Feeder Fishing Tips | 5 tips for bream on the feeder
Milder weather means one thing – bream! There’s no better way to catch them than on the feeder!
Vary the feed
Once you start fishing, try to judge how many fish are in the peg by the bites or indications you’re getting. If that’s not very many, it may be worth cutting back on the number of freebies going in through the feeder. There’s no point piling in more and more bait when there aren’t many fish there in the first place.
Let the fish tell you how much to feed
Big hits of bait
Making several quick casts at the start of the match will get some bait into the peg, but don’t bother doing it with the feeder you’re going to be fishing with – these are too small and will take too long. Instead, invest in a baiting-up feeder with a much bigger capacity. Between six and eight loads of bait are ample, using groundbait and a scattering of casters, dead maggots and pinkies, finely-chopped worm and a few bits of corn.
Baiting up feeders are a good way to kick off the swim
Watch the clock
Top bream anglers will always have a stopwatch by their side to time how long each cast is left out in the water. This is to try and work out when a bite is likely to come – if, for instance, you are getting most of your bites within 10 minutes, there’s little point in leaving the feeder out for longer than this.
Time how long you leave the feeder in
Redworms are autumn kings
Worms will still work their magic at this time of year, but on tricky venues it’s worth sourcing some redworms for the hook. These tiny worms are loved by bream, especially skimmers, despite their smaller size. Two or three fished on the hook make a brilliant bait, tipped off with a dead red maggot.
Redworms are a deadly bream bait
Add some colour
In clearing water, certain colours of bait and feed work really well for bream, with yellow the best of them all. Corn or a small yellow wafter or boilie catch loads of fish and you can also pep up your groundbait by adding Pastoncino. These small pieces of biscuit come in bright yellows and reds and just a handful stirred into mixed groundbait puts lots of little flecks through the feed for the fish to pick out when feeding.
Adding some colour can really boost results
Match Fishing Tips | 5 tips to win big with bream
Stillwater fishing for bream has changed a good deal since the days of squatts, swingtips and target boards. Here are some top tips to help you put a big net of slabs together…
Vary your hooklengths
This can vary throughout a match, but the agreed starting point for many anglers is between 50cm and 75cm. You will rarely need to go longer than this, unless the fish are showing signs of feeding well off bottom. Shortening the hooklength can pay off if you are missing bites, because putting the hookbait nearer the feeder can result in a more positive indication on the tip.
Shortening your hooklength can really pay off
Twitch the bait
Sit on your hands and wait for the tip to go round. That’s the rule from the old school bream fishing handbook, but today things are a little different. By moving the hookbait slightly, you can tempt a bream into taking the bait, but will also be pulling the bait closer to the area your feeder has dropped its goodies. Half a turn of the reel handle is usually enough movement.
Moving the bait can pick up extra bites
Use braid
Swapping from mono line to braid on your reel will bring many advantages. Being thinner in diameter, braid casts a lot further and adds accuracy. Also, when a fish takes the bait, the bite is magnified tenfold as a very positive pull on the quivertip. Using a length of shockleader makes casting completely safe – just remember not to strike hard when you get a bite. Simply pick the rod up and pull into the fish.
Braid is the best line for bite indication
Cast accurately
There’s no point in getting your rig and feed right, only to undo that hard work with haphazard casting. Accuracy is king here and using the line clip on the reel and working with a marker on the horizon as an aiming point will help no end. Having a big enough feeder to hit the mark each time is advisable. If you do make a bad cast, wind in and cast again. Leaving out a feeder that’s miles away from the feed area is a waste of time.
Accuracy is key in all fishing
Go for fishmeal
Even on natural lakes, fishmeal is having a big impact. That’s not to say that you need to go down the 100 per cent fish route, as this might be a bit too strong. Instead, balance out a classic sweet groundbait with a helping of fishmeal or, better still, go for a sweet fishmeal blend that’s already mixed. Adding a few dampened micro pellets to the mix along with the usual casters, dead maggots and chopped worm will further increase the pulling power of your groundbait.
Bream love fishmeal groundbait
River Fishing Tips | Feeder fishing for river bream with Ed Warren
With the exception of barbel, no species appreciates coloured water more than bream.
That murky brown tinge is perfect for the fish to feed, and although the pole and, at times, the waggler can catch bream, nothing beats the feeder.
It puts your bait close to the feed and keeps everything still on the bottom, something bream demand. In a wind the feeder is a whole lot easier to fish than the long pole, and all in all it’s a very simple way of fishing, with easy-to-tie rigs and bites that are a doddle to spot.
Pick the distance
Traditionally, bream favour the deepest water possible, but that’s not always the case. I’d have a few quid on them living towards the far bank, well out of the way. Water 4ft-plus deep is a good spot to base your attack around.
Find this depth by casting a leger bomb around the swim and counting how long it takes to hit bottom. A count of three or four is about right. This searching of the swim will also highlight any snags in the area. You need to be fishing on a clean riverbed, so bear this in mind.
Easy rig
For river bream, a simple rig is best. The feeder slides on the mainline, stopped by a couple of float stops and a bead, below which I twist around 6ins of line to create a stiff boom to eliminate rig tangles.
That leaves the hooklink, and how long it should be. I’d start at 1m and be happy with this, never making it longer and only shortening it if I were catching fish that had taken the bait well down. Going to a 50cm link will show bites up quicker and mean every bream is hooked in the lip.
All about feed
Chopped worm and caster is packed into a feeder capped off at each end with groundbait. The mix is 50:50 sweet and fishmeal, that pongy fish smell putting scent into the water to help the bream find the bait.
I make five quick casts to get some bait in, then rely on each cast to keep the swim on the simmer. Casts are five minutes apart. Bream won’t be eating a lot at this time of year so there’s no need to pile in the bait.
Fish direct
Some river anglers like to create a long bow in the line and rely on the quivertip dropping back to show a bite. I prefer to have a tight line from rod-tip to feeder to show every small indication from a fish taking the bait.
The Avon is fairly slow-flowing so the pressure on the line from the flow won’t move the feeder. This is why there’s no need to have a bow on the go.
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.
Bream fishing tips | How to catch specimen bream.
Are you after your biggest ever bream this summer? If you are then here are six fantastic tips to get you going from former Drennan Cup champ Dai Gribble.
1) Do your homework
Bream are creatures of habit, perhaps more so than any other species. In my experience they regularly feed in specific parts of a lake at the same time every day.
The top of gravel bars and large areas of shallow water surrounded by deeper water are my favoured spots for finding big bream.
Unlike tench, I have found that bream prefer to avoid weedy areas, so this means that in weedy lakes any area where the weed is absent or thinner is well worth investigating.
You can start your search by looking at overviews of the lakes you’re planning to fish on Google Earth.
2) Watch for rolling fish
Big bream are generally nocturnal feeders and often have a tendency to roll on the surface, particularly just as the light falls at dusk.
If you observe bream rolling at the surface it is very likely that they will feed in that area, so any time spent finding rolling fish is well spent.
Sometimes bream roll with a classic ‘porpoise’-style roll and are unmistakeable, but on occasions they can barely break surface – with just the tips of their dorsal fins visible.
Investing some of your hard-earned cash in a good set of binoculars can really help you to spot such behaviour.
3) Talk to other anglers
Carp anglers can often be a good source of potential bream swims because on most waters they outnumber other anglers and inevitably catch bream.
In my experience they are generally happy to share information about where and when they have caught bream.
A swim where bream have been caught recently is well worth trying but bear in mind that most carp anglers don’t weigh bream so the size of bream might be smaller than claimed!
4) Fish into the wind
In the absence of any obvious clues as to where to fish, a good place to start is fishing into the wind as far out as you can comfortably cast and bait up.
The undertow created by the wind will take a trail of attraction from your baited area out into the lake, maximising the chances of bream being drawn into your swim.
By fishing as far out as is comfortable, you maximise your chances of drawing fish from as far away as possible.
5) Get a bed of bait out
Given their nocturnal nature, laying down a large bed of bait prior to dark is the best approach. If boats are allowed it makes life much simpler – if not, a Spomb is the easiest and most accurate method of baiting up.
A small number of big bream can eat a lot of bait and even on low-stocked waters I introduce plenty of bait 4kg of crumb or fishmeal based groundbait, 2kg of 2mm or 4mm pellets and a couple of tins of corn.
The aim is to ensure bream will stay in the area for a long time and I don’t want to risk feeding more bait over the top of feeding fish as that’s likely to spook the shoal.
6) Add hookbait samples
I introduce very few – perhaps 30 – hookbait samples, and try to spread them out. I want the bream to search for them among the masses of smaller items.
The size of my baiting area depends on the size of the feature I am fishing to, but typically I aim to cover about 8m wide by 2m deep. This allows me to fit three rods on to the baited area, even if it is very windy.
Introducing this amount of bait takes time, but effort equals reward. I like to bait up in late afternoon so the swim has time to settle down. The only disturbance will be casting my rods out, ideally about an hour before dark.
How to use a swing tip while fishing
It’s easy to get stuck in an angling rut. We tend to use the same tactics for the same fish, sometimes even the same approach for a number of different species.
Some of the deadly ‘old school’ methods have been neglected, a shame, as there’s some fantastic ‘forgotten fishing’ to be had – like swingtipping for bream.
Not only can this put together a big bag of bream, but it has its place in the specimen world for tricking big bream too.
For me, the advantage the swingtip has over the quivertip is that smaller, tentative bites are easier to spot and hit. You’ll often find that on pressured waters fish will sit over the feed and often only move just enough to tighten the line. Then, when they suspect something isn’t quite right, they drop the hookbait.
However, with a swingtip in place you can see this movement much more easily, and be ready…
Setting up
I find that the best way to set up while swingtipping is to sit at a slight angle from where you are casting to and where the rod rests are placed. This way you can see the tip with ease, and bites are more easily spotted.
I also tend to have the rod rests set at a height so that when the line is slack, the tip is under water by a few millimetres.
Then, when you can tighten up by just a fraction, the tip eye is just above the surface and allows you to retain the benefits of ultra-light resistance and still be able to spot drop-backs – the tip simply dips below the surface.
When you see any indication, even if it’s just a small tap of only half-an-inch, try following the bite with the rod.
Often this will trick the fish into thinking the bait is safe, and you’ll find that those tiny plucks turn into the classic sail-away bite.
However, at other times the bites are big sweeping takes that are impossible to miss!
Baiting up
Because my fishing is usually based around short after-work sessions, I don’t tend to fill the lake or river in with bait, which often tends to be the way with bream fishing.
I feel that by doing this, I’m missing out on the chance of a quick bite. To begin with, I feed little and often, and only when I am confident that there are fish coming in to feed will I increase the baiting to keep them there.
Bream are quite capable of hoovering up a swim and then disappearing in a short space of time, so keep them interested if you want to keep catching!
Famously, bream will feed on pretty much anything you throw their way but I tend to stick to a simple worm and caster, or a pellet and boilie approach.
There is so much pellet and boilie going into venues now that these baits will appear just as natural to fish as anything else.
The first thing I would look out for are rolling fish. If you’re fishing where they are, then you’ve got every chance of catching them.
It’s also worth remembering that bream don’t always follow the rule book. I’ve heard it said so many times that bream don’t like hemp, they don’t like weed, and they’re all at range. However, I’ve caught some of my best bream over hemp, in weedy areas and even from right in close.
The one thing I have noticed is that most of my better catches have been in deep water, be that a 6ft margin or 30 yards out in 12ft of water.
I also feel confident if there is a nice chop on the water, as I feel this breaks up the skyline for the fish and they feed with more confidence.
Simple rig
I use a running rig, as it doesn’t impact on the low resistance qualities this tactic has to offer.
I like to start off with a 6lb mainline, which I feel is more than enough to safely land the largest of bream.
It also gives you the benefit of being able to play the fish and feel the delightfully fast lunges the species can make – something I feel is lost when catching fish on overly strong tackle.
I use a small bomb or cage feeder which is attached to a link swivel threaded on to the line.
Next comes a rubber bead to absorb shock of the link bouncing against the swivel, which has a 4lb-6lb hooklink attached. Hook size depends on the bait used, but I tend to use a size 14-12.
My starting hooklength is 5ins-6ins long, but I will lengthen or shorten it until bites are forthcoming – it really can pay dividends if you make subtle changes until you find what is right for the day.
So, next time you’re out thinking that the fish are there but you can’t buy a bite, try something a bit different and go swingtipping!
Bag up on silverfish and bream by visiting your local reservoir!
The UK is home to dozens of giant reservoirs where you will struggle to see the far bank due to the sheer size of the venue.
While there is no doubt that the prospect of fishing such a huge expanse of water is daunting, the sheer numbers of fish they often hold means they are well worth your attention. But just how do you go about locating the shoals in a fishery of that size and then persuading them to feed? England star and Preston Innovations-backed angler Lee Kerry has all the answers…
Target species
“If you are looking to get away from carp and F1s then a big reservoir could be right up your street. Roach, bream and skimmers often feature heavily on waters like this, and they can be anything from small hand-sized fish to lumps that would easily smash your personal best!
“Look in Angling Times to check match results and see which species is dominating, or speak to local anglers and tackle shops to help gauge the situation.”
Tactics
“The biggest shoals are likely to be well away from the bank, so a feeder approach is often best on big reservoirs. If it’s bream you are looking to catch, a simple groundbait feeder will often outscore anything else.
“Some anglers might think that for bream you need to put in a lot of bait immediately, but this isn’t the case. I prefer to build a feeder line up gradually, casting every few minutes with a small or medium-sized feeder. There’s no need to use light tackle because a lot of the fish won’t have been caught before.
“I’ll often have a 2ft-long hooklength of 0.13mm Preston Innovations Powerline and a size 16 hook. Thick lines are stiffer and lead to fewer tangles.”
Bait
“A dark groundbait is always best for bream and skimmers, as I believe they spook a lot more readily over a light bed of feed.
“My favourite mix is Sonubaits F1 Dark, as it has a strong sweet smell and is packed with fishmeal that skimmers can’t get enough of. I will also add some finely chopped worms and a few casters to the mix to keep the fish grubbing around. “It’s a matter of trial and error when it comes to hookbait – maggots, pinkies or even a worm can all have their day.”
Search the swim
“If bites don’t come quickly, it can be tempting to pile a lot more bait in to gain a response, but it is often better to explore your peg a little. Casting just 10 yards further could put you in deeper water, and that is where the fish could be held up. It may take a short while to find the shoals but if you’re on pegs that have form, you’ll never be far away from a hungry shoal.”
How to catch more river bream
With the rivers finally being coloured, it's now one of the best times to go out and land yourself some river bream. Below are some of the best tips from Mark Pollard to help you catch more bream when you next go out.
Warmer water and reduced visibility spurs this fish into having a go but winter bream fishing on a river is nothing like in summer, when you can bosh the bait in and fish very positively. .
You must scale down and adopt a different approach to your feeding, but you’ll still need a fair bit of groundbait. The idea is to tempt the fish into having a go every time you feed, rather than introduce a big bed of bait and fish over this all day.
Groundbaiting isn’t as simple as throwing in a dozen balls and emptying the place!
Find the right swim
I wouldn’t bother messing about with fishing on a shelf or a slope in winter. Bream and skimmers prefer a flat bottom at the maximum depth.
If your swim has a shelf close in, than fishing a few metres past this where the flow is at its steadiest should be ideal.
Go light on floats
Even in deep water I’m a big fan of fishing as light as I can. This leads to better presentation and offers less resistance to a fish when holding the rig still, and you will miss fewer bites than with a heavier float.
So, in 10ft of water with a reasonable flow, a 2g MP Roach using an olivette and four No11 droppers strung out underneath it to cover the final few feet of the swim is perfect.
If the river is flowing more slowly, I may even consider dropping down to a 1g float.
How far overdepth?
River bream fishing in winter doesn’t involve setting the rig massively overdepth, as bites can be very shy. I’ll plumb up, then slide the float a couple of inches up the line – that’s about it. This allows me to inch the rig through the peg without it dragging under.
If I was wanting to go any further overdepth I would essentially be aiming to hold the float dead still. In this instance I think you’d be better off fishing a feeder or a pole feeder instead.
Cup in... don’t ball it!
Perhaps the most important element of any type of skimmer fishing is feeding, and in coloured water this always involves groundbait. You need to cup the balls of feed in rather than throw them. Throw several balls in and you cannot say with any certainty how accurate you have been.
This is fine in summer but not on a cold winter’s day. My aim is to create one spot where all the groundbait ends up. From this I can work around the area, holding the rig tight on top of it or running it below or above the spot.
When to top up
At the start of a session I will pot in five balls of groundbait, and from there I can see how the fish will respond.
When the bites fade I will pop in another ball or, if nothing is happening, another goes in after 20 minutes and this then sets the pattern. You can get through a lot of groundbait this way, so I mix up at least three kilos. What I have found in winter is that you’ll get an initial flurry of bites from that opening hit of bait, then it goes dead. The fish are still there but they’re not feeding with any degree of positivity. You’ll need to give them another ball to get a few of them to move back over the feed area and have a go.
Typically, you can expect to catch two or three skimmers or get half-a dozen indications before you need to feed again.
Steve Ringer's 12 tips for the year ahead
Plot your way to the greatest year ever with Steve Ringer's month-by-month guide to his favourite tips and tactics.
January - Come closer to the bank to catch
The closer you fish, the faster you catch. I call this my ‘5m’ line but I often find myself fishing at around 6m-7m, and will plumb up to find a spot just over the nearside slope and on to the flat, deeper water where F1s feed with confidence in clear water. The beauty of this line is that you feed it all day but don’t tend to fish it until the last 90 minutes of the match… when you can double your catch!
The secret to making this line work, though, is the frequency of feeding. F1s are attracted into the swim by bait falling through the water, so kick off by feeding 4-6 maggots – you can up this to as many as 70-80 maggots later if there are loads of silverfish present! I feed by hand, which makes it a lot easier to keep the swim topped up when I’m fishing other lines.
February - Feed Micros for winter skimmers
Feeding loose micro pellets into deep water can be the kiss of death when you’re fishing for F1s and carp, leading to lots of line bites and foul-hooked fish – but for skimmers it can be brilliant! This is a method I picked up while fishing a silver fish match at Hayfield Lakes.
I’d been told that potting 2mm micro pellets worked well for the skimmers, but feeding loose micros into 10ft of water seemed like madness to me. Not catching much on my groundbait and pinkie approach, I decided to give it a go, and two feeds later I had a bite, then another and another. Within 20 minutes I was getting a bite every put-in. I can only think that the micros falling through the water were pulling fish into the swim. Since then this has been an approach I’ve used a lot.
March - Early bream, it's all about worms
In cold, coloured water there is no better bait for pulling bream into a swim than worms!
For a five-hour session I want to be using at least half-a-kilo of small dendrobaenas, and I will kick off by casting out six big cage feeders of my favourite 50/50 mix of Ringers Original Bag Up mix and Ringers Dark.
This is packed with as many very finely-chopped worms as possible, plus a sprinkling of micro pellets, casters and a few dead maggots.
This combination helps me introduce as much scent and attraction into the water as possible, in order to draw the fish to my hookbait.
This is usually two big pieces of hair-rigged worm – the perfect spring feed for bream!
April - Fish deep on the waggler
In the warmer weather fish start to move around looking for food. This is where searching the layers of the water can pay off. My favourite way of doing this is to fish a deep pellet waggler or, even better, a sinking float.
These ‘floats’ have a removable stopper. Add small shots to fine tune them so they sink slowly through the water column. On the waggler I start with a 5ft hooklength but will come shallower if I get indications.
The slow sinking float/bomb has a shorter 2ft 6inz hooklength. In an ideal world I will catch a few fish early on the waggler and then, if bites slow up, I will make the switch to the slow sinking bomb.
Bites are signified by watching the line where it enters the water or, when the carp are really on the feed, watching the rod-tip.
May - Go on the heavy hybrid
Once a Hybrid feeder hits the bottom it needs to be heavy enough not to move, otherwise the hookbait gets pulled away from the loose offerings. Feeder size determines the amount of bait you’re putting in and I use either Mini, Small or Large in various weights. When fishing in open water on small lakes, or when I only want to feed a small amount, a Mini in 24g is perfect.
The Small version is a more general-sized feeder for year-round use and comes in 24g and 36g weights. I pick the heavier version for longer casts. A ‘Big Bertha’ Large version, in 28g and 45g weights, allows you to get a lot more feed out and it’s the 45g size that I love for venues such as Boddington, where 90m-plus casts can be required.
June - Mug carp on the the mudline with meat
One of the most exciting tactics you can fish at this time of year is what I call ‘mud line’ fishing, where you fish across on snake lakes in literally inches of water, tight to the far-bank mud.
While it might not sound glamorous, it’s actually a very prolific approach and, if you get it right, quite often you can actually see the fish swirling in the shallow water as they take your bait.
It’s vital to find the right depth of water, and ideally you need 8ins-12ins tight against the bare bank in between areas of cover.
Baitwise there’s no better combo than 6mm meat cubes and wetted-down micros – the pellets give off loads of attraction, while the meat gives the fish a decent meal.
July - Lighter elastics are best for shallow fishing
When trying to catch big summer weights while fishing shallow, one of the best tricks is to go against the grain and use lighter elastics. This allows you to feed when playing fish and line up the next carp to be caught.
I use White Hydro, which is very soft and extremely forgiving, and when fished on a puller kit I can pretty much land anything on it, everything from a 1lb skimmer to a 10lb carp.
Being initially soft, it has the benefit of allowing me to lift into a fish and then, while the elastic is doing the work, I can feed the swim until the fish slows down and I can start to ship back.
The softness of White Hydro means the fish don’t splash all over the surface, something that can cause other fish in the swim to spook.
August - Clean up with a window feeder
Window feeders take some beating when you need to get a lot of particles into the swim. They are a vital part of my bream fishing at this time of year, especially when fishing at distance.
The weight on a window feeder is situated at the base so they cast like bullets and can still be fished accurately even at long range.
I tend to use the bigger sizes – they allow me to really attack the swim as they carry a lot of loose offerings.
There are lots of baits you can use in a window feeder, including casters, maggots and micros, but where I gain an edge in my bream fishing is to fill the feeder with chopped worms and give them a covering of groundbait to seal them in.
September - Use groundbait down the edge
Over the last few years groundbait and dead maggots have taken over as the best margin feed, but you need to find the right depth for it to work – between 10ins and 18ins is perfect!
If you are faced with deep margins then you’re better off using heavier baits that will stay on the bottom, such as corn or even big hard pellets.
I prefer a heavy coarse mix, and my favourite is Dynamite Sweet Fishmeal in the 2kg bag. I always like to slightly over-wet it, as I want to give the mix some weight so it will stay on the bottom.
As for feeding, it’s a case of really attacking the swim, and I will kick off with between eight and 10 large, 250ml pots of bait to try and hold the fish in the swim for as long as possible.
October - Go mini on the method
There are some really annoying swims in fishing – ones where there’s a fishy-looking far bank or island too far away for the pole.
This is when Mini Method feeders around the size of a £1 coin really come into their own – not only do they create minimal disturbance when cast into shallow swims, but they deliver a small mouthful of feed that’s ideal in the cooler conditions.
I use 2mm pellets as feed and fish a 6mm wafter hookbait on a size 14 QM1 hook.
As for colour, I will vary it a lot but as a guide, if the water is clear, I will look to kick off on a light, bright colour such as yellow or even white.
If your lake is holding a bit of colour then I’ve found a fluoro pink or even a pellet-coloured wafter is better.
November - Try a double wafter on the bomb
This trick has caught me a lot of fish recently. Instead of using hard pellets like everyone else, I’ve been fishing double wafters, and have been mixing the colours to create unique hookbaits.
Two wafters just sink when they’re attached to a size 10 QM1 hook, which means when a carp goes to suck the hookbait in it becomes very hard for it to eject it again, as it literally flies up inside its mouth.
While I’ve caught a lot of carp on two pellet wafters I’ve actually found that the washed-out yellows are a better bet.
I think the reason for this is that once in the water, two washed-out yellows look just like two coarse pellets that have been on the bottom a while and are viewed as being safe to eat.
December - Dig out the bread and get dobbing!
If you want to search your swim for carp in the cold then there’s no better tactic then dobbing bread discs on the pole.
Rush beds, overhanging trees and far-bank stick-ups are all obvious areas that are likely to hold fish and, as long as there’s around 2ft to 4ft of depth, they’re perfect places to explore with dobbed bread.
Most of my bread fishing is done with either an 8mm or 10mm sized piece of punch.
I will start on an 8mm and switch to a 10mm piece if I can’t get bites – the bigger the bait, the easier it is to spot!
Because you’re not feeding you need to really work the hookbait by lifting and dropping the float around 6ins clear of the water and then slowly lowering it back in again.
This causes the hookbait to rise and fall in the water, a movement that fish at times find irresistible, and bites tend to come just as the float settles.
Dave Harrell's top 10 tips for fishing in 2018
The new year is now upon us and with it comes a time to reflect on what I have learn't over the past 12 months. Every time we reach that point where we think we’ve got everything worked out, someone comes up with something new in terms of tackle or tactics. So here are my top ten fishing tips for you to take in and use during 2018.
1) Feel the power
Last year I worked with Daiwa on a new range of rods. Two of these have very quickly become favourites for floatfishing for barbel and big chub.
Too many so-called ‘power’ rods are far too stiff for big fish, particularly when you’re using small hooks, but the Tournament RS 13PF and 14PF are perfect big-fish tools. I use them with 6lb (0.20mm) to 8lb (0.24mm) Pro Float lines and strong size 14 to 10 hooks, and have landed loads of big fish with them.
2) Step it up
Over the course of this series, I’ve written many times about ‘feeding to response’ and most of the time it’s good advice to heed.
If you’re getting loads of bites, keep the feed going in – but if bites are slow in coming, ease back and try not to overfeed.
This is always my advice when you’re fishing for roach, dace and chub, but I had to do it differently to catch barbel in the Severn Float Championship. On four of the six matches I was in trouble going into the latter stages. Bites were at a premium and light feeding was producing very little.
I took the gamble to feed heavily for the last 90 minutes in all four matches and it paid off for me, with barbel boosting my catches each time. Some called it lucky, but is it luck when you’re fishing for barbel in a certain way and it works?
3) Cup it in!
If you’re on a venue where bleak can be a problem, give plenty of thought to how you are going to put your groundbait in, as it can attract bleak from miles around! They home in on the splash of the balls going in and quite often you can’t get rid of them once they arrive in your swim.
The answer? Cup the groundbait balls in instead of throwing them. It’s a trick the regulars on the Thames circuit do, and it works!
4) Go hollow
For years I used solid elastics, but over the past 12 months I’ve got into the lighter grades of hollow Hydrolastic. I now use it for all my river work, including yellow for all my light hooklength and small hook work. It’s been much better than the elastics I used to fish with.
5) Go long
I used to think that 14ft feeder rods were a gimmick, but in situations where you need to cast a feeder a long way and keep as much line as possible out of the water, they’re well worth investing in.
The extra length allows you to position the rod so that there’s less drag on the line from the current than you get with shorter rods.
6) Fill it up
Here’s a tip that will save you money! When you’re filling a reel spool, either use a whole 300m spool to fill it or use backing line and just wind 100m on.
After a couple of months of use, reverse the line on to a second spool and the line that ends up on the top is brand new!
7) Tare it up
Hemp and tares have probably accounted for more big weights of roach than any other baits over the past few summer and autumn seasons.
I’d never go to a roach venue without at least half-a-pint of tares and a pint or two of hemp. You can loosefeed plenty of hemp but only feed a few tares every two or three put-ins.
Slip one on the hook after an hour of using other baits and don’t be surprised if you get a big roach straight away!
8) Put on a lob
I never used to have much confidence in lobworms as hookbait but all that has changed. For the past few seasons lobs have been my ‘go-to’ bait when a river is carrying colour. I use them whole or in different length pieces. When a perch or chub grabs hold, you very rarely miss them!
9) Don't ignore meat
Luncheon meat fell out of favour after pellets were introduced to our main rivers more than 15 years ago, but it’s now making a big comeback.
I’ve found Bait-Tech Poloni meat to be perfect for barbel and chub in coloured, and sometimes clear, water.
10) Halibut surprise
ONE bait that has been accounting for loads of big roach everywhere is 4mm halibut pellets – two-pounders love them.
It’s not uncommon to catch big redfins on quite crude gear once they’ve switched on to the loosefeed.
The best way to attach halibut pellets is to lasso them.
Top 10 tips to catching on a river in winter.
After a long spell of relatively mild weather, we’ve suddenly been plunged into winter! Air and water temperatures have dropped dramatically over the past couple of weeks, and river fishing has become a lot harder as a result.
The good news is that it won’t take the fish long to get used to the lower water temperatures, but it will be important to keep a check on both levels and temperature in order to get the best results between now and when the season closes. We've asked river maestro Dave Harrell to give us his top 10 ways to catch on a river in winter.
1) FLOATING LINES
One of the biggest mistakes anglers make when floatfishing on rivers with flow is to use a sinking line. It’s a recipe for disaster, as you won’t be able to control you line properly.
I use my own Pro Float lines. These are perfect for river fishing as they float really well and allow you to get maximum control over your float.
There’s 300m on a spool so you can fill most modern day reels with one shot – alternatively, you can fill up to three reels with 100m on each if you use backing.
A big tip I can give you with reel lines is to get into the habit of reversing the lines on to a different spool after a month or two. This will result in the line on the top being ‘new’ again.
I often get asked how often reel lines should be changed, and while there are no hard and fast rules, I tend to change mine, or reverse them, every couple of months or so.
2) FISH THE ‘CREASE’
In cold weather the ‘crease’ of a river – the area where the slow water close in meets the faster water further out – will be a haven for big roach! On some days you can get good catches by fishing this side of the crease when bites are hard to come by past it. Always experiment in both areas.
3) FLOAT SIZES
My old Shakespeare captain Ken Giles once explained to me about the importance of ‘bossing the river’ with float gear, and it’s one of best things I ever learnt. Too many anglers use floats, especially wagglers, which are much too small.
Make sure you can cast to where you need to be EASILY and then you will be able to beat elements like wind and flow.
4) SLOW IT DOWN
When you’re using rigs attached top and bottom it’s often useful to slow everything down by feeding the line off the reel with your fingers.
Try to do this without moving or jerking the float and you will eventually slow down the hookbait and make it much more appealing to fish than just letting it whizz through.
5) FISH OVERDEPTH
Wagglers are great floats for fishing at distance but they can be difficult to control, especially when there is a downstream wind.
You can overcome these conditions by using thick-topped Truncheon wagglers and putting extra depth on the rig. The thick tops of these floats are really buoyant and will pull the hookbait along the bottom without the float constantly dragging under.
6) FEEDING
In cold water don’t go mad with the feed but don’t stop altogether or fish won’t respond. Start with around 10 maggots every cast then feed to response.
Sometimes, just three or four maggots every run through is enough. When you consider that there are around 3,000 maggots in a pint you won’t need much feed for a whole session.
7) CASTING
When you’re fishing wagglers at distance, always cast the rig downstream. Imagine a clock face and cast to the one o’clock or two o’clock position.
This will put your rig in the right position to get perfect control and enable you to beat the current. If you cast directly in front you will be constantly fighting a bow as the line pulls in front of the float.
8) BACKWIND RIGS
Once you’ve mastered this technique you will definitely catch more fish on days when you are faced with considerable depth and flow.
Use a rig between 4g and 6g. Once it’s in the flow, engage the bail-arm and slowly wind the handle backwards. This is a great method for Bolo and Avon floats.
9) BLOCKS OF TIME
Give yourself five or 10-minute blocks of time fishing at a certain depth. This might be six inches on or off the depth, or more subtle 1ins-2ins changes.
Eventually you will find the ideal depth the fish want to feed at, and hopefully you can then cash in for the remainder of the session!
10) DON’T GIVE UP!
Over the next few weeks, the best time of day to catch fish will be during the last two hours, so don’t worry if you’re not catching from the off. Keep feeding lightly and be prepared for the best action as the light starts to fade.
Steve Ringer's: 6 BIG lessons learned in 2017
1) you’ve got to have window feeders in your box
This year I have to admit I’ve spent a lot of time fishing the feeder, and perhaps the biggest lesson I have learnt while doing so is the effectiveness of the window feeder (pictured left).
This was particularly apparent during the Feedermasters final at Bough Beech. As the two days wore on, I worked out that while a cage feeder was great for drawing fish into the swim, when it came to catching them the window feeder reigned supreme.
The way to fish it seemed to be to have 4-6 quick casts on a cage feeder, leaving it out for two minutes at a time to try and pull in some fish, then switch to the window to drag them down to the bottom and catch them.
A window feeder releases very little bait when falling through the water, so once the fish are there it helps to get them down on to the bottom.
As soon as bites tailed off I simply switched back to the cage feeder to start the process again! The only downside to the above lesson is that I didn’t work it out sooner!
2) unclip and move to keep catching
This was something I picked up on during the Daiwa Cup over on the Szeged Rowing Course in Hungary.
The Daiwa Cup is a feeder-only match and I’d had a brilliant start to the day, catching carp quite steadily.
However, with two hours to go the swim totally died. I was clipped up at 16m, and as time ticked away I felt I had to try something different, so I took half-a-metre off the clip, clipped back up, and cast out again.
This meant I was now fishing off the back of my bait and it was a move that worked a treat.
After not having had a bite for 30 minutes I promptly got one within 30 seconds!
I continued to use the little edge for the rest of the match – nicking two carp, then moving another 50cm out.
I think that as the carp became spooky they were simply backing off, so by keeping on the move I was able to pick them off.
I was fortunate enough to catch sufficiently well to win the match and the impressive trophies that came with it!
I’m convinced that if I’d had stayed put on the original line I’d have struggled for a bite for the rest of the match.
3) feed then cast, not the other way around
I picked up this brilliant little trick for bomb and pellet fishing from Paul Holland while we were filming the Fishing Gurus TV series earlier this year.
It’s actually something very simple yet at the same time something I had never done, and as soon as I saw Paul doing it, it made perfect sense to me.
He was feeding first, then casting into the feed circles on the surface – right on top of the loosefeed.
This way he knew that every time he cast out he was fishing right in amid his feed.
This is something I now always do and I’m totally convinced I catch a lot more fish as a result.
If you think about it, it’s a bit like pole fishing. You pot your bait in and then put your hookbait in the middle of the loosefeed. Feeding first allows me to replicate this while I’m fishing the lead.
4) sometimes you have to go find the fish!
It was the first round of the winter league at Guru Makins and I was on Thames Pool, peg 17. Two hours in I had just one carp to show for my efforts and I honestly felt the swim was pretty much empty, so I decided to revaluate my approach.
The only fish I could see moving were past the angler on my right, with nothing moving to the left.
Luckily, the angler on my left was fishing short and down the edge, so if the fish moved they could do so freely along the far bank.
With that in mind I decided to start a new swim across towards the boundary of my peg, as far to the right as I was allowed to go.
To say this worked a treat would be an understatement – I caught straight away in the new swim and went on to win the lake and the zone with 99lb of carp.
Interestingly, I caught only one fish in front of me and to the left, which just goes to show that the fish didn’t move all day.
Had I not gone as close to them as I dared I’d have ended up with very little in the net.
5) bream love a hybrid feeder attack
Ferry Meadows can be very weedy in places, but this trick got me out of jail during the Feeder Masters Super league.
Peg 4 on Overton certainly held bream – the problem was fishing for them! A conventional cage feeder was impossible. It picked up loads of weed on the retrieve, and at the same time I was never sure my hookbait was not covered in the stuff.
The answer was to go against the norm and fish a large Hybrid feeder with the hookbait buried – this way I knew that I would always be fishing effectively.
A Hybrid feeder is a lot more streamlined, so I picked up far less weed, and it made playing fish a lot easier.
I finished second in the match with just over 40lb of skimmers and bream. Had I fished the open end in a conventional manner I have no doubt I’d have caught less than half of what I ended up with.
6) chop up some worms and never give up!
Perhaps the most important lesson I learned in 2017 was to go down fighting! It was Round 3 of the FeederMasters Super League at Carr Mill Dam and with 90 minutes to go our Ringer Baits team was up against it.
Rob Wootton was doing well but brother Phil, dad Geoff and I were all well down our sections.
Not having had a bite for an hour, and with nothing to lose, I put in eight big feeders full of finely chopped worm to try and draw some fish into the swim.
I was then genuinely amazed to get a skimmer first cast after the bombardment! I quickly sent the message out for Geoff and Phil to do the same.
As a result I managed to make a bit of a comeback from probably 12th to seventh in section. Phil nicked a second and Geoff finished with a ninth.
Boosted by Rob’s second place, these scores were enough to win us the team event on the day, when with 90 minutes to go it had looked all over for us.
I think the message here is that all too often we sit there catching very little, having accepted our fate, and are even preparing our excuses for after the match along the lines of how ‘the fish just weren’t there’!
Looking back, there were fish present in my swim – I just had to make them have it rather than wait for them to do so on their own!
Feeder tips to keep you catching in the cold
The first frosts have arrived and the days are most certainly cold now.
This will have an effect on the fishing at even the most prolific of commercial carp waters and, in this instance, I bank on the bomb or a small feeder to get the best out of my peg.
This static approach allows me to set a trap and wait for the fish to come along, but it also lets me explore a lot of the peg in a way that the pole can’t. However, there are some things that you need to do in winter that are far removed from the way I’d fish the tip in summer. These may only be little tweaks but they really do make a difference in the cold!
Leave the bait in
In winter, it is important to think about how many carp you may realistically catch. For example, if this is only 10 fish in five hours then that means a fish every
half-an-hour. Because you won’t get a bite on every cast, there’s no need to go reeling in the bomb or feeder every few minutes.
Lots of casts means more disturbance in the swim and the chance of spooking the fish. For that reason I’ll leave my rig in the water for up to 20 minutes at a time before winding in.
Use light bombs
It’s important to fish as light as you can on the bomb. This is due to fish not liking the sound of a heavy weight hitting the water, especially on a calm day. Use a bomb that’s just light enough to cast to where the fish are. I normally find that three eighths of an ounce to half an ounce are about right for a short to medium-range chuck.
Watch that tip!
Using a bomb is one of the easiest ways of finding fish in the winter because the quivertip registers giveaways in the shape of line bites. I begin by fishing short and then creep out further and further into the lake until I start to get line bites. When this happens I then know that I’ve found the fish.
However, don’t strike at these ‘liners’ because you could end up foul-hooking fish, plus you’ll be bringing the rig in and casting out again, thus creating needless disturbance in the swim.
How to tie Steve Ringer's best feeder rig
In recent seasons I’ve had a complete re-think of my feeder rigs and I now swear by a running paternoster rig for all my natural water feeder fishing for roach, skimmers, and bream.
It’s a simple rig and, thanks to the home-made feeder link I tie, it’s completely tangle-free!
The anti-tangle properties mean it doesn’t snarl up on even the biggest casts.
This in itself gives me the confidence to leave my rig out in the water for longer periods – something which is crucial when it comes to feeder fishing at this time of year.
Paternoster rigs took a bit of a back seat in favour of short, bolt-style rigs for many years,
but they’re having a real resurgence right now as the passion for feeder fishing continues to grow and big matches return to our larger waters.
I’ve been using this rig for a couple of seasons now – including at the World Feeder Championships for England, and I’m yet to find any downside to it.
The rig casts well when used with the correct feeder, you can quickly and easily change feeders and hooklengths when you need to, and bite detection isn’t compromised either – so what’s not to like about it?
If you haven’t got on to my feeder link yet, here’s how to tie it… it’s not difficult.
To make the link you will need some 0.47mm Korda Mouth Trap – a stiff filament carp anglers use to make chod rigs – size 14 or 16 snaplink swivels, 0.6mm crimps and some wide-bore beads which you can find at most hobby stores these days.
1) Cut a 4ins length of the Mouth Trap material and thread on a crimp, followed by a wide-bore bead. The bead needs to be wide enough to not only get the Mouth Trap through, but have enough bore diameter for your mainline or shockleader to run through too.
2) Put the line back through the second hole in the crimp and pull everything tight. You will then have the bead sitting on top of the crimp. Ensure the bead is sitting straight and then use crimping pliers to fix the bead into place.
3) It’s then a case of repeating the process at the other end of the link, only this time you’re fixing in a snaplink swivel instead of a bead. The snaplink allows you to clip your feeder on and off the rig.
4) The length of the finished link is down to personal choice, and I’ve used them from just over an inch to 4ins long. In my experience, though, 1.5ins is the perfect length.
5) With the link ready to go, I then thread it on to the mainline or shockleader and add a small line stop or feeder bead below.
6) To keep the hooklength away from the feeder I use an anti-tangle, twizzled loop at the end of my mainline. Simply take hold of the end of your line and roll it between your finger and thumb so it twists up.
7) Tie a double overhand loop at the tag end of the twizzled loop. I like the twizzled end to be around 4ins long to keep the hooklength away from the feeder.
8) The line stop and feeder link pull down to sit against the knot, and the hooklength attaches to the small loop at the end of the twizzled section. Job done!
Steve Ringer
Former Feeder World Champion
Top 10 river fishing tips with Dave Harrell
This season I think we’ll be in for some very good fishing, now that most of our rivers have received a welcome flush through of water. If you’ve not been on a river for a while, why not do yourself a favour and get out there? I think you might well be pleasantly surprised at what’s on offer. Here are a few ideas to point you in the right direction…
1) Target barbel
Over the next few months I’ll be setting some days aside to go on the Trent, Severn and Wye, and I’m hoping to beat my personal best fish of 13lb 12oz which fell to feeder-fished halibut pellets. I’ve had float-caught specimens to 12lb-plus, so fingers crossed I’ll have a new personal best soon!
2) Target bream
Bream shoal up at this time of the year and if you drop on them you could be in for a bonanza of a day!
The very best way is with an open-end groundbait feeder and worms.
Keep the feeder going in regularly every few minutes for the first hour then leave it in a bit longer as each hour goes by. I normally start with a 3ft tail, then shorten if I’m getting a lot of bites, or lengthen it by a foot or two if not many bites are forthcoming.
3) Target perch
We’re entering a period of the season now that is possibly the best time for big perch. All rivers seem to now hold good stocks of these fish, and there are some specimen-sized lumps there for the taking.
My favourite way to catch them is with pole gear and a lobworm on the hook. Feed the swim with a bait dropper filled with chopped worm
and caster.
4) Try a pole
A long pole gives you perfect presentation and puts you back in the same place every time. Used in conjunction with hollow elastics, it’s possible to land very big fish on one too.
This season I’ve had barbel to nearly 10lb on pole gear, and while I’m not advocating that everyone switches to a pole for that species, it does go to show what is achievable.
5) Target chub
At this time of year, try floatfishing for chub off the bottom with waggler gear.
I’ve had loads of big weights in autumn by fishing 4ft to 6ft deep with just a couple of No8 shot down the line and using single or double maggot on the hook.
Remember, though, you have to keep the feed going in regularly and make sure that your hookbait is dropping through the feed.
6) Use bigger floats
To conquer the flow you might need to fish quite heavy sticks, Bolos and wagglers. A 6g or 8g float should be used with at least a 4lb mainline, possibly even heavier if there are a lot of big fish in the swim.
7) Target roach
Good nets of roach are being caught all over the country at present. You can target them in so many ways, but the best way to my mind is with float gear.
Seed baits have been working well lately, but with lowering air and water temperatures I’d recommend you put your faith in maggots and casters over the next couple of months.
8) Check river levels
There’s nothing worse than turning up at a river only to find it high and coloured.
You can aviod this by visiting the Environment Agency website. Enter the river and area you intend to fish and the latest levels will be revealed. Here’s the link: https://flood-warning-information.service.gov.uk/river-and-sea-levels
9) Try a whip
With a long whip you know you are fishing in the same spot every run down. Keep the feed going in and you can end up with a lot of fish in front of you that are fairly easy to catch. I elasticate my tips with hollow elastic, providing a buffer against snap-offs if you hook a big fish.
10) Try different baits
We can all get set in our ways when it comes to baits, but one thing I have noticed over the past few years is that maggots and casters in the feeder seem to catch a lot more barbel and chub than pellets.
You’ll need to fish a river that is fairly clear to achieve the best results with these baits, but they’re well worth trying if you’re struggling to catch on pellets.
Steve Ringer's autumn margin fishing masterclass
Now's the time of year I love on commercials – it’s margin time! The fish are well aware that colder weather is on its way, and September is when they really start to get their heads down and try to pack on a bit of weight.
This makes margin fishing, with its heavy feeding regime, one of the best tactics for a big catch right now.
Q. When should I try fishing the margins?
Steve says: I won’t feed down the edge until at least three hours into a session because there’s no point until the carp are starting to move closer to the bank looking for food.
If you feed any earlier, small silver fish will eat everything and the initial impact of feeding the swim will be lost. What you have to remember about edge fishing is that when the carp arrive you can catch very quickly, so a big weight will still be possible even in the last hour.
Q. What depth do I need to have to be able to fish down the edge?
Steve says: Ideally I like to have between 10ins and 18ins of water down the edge. If the water is shallower than 10ins, big carp can be very spooky and difficult to catch, even though you can see them!
Equally, if it’s too deep, it can be tricky to keep the fish on the bottom and line bites then become a problem.
When plumbing up, try to find a relatively flat area to both feed and fish on. What you don’t really want is a spot where the bottom is all over the place, as it makes it hard to settle the fish if this is the case.
You also need to be fishing as tight to the bank as possible to stop fish swimming the wrong side of the float, as this can lead to line bites and foul-hookers.
Q. Do I need a particular type of float?
Steve says: The best margin floats are not only tough, but have a decent bristle, and will take a bit of shot.
A 0.2g or 0.3g MW Margin Diamond is perfect, even when fishing in just inches of water.
The Margin Diamond has a big, thick bristle which allows me to read what’s happening in the swim a lot easier, especially in helping me tell the difference between liners and proper bites. For this reason I like to leave a good half-inch of bristle showing when edge fishing.
Q. What rig do you use? Do you fish straight through or use hooklengths?
Steve says: I fish heavy for big fish... 0.22mm N-Gauge mainline to a 4ins hooklength of 0.19mm and a size 14 Guru XS spade-end hook.
Hooklengths make my rigs more adaptable and save loads of time, should I need to change the hook size or pattern on the bank.
Shotting is a strung bulk of No10s with the bottom shot 6ins from the hook and the rest spaced at one-inch intervals above this.
I don’t like the bottom shot too close to the hook, as I find when big fish are in the swim it can lead to line bites and fish spooking.
Q. Which elastic is best?
Steve says: Nine times out of 10 it’s Red Hydro, on lakes where the carp average 8lb-plus.
Red is powerful enough to quickly steer the carp out of the swim once hooked, but at the same time it’s still soft enough to absorb that first run.
On waters with smaller fish I will use White Hydro on a puller kit, giving me that all-important softness on the strike but then the ability to get fish in by using the puller.
Q. How much bait do I need to feed, and how do I feed it?
Steve says: Really attack the swim. I kick off by feeding between eight and 10 large, 250ml pots of bait.
There are two reasons – first, to try and hold the fish in the swim for as long as possible and second, to give the impression to any fish in the area that I’m packing up and have thrown all my leftover bait in.
Q. What bait should I put on the hook?
Steve says: Big hookbaits! You need to give the carp something they can really home in on among all the loose offerings.
My favourites are bunches of 8-10 maggots, or even double corn if small nuisance silver fish are still a problem.
Always have the same bait on the hook that you are feeding. Edge carp can be clever, and it makes no sense to feed one bait and fish another!
Q. Should I feed again after catching a fish?
Steve says: I always try to ‘fish out’ my initial feed first. Once this is done there are several ways you go about feeding the swim and it’s simply a case of working out which one is right on the day.
You can try putting a big pot in and catching a fish and then feeding another big pot – alternatively you can repeat the big hit of bait and try and catch several fish off that. There are no golden rules, so experimentation is the key!
Q. Do you still use groundbait as feed?
Steve says: Groundbait is brilliant in shallow water, but if the swim is too deep, even a heavy overwetted mix can prove to be a recipe for disaster.
The problem with groundbait in deep water is that once there are carp in the swim it gets wafted about all over the place. In deep water this leads to carp feeding off the bottom.
In deep margins you are better off looking at heavier baits such as sweetcorn or big hard pellets that will stay on the bottom.
With the right depth, though, there’s no better edge combination than groundbait and dead maggots.
My favourite mix is Dynamite Baits Sweet Fishmeal, slightly over-wetted so it will stay put on the bottom.
Q. How do I stop fish from spooking?
Steve says: Quite often you will look down the edge to see tails everywhere, only to quickly ship your rig out and discover they have all vanished.
You ship back in and then they are back again. It’s so frustrating, and the reason they do it is that they have been spooked by the shadow of the pole over their heads. To try and prevent this I hide my pole by keeping it over the bank rather than over the water. A longer-than-normal length of line between pole float and pole-tip can help too.
Q. How long should I give it?
Steve says: You need to be patient. Provided you know there are carp in the swim, just sit and wait. ‘Chasing’ will only spook them out of the swim and lead to foul-hookers.
The only moving of the float I like to do is to occasionally lift and lower it, just to make sure the rig is sitting straight. Lifting and lowering can also help a feeding fish spot the hookbait.
By Steve Ringer
What to put in your groundbait
Some anglers remain confused about which groundbait to use in their open-end feeder.
I fish sweet crumb on natural waters and fishmeal on commercials or lakes that see pellets and boilies fed regularly.
If I’m on a venue where anglers tend to feed a lot of pellets then I always go for fishmeal such as Sonubaits Maggot Fishmeal, whereas if it’s a more natural venue that doesn’t see too many carp anglers, such as a fishery in Ireland for example, I’ll go for a cereal groundbait – try Sonu’s Super Crumb Bream.
Some anglers like very dry mixes when fishing the feeder but I normally mix my groundbait slightly on the damp side, just enough so it holds together when formed into a ball.
So, with the groundbait sorted, what do you add to it? There are plenty of options, so here’s my quick and easy guide…
Maggots
Deads are best for bream, live maggots are better for roach and perch. A single bait is ideal for use with small hooks but use multiples for bigger bream.
Pinkies
My No 1 choice for skimmers on natural venues. I’ll put dead fluoro pinkies (freeze them) in my groundbait and have two or three on the hook.
Casters
For bream I’ll feed these with some finely chopped worm in a 30:70 worm to caster ratio. They’re also a good change bait when fished as a double.
Worms
Bream love these all year round, not just in summer. Your groundbait must be dry when adding choppy, otherwise the juices will turn the mix into a mush.
Pellets
I add 2mm or 4mm soaked pellets to fishmeal groundbait on ‘pellet-heavy’ waters. They also form the base of my feeder mix when fishing the Method.
Sweetcorn
This works on natural and non-natural venues and sorts out the bigger bream. You don’t need much in the groundbait, maybe a good handful but no more.
How to catch more bream on a feeder
The basic principles of groundbait feeder fishing for bream were laid down decades ago, but numerous tweaks have made it even more effective on the modern-day match circuit.
Mark Pollard was a big fan of the groundbait feeder ‘back in the day’ and has rekindled his love for it recently. This week he reveals exactly how he uses it to keep the slabs coming.
Versatile rig
“If you set a Method or pellet feeder rig up there is very little you can change without having to start from scratch. But that isn’t the case with a groundbait feeder – it can be adjusted to stay in touch with the fish.
“I will always use a feeder bead with a quick-change swivel so I can change the feeder whenever I like. Start the day with a bigger feeder to get some bait down and then switch to a smaller one for topping up as you fish.
“A lot of commercial fishing these days requires regular casting but I will leave the feeder in for at least 15 minutes before winding in and re-chucking it.
“I start with an 18ins hooklength but will extend this by 6ins if I’m not getting bites. I’ll keep doing this until I find the fish. On the flip side, I will shorten it if I am getting line bites that tell me the fish are near the feeder.
“I go with a 3.8m Matrix Horizon S-Class rod that will reach the required distance with ease when combined with a Matrix Super Feeder 5500 reel. Mainline is 4lb with a 30g Matrix Dome feeder run on it to a 0.12mm Matrix Power Micron hooklength and a size 18 Matrix SW Feeder hook.”
Bait choice
“The groundbait mix is very important. The wrong blend will not appeal to bream and you’ll struggle to put together the big catches that could be possible.
“I use three different products mixed together. Dynamite Baits Silver X Roach is packed with attractants, Frenzied Hemp Black Match darkens it off and brown crumb binds it all together.
“Cocktail baits are brilliant for bream fishing and I always have worms, red maggots, casters and pinkies on my side tray.
“Any combination of these can work, and it is a matter of trial and error on the day to see which is the most effective.
“On some waters where a lot of pellets are fed I will try a 6mm banded pellet or maybe even a mini boilie.”
Explore the swim
“You might start catching really well and think you’ve cracked it, but then bites could suddenly stop, leading you to think the bream have gone.
“But it is highly likely they have backed off ever so slightly. Unclip and go a few metres further out and your tip will often go round on the very next chuck.
“Although you want to keep the bait fairly tight, don’t be afraid of covering an area perhaps a metre across, as you want to create a table of feed that a big shoal of bream can graze over.”
Top 5 river fishing tips for running water
1) Carp: Don’t be afraid to fish big baits. Smaller fish like bream and chub will take boilies so if your specifically targeting this species try two 20mm boilies.
2) Chub: If you’re hair-rigging your bait don’t tie it too long. Chub are notoriously finicky and fishing a short hair will maximise your chances of hooking one.
3) Roach: Look for the slack areas in the river as this is where they love to hang out.
Try hemp and casters either in the feeder or in conjunction with a stickfloat.
4) Bream: Use a sticky groundbait mix especially in a powerful river such as the Trent because it’s surprising how quickly your mix will break up and carry your bait downstream.
5) Barbel: So many anglers use boilies and pellets for them these days so those who mix it up as regards to bait often reap the rewards. Try meat or even worms as it could be something the barbel in your river haven’t seen in ages.
How to get more bites when fishing
Take a look at this new take on an old method from Steve Ringer that is guaranteed to get you more bites when fishing on your next match. Steve has managed to give his fishing that extra edge in the last few weeks by fishing this new method as it has allowed him to faster carp bites on the feeder take a look at this devastating new method and let us know what you think!
The straight lead and pellet has long been a deadly combination, but recently I’ve had a great run of results by feeding as if I was on the bomb, but fishing a huge, pellet-packed Hybrid feeder instead!
This way I have been getting much quicker bites. I can only think this is down to the carp finding the bait that bit quicker, as there’s a lot more to home in than just a single hookbait.
The other secret to this tactic has been to fish right on top of my loosefeed.
In the past I have caught lots of carp just off the back of the feed but just lately they have been bang on the loosefed pellets. Putting my feeder in the right place has made all the difference.
Here’s how to do it…
Feeding your swim
I like to feed as far out as I possibly can. If I can feed past those around me this gives me my own bit of water out of which to pull fish.
The next thing to consider is that I want the carp to stay on the bottom. The way I feed the swim has to reflect this.
Instead of feeding little and often, as I would normally do, I have had a lot more success by what I call ‘double pouching’. As the name suggests, this involves feeding two big pouchfuls of bait one after the other.
My theory is that the carp are tuned into noise. They hear the first pouchful of pellets hitting the water and then, when the second lot hit, they follow them down to the bottom where the feeder is.
Feeding double pouchfuls also means you’re putting a lot of bait in. This helps to keep the fish on the bottom, which is obviously where you need them when you’re fishing the feeder.
One key element when fishing in this manner is to keep feeding. I’ll fire out a double pouchful over the feeder every two minutes to try and draw more and more carp into the swim.
Accuracy is crucial
A little trick I use to ensure my feeder is right in among my loosefed pellets is to feed first and then cast right on top of the loose offerings.
I like to clip my loaded feeder on so it’s ready to cast, feed twice in quick succession, and cast right into the rings the loosefed pellets have made.
I’m not a fan of casting and leaving the feeder out for ages, as most bites will come within two minutes when the carp are really having it. There’s no point sitting waiting for the tip to go round.
Fish a slack line
I like to fish a slack line with virtually no bend in the quivertip. This helps to reduce line bites, which lessens the chance of spooking fish out of the swim.
When a fish bumps into the mainline there’s every chance it will leave the swim, especially if that line is bowstring-taut.
Don’t worry about fishing slack and not spotting bites. When you get a fish the rod will bend in half!
Of course, if you get a drop-back bite, which is unlikely at such short range, you can still tell. The line falls totally slack between the tip and where it meets the water.
My Hybrid rig for big fish
My set-up couldn’t be much simpler. For waters like Barston and Boddington, feeder choice is the large, 28g Hybrid – I’m targeting decent-sized carp, and what better way to do it than with a big feeder?
The only change I make to the feeder is to remove the inline stem and replace it with the long, X-Safe stem loaded with black elastic.
I feel I lose fewer fish when using elastic, and when the hooked carp are 8lb-10lb this can make a huge difference to my final weight.
Moving down, the hooklength is 4ins of 0.19mm N-Gauge and the hook is a size 10 QM1.
Just recently I have been using size 10s for all my big-carp work and I haven’t found anything not to like about them. It might look like a big hook, but if you look at the size of an 8lb carp’s mouth then it suddenly begins to seem somewhat small by comparison!
Washed out hookbaits
It will be no surprise to anyone reading this to find that hookbaits are all about my favourite 10mm Wafters. The two colours I favour are the trusty orange and the washed-out yellow.
Over the last two years I’ve caught more carp on the Chocolate Orange Wafter than any other bait, so I’d be silly not to have it in my armoury.
However, when fishing the Hybrid feeder over loosefed pellets I have to admit if I had to choose just one colour it would be washed-out yellow.
Once in the water, this shade of Wafter actually looks very much like a loosefed pellet, and I think that’s why it has caught me so many carp on this tactic.