River Fishing Tips | Where to find the bigger roach early season - Dr Mark Everard
Early in the season weirs are particularly attractive for big roach, as are places where the current accelerates around underwater tree roots that also offer cover.
Roach will be in well-oxygenated sites early in the season
Roach are reputed to clean up here after spawning, but it may just be that they haven’t yet moved away from well-oxygenated spawning sites, or that these places are rich in insect and crustacean food.
Roach tend to move up in the water column to feed, even in deeper water, where oxygen levels may be depressed closer to the riverbed. Higher water temperatures potentially double the roach’s metabolism, making them much more active.
Hemp and tares, casters and elderberries are good hookbaits fished very shallow as roach can come right to the surface to intercept falling offerings.
Fish shallow for big river roach
River Fishing Tips - Quivertip or bite alarm for barbel? - Tony Gibson
Barbel bites are always positive so I don’t use rods with built-in quivertips – you’ll know when there’s a fish on!
I favour a through-actioned rod with a test curve of 1.5lb to 2.25lb, fixing an isotope to the end if I’m fishing in the dark.
Generally, I’ll watch the rod-tip when roving around on a small river or when I’m not planning on spending a lot of time in each swim. Alarms come into play when you’re in for the long haul on rivers like the Trent, fishing for 12 or 24 hours in the same swim and waiting for a bite.
I’ll always prefer watching the rod-tip – seeing it slam over and hearing the clutch scream is the best bit in my book!
Seeing the rod-tip slam over is the best bit about barbel fishing!
River Fishing Tips | Six tricks to catch the bigger river fish - Darren Cox
Hungry as the big specimens may be, the appetites of their smaller brethren will be just as keen, and a day can be soured by a never-ending stream of tiddlers and nothing substantial to put a bend in the rod.
On a river, it’s not that easy to single out the chub and bream when there are hordes of tiny bleak and dace to wade through. You will have to put up with catching some of these smaller fish, because that’s just the way it is, but there are plenty of tricks you can try to sort out the proper big boys!
“It’s not that easy to single out the chub and bream when there are hordes of tiny bleak”
Find the fast water
Find swims with faster water that will be well-oxygenated. Most species will have finished spawning and will move into gravel runs in fast water. You’ll still find little fish there, but that’s where the chub will be.
Fast well-oxygenated water is best for big fish early in the season
Use big baits
Maggots will be a waste of time. Casters are a favourite and tend to sort out the chub and big roach. If you’re still getting pestered by bleak and dace, though, use tares or a kernel of corn.
Bigger baits for bigger fish - don’t waste time with maggots!
Tackle up properly!
Big hooks and stronger lines will make sure you land chub and even barbel and will also put the smaller fish off. Try a size 16 hook to a 0.12mm or 0.14mm hooklength.
Use bigger hooks and stronger line
Up the feed
Feed hemp and caster in a ratio of 50/50. Begin by feeding sensibly to work out how many bigger fish are there. If small fish are a problem, double the feed.
Keep the feed going in and double the ratio if small fish are becoming a problem.
Go shallow
Fish will be very active in early season and may be feeding off bottom. This is especially true of chub. A small stumpy waggler fished at half-depth is a super way to catch chub darting about up in the water.
Try a small waggler fished at half-depth for chub
Fishmeal groundbait
Bream are the main target on slower rivers, but even on the feeder, little fish can dominate. Use a fishmeal groundbait, which dace and roach aren’t so keen on. Add inert particles like hemp and casters.
Fishmeal groundbait is a great attractor for big bream
River Fishing Tips | Is it worth prebaiting for barbel? - Martin Bowler
The answer to that question is a resounding yes, provided the river isn’t in heavy flood.
I often prebait with groundbait balls in summer, before leaving the swim for a few hours – or even overnight – for the fish to find the free grub and gain confidence.
Leave the swim for a few hours or even overnight for barbel to gain confidence
Depending on the depth, flow and pace, I’ll typically throw the balls five to 10 yards upstream of the spot I intend to fish.
You can use whatever bait you want, and my typical mix consists of Sticky Krill Active Mix, pellet crumb, trout pellets and Ellipse pellets. Six orange-sized balls are normally enough to work the oracle, and I’ve had some great results on rivers such as the Wye and Trent using this tactic.
Martin Bowler is no stranger to catching big barbel
For more from Martin, pick up Angling Times magazine every Tuesday!
River Fishing Tips | PVA or feeder for barbel? - Alfie Naylor
Both the feeder and PVA bag have their place in barbel fishing and are brilliant tactics at delivering loose-feed close to your hookbait.
Personally, I think that a PVA bag and lead arrangement creates much less disturbance than a feeder. The feeder does work for the bigger barbel, though, if you want to slowly build a swim by constantly casting and introducing bait.
The feeder is a great tool to build a swim with feed
When fishing for barbel on rivers like the Trent, I like to put a fairly big bed of bait out at the start, then have one cast with a bag on and leave the bait out until I get a take. After each fish, I’ll top up with two bait droppers of feed.
I prefer to use a PVA bag for a ‘bait and wait’ approach
I feel the disturbance from me landing a fish pushes them away from the baited area, and now is the time to feed the swim again.
Both methods will catch big barbel if used correctly
River Fishing Tips | When to swap the bomb to the feeder for chub - Phil Spinks
The feeder comes into play on rivers that are running slightly clear, and bread is an excellent bait for these conditions.
A medium Drennan Cage feeder packed with liquidised bread works well, using breadflake on the hook.
I search the swim using this approach, having 15 minutes with one cast across to any far-bank trees and then another quarter-of-an-hour closer in where there’s slower water or down the middle of the river.
Generally, if I haven’t had a bite after around 30 minutes, I’ll make my move to the next swim along
I find legering works best in coloured water or when fishing after dark.
Try using a smelly bait like cheesepaste on a link leger taking a couple of SSG shot, or a very light 10g flat bomb that will be rolled around the bottom by the current before finally settling.
River Fishing Tips | How to empty a swim with Darren Cox
You can’t beat a big old river for a real test of your fishing skills – a river that asks plenty of questions and demands a thorough trawling of the old grey matter to reward you with just a few fish.
But catching well on running water isn’t as difficult as it may first appear.
River fish need to feed every day in order to survive, and that means they can be caught regardless of conditions. You need to work out where in the swim they are and how the fish want the bait presented so they’ll wolf it down.
We call this ‘finding the sweet spot’, a point where your feed meets the fish and where you’ll get 99 per cent of your bites. Working this out can take time, but do it properly and the rest is child’s play. It’s all to do with the pace and depth of the swim and what the riverbed is made of.
Finding the right spot
The bailiff or a local tackle shop will put you on the right swim, ideally with a hard gravel bottom and around 5ft of water to go at. As for pace, a river flowing at the speed of a gentle walk is what you’re after.
There’s no better way of doing this than using the waggler to search the peg. You need a clean bottom of gravel or one that’s snag-free to get the best results, fishing overdepth with the bait laid on the riverbed to slow it down. We call this ‘reverse dragging’. Set the rig 4ins-5ins overdepth so that the bait will drag on the riverbed, making it slower than the pace of the river.
Feeding correctly
Now loosefeed at the top of the swim (directly in front of you). Whether you’re using maggots or hemp, the feed will hit the bottom in one rough area, a point that the fish will move up to and mill around waiting for a free meal – that’s the sweet spot.
Cast the waggler 10yds or so further down the peg. This means the bait ends up settling just above where the feed has landed, which in turn leads to quicker bites. Fishing in front of or beyond this spot will produce nothing, but for that golden five or six seconds when the bait is run in the right place, the float will keep on going under.
Within the opening hour of a session the fish will quickly show you where the sweet spot is, and you can then adjust how far down the peg you cast to speed things up even faster.
Keep feeding and casting in the same spots and you’re well on the way!
River Fishing Tips | Pinkie and groundbait for coloured water roach with Josh Newman
Bread has been the go-to bait for winter roach on the drains and small waters of East Anglia for decades – so much so that the alternative for a netful of fish, groundbait and pinkie, has become a little redundant.
However, if you put your faith entirely in bread you can, at times, be going down the wrong route entirely. Times when the river is heavily coloured and has a bit of pace on it, or where thousands of smaller roach are present, are just perfect for a pinkie attack. It will speed up your fishing no end and always beat the bread men.
Take the Welland in Spalding, where I am today. This is a typical town centre river that’s been well coloured for months after all of the rain we had before Christmas.
Bread has grabbed the headlines for 50lb nets of roach but groundbait and pinkie is, in my opinion, equally as good, if not better, when the river is running and you need to keep the fish pinned down in one place.
For that reason, I’ve left the punch crumb and breadpunches at home and with a few kilos of groundbait and pints of pinkies, I’m itching to get cracking and get stuck into those plump ‘stamp’ roach that have made this river a must-fish over the last few weeks!
Groundbait menu
Four types of groundbait make up my mix and they all have different jobs. My base is Sensas Gros Gardons and Super Canal Black to which I add half a bag of Sensas Black River to make the mix stickier and heavier. The final ingredient is 250ml of PV1 Binder, which acts as the cement in the mix.
Pinkies can soon break a ball of groundbait up so I don’t add loads to the mix, beginning with 150ml of them and the same amount of hemp across all the groundbait I’ve mixed. You want just enough in there so you can see a few when a ball is made.
When pinkies rule
Bread will work 90 per cent of the time at Spalding but if the river is more coloured than normal and flowing harder, groundbait is better to keep the fish exactly where I want them. What’s more, I’m confident of catching those better fish in among the tiddlers.
Pinkie as a hookbait is vital, as maggots are just too selective and mean a longer wait for bites. It has to be bright fluoro pinkies on the hook and enough of them are crammed into the groundbait to get the roach hunting about.
This hookbait also allows you to catch several fish on the same bait and means that if you miss a bite, you only need to drop back in and get fishing again. With bread, you’d need to bait up again.
Opening feed & ‘top up’
Two large balls go in at the start, and I will only feed groundbait from this point. Loosefeeding is pointless, as it will only push the fish down the peg and pull in a smaller stamp of roach too.
Faced with a lot of fish, you need to keep topping up regularly to ensure that the stamp of roach is right. This can mean potting in another big ball every 20 minutes.
When to feed again is decided by when the bites slow right down, the size of fish drops away or if the river flows in the opposite direction, which can happen on the Welland at times!
This re-feed is one large ball but I will also feed a smaller, richer ball packed with pinkies on occasion. This is when I have fed a big ball and caught a few but feel more bait is needed. Adding a big ball so soon is too much but a smaller ball full of pinkies is enough to get the fish back to where I want them.
Changing depths
I will plumb each rig up to fish at dead depth, but you won’t catch all day like this. Sometimes the fish will want the pinkies presented an inch or two overdepth while on others, fishing off bottom can work best.
My advice is to try both and see which works better. A good pointer for this is if you are catching roach with the hook down their throats. If so, this tells me that I need to come shallower to lip-hook them each time.
Three rigs
The Welland can flow hard one minute and stand still the next, so you need to be ready with a range of rigs.
Three will generally cover pinkie fishing – the main float is a 0.6g rugby ball-shaped pattern but I also have a 1g float in the same shape for when the flow picks up and an old school Image Pole Stick of 0.5g for when the river is flowing hard. This works like a mini stick float and I prefer it to a flat float as it still lets me run the bait down the peg.
Terminal tackle is the same on all rigs, made up of 0.14mm Sensas Feeling mainline to a 6ins hooklink of 0.10mm Feeling and a size 18 Hayabusa 157 hook for double pinkie, my preferred hookbait.
Shotting on the two rugby ball rigs is a straight bulk of No8 shot and a single dropper of the same size. Only on the Pole Stick does this alter, with a bulk and four or five droppers, so I can waft the bait around when holding back.
Elastic choice is a little different, though, and is based around the size of roach I am catching. It’s a No8 Slip set soft. That sounds a bit ‘agricultural’ but is ideal for swinging in 4oz roach that you’d have to net if using a No5, for example. Little things like this make a big difference when speed is the key.
River Fishing Tips | Tame the Severn on float and feeder with Kelvin Tallett
We are all guilty of falling into lazy habits with our fishing, simply setting up one rod and waiting for a bite – but when targeting winter chub and barbel on the river this isn’t always the right way to go.
It’s very rare that you can lob out a feeder and catch steadily all day, as you can in summer, but by alternating between the feeder and the float you can stay one step ahead of the fish, and catch a lot more in the process.
I discovered this during a recent session on the River Severn at Arley, Worcestershire, where regularly changing my tactics resulted in a cracking bag.
Meaty Maggots
The only bait I took with me was a gallon of bronze maggots, with a few reds mixed in. I know that these are great for winter chub and barbel – the key to success would be to discover the right tactic for the day in question.
I’m a big fan of boosting my maggot hookbaits, and one of my favourite additives is Bait-Tech’s Sizzling Spicy Sausage glug. After riddling the maggots off, I’ll add a decent spoonful of flavouring to every few pints of grubs, before tying them up and leaving them in a bag overnight.
This gives the flavouring time to soak into the bait, but the biggest advantage, I find, of doing this is that it makes the maggots wriggle more in the cold, which in turn makes them more enticing to the fish. Although not everyone is convinced by glugs and additives, in my experience they really do work, so I would recommend giving them a go.
Starting on the Stick
I arrived at the river to find it running a foot above normal level with a decent colour. Combined with mild and overcast weather, I was hopeful of a few bites.
I sat in a typical Severn swim – long and open, with 500 yards of river visible downstream.
A hundred yards down the peg the riverbed shallowed slightly, and it’s an area where I knew the fish love to sit in summer. In the colder months, though, they move into the deeper water, which is where I would be focusing my attack today.
Setting up a stick float, a Bolo float and a maggot feeder, I started on the stick just to get a feel for things, feeding two half-pouches of maggots every run down.
You may be wondering why I didn’t just feed one big pouch, but feeding smaller amounts more regularly keeps a steady stream of bait flowing through the peg. This really gets the fish competing.
After an hour’s fishing I hadn’t received a bite, which was slightly unusual, but I wasn’t too worried – I simply reached for the feeder rod instead.
Feeder Success
Five quick casts put a bit of bait down in a specific area of the swim, and 20 minutes later the tip bounced round and I was into a hard-fighting fish.
A good barbel was netted shortly after that, and over the next half-hour I put two more barbel in the net, the bigger of which was a clonking fish close to 10lb.
Following this burst of activity, the swim went through a 30-minute lull and I suspected that the fish had dropped downstream.
I responded to this change by picking up my rod with a Bolo float attached. With this set-up I was able to follow the shoal as it moved gradually further down the peg.
Bolo Bagging
After feeding a few more pouches of bait I swung the Bolo out, and shortly after that the float tip plunged beneath the surface.
Another barbel was the culprit, and over the final hour it was followed by one more of its mates, as well as a bonus chub.
Eventually the fish backed off further and further downstream and it became increasingly difficult to keep in touch, so we decided to call it a day.
Had I not set up the Bolo rig the action would have come to a much swifter conclusion, and I would have gone home having caught just a few early fish on the feeder.
Pulling out the keepnet, I reckon I had around 30lb, all taken in just over three hours’ fishing. I’m sure that without the choice of tactics, my final tally would have been around half that weight, whereas by switching between the float and feeder I was able to stay in touch with the shoal.
There’s no doubt that you will still catch by just setting up a single rod, but next time you go out on the river make the effort to give yourself a few options – it could just result in a session you won’t forget in a hurry!
Kelvin’s Tackle
Rods: 13ft Daiwa RS Power Waggler, 12ft/13ft Daiwa RS Power Feeder
Reels: Daiwa TDR 3012
Line: DH Angling Pro Float 6lb, DH Angling Pro Feeder 8lb
Hooks: Drennan Wide Gape size 12
Floats: DH number 2 Heavy Base stick 8x4, DH number 2 Bolo 4g
Feeder: 60g Nisa Block End
River Fishing Tips | Get the best from trotting a stick float with Darren Cox
There are few more enjoyable ways of tackling a river than the stick float, running the rig way down the peg, then watching that tiny domed float top bury as the strike is met by the jag of a big roach or dace.
Good as the pole is, it is a tactic that limits how much of the swim you can cover. A rod and line with a stick, though, opens up so much more water, while retaining the same degree of control and presentation to coax regular bites.
However, it’s not a case of setting up one rod to get the job done. The key to catching well on a river with the stick is to make constant changes until you find exactly how the fish want the bait presenting.
That makes stick fishing a busy way to set about a river swim, and a very enjoyable one too.
When the stick float is better
When there’s pace on the river, I think that to catch roach and dace with a moving bait you need to slow things down to a speed where the fish will take the bait confidently.
It’s all about trial and error – running the rig at full pace, then checking it to a standstill. Next I will release it, then ease the float through at half pace and so on.
I’ll regularly move the shot on the line to make the bait behave differently.
However, there are right and wrong conditions to fish the stick in.
Generally speaking, an upstream wind or no breeze at all is bang on, whereas a downstreamer will make controlling the rig and keeping the line behind the float very difficult.
How far out to fish
I’d always fish in the main depth of the river and aim to find a flat spot of an even depth to get a good run through. I plumb up using a big heavy plummet and locate the depth both in front of me and well down the peg. That way I’ll know of any depth changes where I may need to slow the bait down to prevent it being dragged under.
Distance is also governed by the pace, because although more fish will be in the main flow, you won’t be able to fish as effectively here. Instead, I’d pick a line where the pace is slower and where the fish can feed properly. A bit of a compromise is needed. You’re better off not fishing where the majority of the fish are with a bad presentation, and instead going for a ‘good’ line and catching what you can with better presentation.
Shotting
By having two different shotting patterns I can achieve very different levels of presentation. The middle-of-the-road rig and the lighter stick have shirt button-style patterns of No8 shot grouped together in pairs and evenly-spread from halfway down the rig, tapering off to single No8 droppers on the hooklink. This gives the bait a slower fall through the peg and means that when I hold the float back in the flow, the bait will rise off the bottom a few inches.
On the heavier rig, I use a bulk of No4 shot a couple of feet from the hook to make up around 80 per cent of the shotting capacity. The remainder consists of No8 droppers. This is a much more positive rig to get the bait straight to where the fish are, and is ideal for days when a lot of fish are in the peg and you don’t have to search for them.
Dead depth or overdepth?
Traditionally, the stick float is fished to just trundle along the riverbed at full pace, but because I want to slow the bait down, I can actually fish overdepth by quite some way as long as I keep the float controlled as it runs down the river.
I set my lighter sticks six inches overdepth and cast the rig in so the bait is downstream of the float.
I then constantly vary the speed at which the float runs. Being in direct control, I can ensure that the rig is never pulled under.
Float sizes
I’ll rig up three floats of different sizes and work out which one is best for the conditions. My sticks are hand-made by my friend Nick Sutton and take No4 shot, seven in the case of the ‘No 7’ float.
My rule of thumb is to use a No4 shot for every foot of depth, so in a 7ft deep swim I use a No 7 stick as my ‘middle-of-the-road’ rig. I can then go either way with a heavier or a lighter rig to find which one gives the best presentation.
At the start I will cast out the middle-of-the road rig without a bait on to see whether the rig is hitting bottom or not, if I can control it and hold it back, and how the float tip reacts when run at full pace – is there enough buoyancy in the rig or not? From these findings I will select a heavier stick, perhaps taking nine or 10 No4s, and a lighter one taking just three or four shot.
Specimen Fishing Tips | Winter essentials with Dai Gribble
A friend of mine refers to anglers who only fish in the warmer months as ‘solar-powered.’ Such anglers are missing out on some great sport, so here are six tips that will definitely encourage them to make the most of some great opportunities throughout the winter.
Layers of clothing
Layers enable you to remove clothes easily when walking to your swim or between swims. Getting too hot will mean you sweat, and as soon as you sit down you’ll quickly start to feel cold. I find the most important layer is a long-sleeved Merino wool under layer. I’m not sure why, but these tops are much better than anything else I’ve tried. Add a fleece or two and a windproof top.
Thermal boots
Nothing is more likely to see you heading for home than frozen feet. There are lots of good waterproof boots available and, combined with thick wool socks, they will keep you comfortable. Avoid polyester socks – they may look similar to wool but they won’t keep you anywhere near as warm.
Hot drinks
A flask or small stove to supply hot drinks will help keep you warm. If I’m fishing on a river I always use a flask, but on stillwaters, where I am likely to move swims less, I prefer a small stove – you can’t beat a freshly brewed mug of Yorkshire tea! I keep things simple by boiling my water in an enamel mug, which saves carrying a separate kettle.
Hat and gloves
The old saying that on a cold day you lose 70 per cent of heat from your head is exaggerated but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wear a warm hat. I also always take a pair of insulated gloves. I don’t wear them while actually fishing, but they make a huge difference when carrying tackle to my swim and are also great for warming my hands up after handling a cold fish.
The right chair
If I’m fishing close to the car and unlikely to be moving a lot, I take a big padded chair with a high back which keeps my head and neck out of the wind. Thick padding is comfy and really does help keep you warm. If I am roving on a river I take a Korum lightweight chair made from a mesh-type material that doesn’t absorb water. This ensures that if it does rain it will dry quickly, rather than becoming waterlogged, which inevitably results in a damp backside.
Towel
Wet hands will soon become cold hands, so a good-sized towel is essential. Put one in your bag, as it is very easy to take a dirty towel out at the end of a session and forget to put it back – this is an error I have made on more than one occasion!
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.”
River Fishing Tips | How to catch silvers after the floods
Top matchman Dan Squire reveals how to catch after the floods…
Floods are no good for anyone, but most of all the river angler who will have been sat at home twiddling his thumbs and waiting for the waters to finally recede.
It’s frustrating and annoying, but the one crumb of comfort is the knowledge that when levels do return to normal, the fish will be ravenous, having been unable to feed properly for weeks on end. That means a bumper day on the bank is in prospect!
Rivers will still be holding some colour, and provided the weather is mild, all species will feed – big barbel and chub for the specimen hunter, roach for the pleasure angler. A double-figure net is the minimum target that they should be aiming for.
The best way to catch them in coloured water is without a doubt a groundbait attack, throwing in an opening salvo of balls packed with loose offerings and then running a pole rig over the top. Roach will home in on the groundbait and mill about over it for hours, and this is when you can really plunder them.
Big rivers like the Wye and Thames usually grab the headlines for big nets but much smaller waters are also stuffed with roach.
It was on one of these, the River Parrett in Somerset, where Sensas star Dan Squire was to prove what river fans have been missing out on for so many weeks…
Go for the pole
“Anyone who lives on the doorstep of the Parrett knows it is a phenomenal venue for roach,” explained Dan. “I’ve had loads of double-figure catches, despite the river not looking all that good at first glance. However, it has a good depth down the middle even though it’s not that wide, and that makes it ideal for fishing the pole.
“The stick float can work when the river is running hard, but for an average flow, nothing more than running a rig down over groundbait will bring plenty of bites,” he added.
“The pole offers a much neater presentation, and accuracy too, allowing you to fish right over the groundbait every run through.”
Feeding
“I’ll begin by cupping in two big balls of groundbait holding casters and, after that, I will loosefeed if the flow allows,” revealed Dan.
“The mix is 50/50 Sensas Roach Noire and Gros Gardons Noire, which is very sticky and able to hold a lot of casters in each ball. After this I fire in around 30 casters each run through.
“This will draw fish from upstream but also let me run the float past the groundbait to catch further down the peg where those casters will be landing.”
Positive floats
“On rivers with lots of fish to go at and a good depth, you need to fish reasonably positively in terms of floats. One between 1.5g and 2.5g will deal with most river conditions,” Dan explained.
“A Sensas Jean François is the classic river pattern and it only needs an olivette and couple of dropper shot.
“This type of float also has enough of a body to let me slow the rig down against the flow if I need to, without the presentation being affected.”
End tackle is relatively fine, though. This, given the target species, is no surprise. Dan goes for 0.08mm or 0.09mm Sensas Feeling as a hooklink to a size 18 Sensas 3405 hook to allow him to fish with either maggot or caster on the hook. Caster is the preferred bait as it always produces a better stamp of fish, and matches what he is feeding.
Keep in touch
Roach are famed for moving about in a river swim, especially if you are loosefeeding, so if the bites suddenly drop away Dan’s solution is to add a pole section to go either further across the river or down the peg.
It’s amazing the difference this can make, and often produces a bigger fish or two into the bargain.
Specimen fishing tips | Target winter grayling with Dai Gribble
ONE species that epitomises winter fishing is the grayling. There is no better fish to target during the short days, and a bonus is that grayling are predominantly found in streamy upland reaches of rivers – so you’ll most likely find yourself surrounded by some great scenery.
Here are seven tips to help you get the most out of a grayling trip.
Floatfish
Trotting tactics allow grayling to fight to their full potential. I generally use a 13ft rod unless I’m fishing a very small river, as the extra length helps control the float. On bigger, open stretches of river a rod up to 15ft long can be useful, especially on windy days.
Stay mobile
Grayling take a bait fairly quickly, so if they are present in a swim they often come out on the first few trots through. If after 30 minutes’ trotting you have not caught anything, moving swims is a better option than persisting in the same swim.
Bulk shot the float
I like to have the bulk of the shot or an Olivette weight about 2ft from the hook, with a No4 shot between the bulk shot and the hook. This makes changing depth really easy, as the shot don’t have to be moved.
Keep the bait down
Changing depth is important, because grayling tend to hold in the current just above the riverbed and it is likely that different swims will be at different depths. Keep increasing the depth of the rig until you are happy that the bait is close to the bottom. If the float gets pulled under due to catching the bottom, just shallow up a little.
Maggots to start
I have found white maggots to be the most consistent bait for grayling, and I favour a double maggot hookbait. It is worth having a few red maggots as a change bait. Sweetcorn can also be effective, and indeed may single out the bigger fish in swims where there are lots of small grayling.
Feed little & often
Grayling will feed in even the coldest weather, but take care not to overfeed them. You want them to take your hookbait before they have eaten enough. Feed around five maggots each cast – the aim is to get the fish searching for food, not to fill them up.
Take your time
Grayling have quite hard mouths, and are notorious for shedding the hook. To minimise the risk of losing fish, ensure your hooks are really sharp – check the points frequently – and take your time when playing fish.
River fishing tips | Fish the feeder for floodwater bream with Kelvin Tallet
Hopefully by the time you read this, the floods in your area will have subsided or at least begun to.
I live in the West Midlands, and I’m lucky in that there is a wide variety of rivers to fish. Except in the most extreme conditions, I can usually find somewhere to go. And as someone who loves running water more than anything else, I will go out of my way to find fishable areas.
Even when there is extra water in a river, as long as it can be accessed and fished safely, there will be fish to be caught.
Deep areas, the inside of bends, lock cuttings and backwaters will all produce fish, and it’s amazing what species will turn up in places you least expect. You’ll even catch out in the main flow, although fishing here can be challenging!
Warm flood
Of all the fish in our rivers, two species seem to positively thrive in what I would describe as a ‘warm flood’. This is where the river has been high and coloured for a few days, debris has been washed away, and levels have settled or maybe started to fall.
In these conditions, barbel and bream make good targets and it was bream I decided to fish for during a trip to the Warwickshire Avon near Stratford recently.
The famous Lido stretch of the river here offers numerous swims which vary tremendously according to the state of the river. Some that are hardly worth fishing in normal levels can suddenly produce when there’s extra water in the river, and for today’s session I visited one of these in the hope of catching some bream.
I’m sure there are swims on your local river that become similarly transformed in a flood. The fish you catch may not be huge, but the feeling of satisfaction can be immense when your quivertip goes round or drops back and you feel that tell-tale ‘thud’ of something worth catching on the other end.
Plenty of feed
Today’s session was always going to be feeder job with bream the target. My plan was to introduce a decent bed of bait at a nice comfortable cast towards the main flow, but not right in it.
I began with six big feederfuls of groundbait to which I’d added plenty of chopped worms and red maggots. Once the feeder had hit bottom I ‘struck’ to release the feed, and once I was happy I set my rig up. This incorporated a feeder with 1oz of lead attached – not a heavy weight but enough to hold bottom in the moderate flow. Had the flow had been stronger, a heavier feeder would be required.
The rig
Slide a Korum Feedabead on to the mainline.
Clip your chosen feeder on to the Feedabead.
Tie a quick-change bead on to the end of the mainline.
Attach a 2ft hooklength to the quick-change bead. The hooklength had a 9ins loop at the top, knotted at 3ins intervals to make three smaller loops acting as a boom.
Finally, fix a small shot 4ins above the hooklink to create a mini bolt rig
The session
It was a beautiful early winter’s day and I really fancied it for a few fish, but instead of the hoped-for bream, my first fish after 20 minutes was a small perch.
Not the ideal start, but I needn’t have worried because on the next cast the tip jagged round again and this time it was decent skimmer bream, which looked a picture in the sunlight. Another soon followed, again on worm tipped with a dead maggot on a strong size 16 hook, before bites stopped.
I wondered whether this might be because the fish were feeding well and they wanted more bait, so I added two more baiting feeders, this time with more worms added. This worked a treat as three more skimmers followed in the next half-hour.
Again, bites ceased, so two more big feeders of bait went in and the skimmers returned, along with a couple of roach and another perch. So it continued, and I ended the day with eight skimmers, two roach and two perch – an extremely pleasing result at a time when many anglers wouldn’t have gone anywhere near their local river!
CLUB INFORMATION
Kelvin was fishing the Lido stretch of the Warwickshire Avon near Stratford. Visit www.leamingtonangling.co.uk for details
River Fishing Tips | How to catch more fish from tricky rivers
Low, clear and full of weed – summer rivers can be tricky places at the best of times.
The fish are spooky, and will often sit out of sight. However, do it right and the results can be breathtaking, as Garbolino UK boss Darren Cox proved recently on the Warwickshire Avon, where he landed two barbel for 22lb in a match.
We caught up with Darren for his tips on how best to approach these challenging waterways, right now.
Swim selection
“When the temperatures are high the fish will be looking for oxygenated water, so weirs, rapids and shallow areas are the places to target.
“I always like to fish over gravel if I can, as fish seem to prefer lying over it, and anything that gives the fish cover is great to target.
“Features such as trees, weed or reeds are always good to look out for. On the day of the match I drew a peg that was very weedy and snaggy, which was why the fish were there.
“The first barbel I had, a fish of 11lb 14oz, snagged me up four times during the fight, but by using the correct tackle I managed to land it.”
Tackle Choice
“Most barbel anglers opt for quite a pokey rod up to a test curve of around 2.25lb and 15lb line. However, I much prefer something softer. During the match I used 6lb Maxima mainline and an 0.23mm hooklength.
“While 6lb Maxima will break at much more than 6lb, the soft rod I use in conjunction with this tackle is one of the most important parts of my set-up.
“I actually think this is better for playing barbel on, as it absorbs the lunges of the fish much better than something stiffer does.
“It may seem under-gunned, but the fact that I landed two double-figure barbel and didn’t lose a fish in such a snaggy swim shows that the gear is up to the job.”
Tactics
“On the day of the match I set up both a float and a tip rod, but the river was pushing through too quickly and was a bit too weedy to run a float through nicely.
“I caught the larger barbel on a feeder, and after getting a few line bites I knew there was something substantial in the swim. It’s always worth setting the float up, though, as it’s a great way to present your bait when the pace is right.
“Even if you don’t catch on the float it’s still a great way to search the swim, as you can find out where the fish are lying.
“A dome-topped balsa float is my preferred option when fishing for big fish with large baits, and I’ll often lay two feet of line on the deck so that I can really drag my hookbait through the swim.
“If you have a large snag in your swim it’s always best to try and draw the fish away from it with feed – however, sometimes this just isn’t possible.
“On such occasions, you have to be prepared to go right into the lion’s den!”
Choice of Bait
One of the biggest problems on summer rivers can be the large shoals of tiny fish such as bleak.
These can destroy your hookbaits, so you want to be using something that excludes these species.
Hemp and casters are a great all-round option, but if you’re going specifically for roach and chub then tares are a favourite of mine. During the match I fed four pints of hemp and casters, as well as a cubed tin of Mainline Match Spicy Brown meat.
The benefit of feeding the meat is that I know that this bait will reach the bottom through all the small fish, which will leave something for the bigger fish to eat when they move into the swim.
How to fish a bulk shot float rig on rivers with Dave Harrell
There are days when fishing a float shotted with a group of shot or an olivette close to the hook will catch you a lot more fish than a strung-out, lightly shotted rig. Even in water as shallow as 2ft, a bulk shotted rig can work wonders particualrly for species like chub and barbel.
Years ago, there were very few float choices for these approaches but, in more recent times, there are plenty of choices to suit a large number of situations.
Bolo and Avon style floats are ideal for fishing bulk shot rigs on rivers
All my bulk fishing is based around three types of float patterns, and while there are different designs within these families, the basic approach is the same with a bulk and sometimes (but not always) a drop shot.
I carry a big selection of floats for this sort of work and they range in size from 2g all the way up to a 10g. Add to this equation a mix of thicknesses in the hollow bristles or balsa tops and you will quickly realise that it’s a type of fishing that requires plenty of options if you’re going to cover all situations.
A variety of different pegs suit fishing a bulk shot float rig
Olivettes or shot?
Olivettes can be slid up or down the line
For bulk-shotted rigs I prefer to use olivettes over shot. They are neater and less prone to tangling. The ones I use can be fixed to the line by pulling a small piece of tight-fitting pole elastic through the hole and trimming it flush with the lead.
This fixes the olivette in place and stops it moving, unless you actually want to slide it yourself.
I use these in sizes from 0.40g all the way up to 10g.
Cut down Avon and Bolo floats are great in shallow water
SHALLOW SWIMS (2ft - 4ft deep)
There was a time when I only used to attack these sorts of depths with a short, stubby balsa float but in recent years I’ve had a lot of success by cutting down the stems of small 2g and 3g Avon and Bolo floats.
As there isn’t much depth to play with on this sort of swim, you’re better off not using a drop shot and instead fixing an olivette or a bulk of shot about 1ft to 18ins above the hook.
When I’m fishing in this way I’m usually targeting barbel or chub, so there isn’t a need for too much finesse as the water will be fast. I use 5lb or 6lb line in these situations and tie the hook direct to the mainline.
Because these swims aren’t very deep I would always sway towards loosefeeding with maggots, casters and hemp or fishmeal pellets.
MEDIUM DEPTH (4ft - 8ft deep)
This depth is where bulk rigs are ideal for a wide variety of species. The choice of float is determined by the species that you are fishing for. If the target fish are roach and dace and the flow is slight then the No4 and No5 Bolos are perfect.
For faster moving water, I use the No1 and No2 models with thicker hollow bristles and for very fast water, the choice is either a No3 Bolo for fishing out in the river or an Avon float for close in work.
Left to right: No.4 Bolo, no.1 Bolo, no.2 Bolo, no.3 Bolo, no.1 Avon, no. 2 Avon
To choose the right size float, always plumb the depth carefully before you actually put a float on the line.
Check the depth close in and well out as there could be a big difference and once you’re happy that you know what the depths are at different points in the river, use 1g to 2g of float capacity for every 2ft of water. Depending on the flow, this could mean a 4g or an 8g float in 8ft of water.
Position an olivette or a bulk of shot around 18in to 2ft from the hook with a single No6 drop shot about 10in from the hook.
Most of the time I would use loose feed for this depth range but there are times when groundbait can work well in conjunction with a bulk rig. This would usually be mixed with soil to a ration of 75per cent groundbait and 25per cent soil, with a small ball every cast.
DEEP SWIMS (8ft - 14ft deep)
Left to right: no.1 Bolo, no.2 Bolo, no.3 Bolo, no.4 Bolo, no.5 Bolo, no.2 Alloy Avon
Bulk rigs really come into their own in very deep water, and it was this sort of situation that first alerted me to the effectiveness of the approach way back in 1992, when I watched the Italian National team practising for the World Championships in Ireland.
I learned a lot that day, and ever since then Bolo floats have played a big part in my fishing.
For slow-moving water, the choice is a larger size of No4 or No5 Bolo, and as the speed of the flow picks up, the choice is either a big No1 or No2 Bolo or a big Avon. As a general guide, 1g to 2g of float capacity for every 3ft of depth is about right so a 10ft deep swim would demand a float taking from 5g to10g, depending on flow speed.
With the bigger float I change from a No6 dropper to a No4 and it works in just the same way.
In these depths, groundbait plays much more of a part in my approaches and if the river is flowing fast I use a 50/50 mix of groundbait and soil.
The extra weight helps to get the balls of groundbait down to the bottom quickly but the balls break up fast when they’re on the riverbed, allowing loose particles like casters and hemp to attract fish into the swim.
A nice chub caught on a bulk-shotted float rig
Dave Harrell is recognised as one of the country’s best-ever river anglers. He has fished for England at World and European level and now runs his own tackle company. For more information go to: www.daveharrellangling.com