nothing very complicated about my rigs, and I tend to fall back on two types for different jobs,” he said. “The first is a 0.3g Rive 3 pencil pattern for when the river is not running too hard. if it flows, I change to a Drennan SF2 0.4g float as this has a slight shoulder to let me slow the rig down in the flow.
“The pencil is shotted with a bulk and one dropper to get the punch down fast while the SF2 has a spread bulk. The pencil allows me to work the bait by lifting it up and down in little flow and even fish just off bottom, whereas the SF2 is designed to be held back slightly and run through the swim at roughly half pace.
“By keeping a tight line I can see every indication. There’s also less resistance to a fish with the spread pattern so you can see the bite quicker,” Alex added.
“My favourite punch hook is a size 19 Hayabusa 128 fished with 0.12mm main, a 5ins 0.09mm hooklink and a No5 solid elastic.”
Best hook bread
“On the hook I use Warburtons Toastie straight from the orange bag for a very soft bait that can work well if the fishing is hard.
“On good pegs, this changes to Warburtons in the blue bag. I microwave each slice for 10 seconds on full power in the morning and then pop them in a plastic takeaway tub with the lid on,” explained Alex.
“This results in a slightly tacky bread that won’t swell up too much and stays on well for shipping out.
“However, it has to be right, and the acid test is whether the piece of punch stays on after the strike. If you are coming back with the bread still on the hook, it is too tacky!
“I also cut each slice into quarters so I use them up faster, and this also means I am fishing with fresher bread as opposed to using a full slice, which can take an hour or so to use up.
“In that time the slice will have dried out, whereas a quarter won’t last as long and so is perfect. Best punch sizes are 4mm or 5mm,” he added.
Alex’s feed for fishing breadpunch
“You can go down two routes here, either using liquidised white bread or punch crumb – both have their place,” Alex said. “Liquidised bread is quite active and fluffy and helps gets bites when fish are few and far between.
“Punch crumb is heavier, goes straight down and gives off little in the way of particles, so it’s ideal when you’re on a lot of fish that you want to keep on the bottom and catch fast.
“My favourite mix is two bags of plain white breadcrumb and a bag of Sensas Punch Crumb. I’ll add a little gravel to this when mixed to help it sink every time.
“I mix the bread feed the night before to a damp consistency. Then in the morning I spray it with an atomiser to bring it back to the right consistency. You should be able to squeeze a ball with one hand easily. If it shows signs of falling apart after the squeeze, give it another spray.”
Commercial Fishing Tips | Top five tips for expander pellets with Bob Nudd
On the bank, keep them damp but not overwetted. Make sure they don’t dry out, otherwise they’ll float.
Use a decent-sized hook – a size 16 or 14 – and hook the pellet through the round outer rim.
If the pellets have dried out a bit, have another small tub of water by your side and give a hooked one a little squeeze to push the air out.
Try colouring them by adding a little liquid or powdered colouring to the water in the pump. Red and yellow work.
If you don’t get a bite on one size of pellet, try another. You’ll be surprised what a difference this small change can make.
Pike fishing tips | Make a wafter deadbait with Paul Garner
I find that slow-sinking or wafter deadbaits are very effective.
They will not only see you get more runs, but will increase the number of pike that you land, too.
There are loads of ways of producing a slow-sinking bait, but using Deadbait Sticks is my favourite.
1: Select a stick a third of the bait’s length. A short length of rigging wire in the end enables it to be fixed to the trace.
2: Carefully push the stick into the bait, – through the mouth (whole baits) or into the body cavity if it is a tail section.
3: Tie the rigging wire to the top treble hook on your trace so that the Deadbait Stick is secured.
4: Test the bait in the margins. If it is too buoyant, add a swan shot or two to the trace just above the hooks.
River fishing tips - Make a chub cake with Paul Garner
Buoyant ‘cake’ is a brilliant bait for chub, and also makes a great surface bait in the summer months. You can incorporate just about any ingredients or flavours that you want, making it a very adaptable hook offering.
Crack four large eggs into a bowl and add a teaspoonful of Scopex flavour.
2. Slowly add some Scopex Squid boilie mix to the eggs, stirring vigorously as you go.
3. Stop when a thick runny soup is produced and pour the mix into a greased and foil-lined baking tray.
4. Bake in the oven at 160°C for about 30 minutes. Take it out when the surface begins to brown.
5. Let the cake cool down naturally then cut it into bait-sized pieces. Use it fresh, and freeze any surplus.
Pike fishing tips - Dai Gribble's top five deadbaits
Smelt
If I could use only one bait for pike it would be smelt. They are incredibly versatile and can be used with every method. They have an unusual smell that is a little like cucumber, but pike love them. Their pale colour makes for a very visible bait that’s ideal for drifting or popping up above weed. They are tough so can be cast long distances and used for wobbling and trolling.
Mackerel
Whether it be a small ‘Joey’ mackerel fished whole or half a larger mackerel, they make outstanding baits. I’m sure one of the main reasons for this is that they are very oily, which draws pike to them from a long way away, even in coloured water. Mackerel are quite dense and streamlined, making them the best choice if you need to cast a bait a long way.
Sardines
Like mackerel they are very oily and I reckon pike prefer them to any other sea bait. There is one major drawback – they are extremely soft. This is not an issue when they are frozen but once they thaw out they are prone to flying off the hooks. However, at short range, by hooking sardines with the top hook in the gill plates they can withstand a much firmer cast.
Roach
Pike are used to eating roach as part of their natural diet. On occasions pike will show a marked preference for roach over sea baits and for this reason I usually start a session with one rod baited with a roach. Often roach deadbaits have the swim bladder intact, making them perfect for popping up – just add shot to the trace to set how far up they will sit.
Lamprey
On some waters lampreys outfish every other bait, and on others they rarely produce a run. No other deadbait comes close to them in terms of the amount of blood they exude, and I like to slit the gills with a sharp knife to maximise the amount of blood leaking out. It is worth doing this every cast as it is amazing how much pike-attracting blood there is in a relatively small bait, even when it has been in the water for hours.