River Fishing Tips | How to set up a flat float - Darren Cox
The flat float rig
IT MAY look tricky, but setting up a flat float is easy once you’ve done it a few times.
On a river the idea is to present the bait well overdepth and completely static. That means plumbing up so there’s anything between 12ins and 24ins of line and the bait laid on the riverbed.
To do this, set up with a single large dropper shot under the olivette and put a clip-on plummet on the shot.
Plumb as normal so that this shot effectively ends up just off bottom with that long bit of line on the bottom below it. You can add a few small shot to the line on the deck if you want to make sure the bait remains totally still.
I’d shot the float to leave around half the bristle on show. When held back, the bristle will rise up slightly but without having any of the float body come out of the water. A 3g flat float will manage most situations but in very strong flows this could be upped to 5g.
Components
FLOAT - 3g Cralusso
LINES - 0.16mm Garbo Line fished straight through
SHOTTING - Fix the olivette 12ins away from a large dropper shot set just off bottom
DEPTH - Set the rig to be fished 2ft overdepth
HOOK Size - 13 Kamasan B711
HOOKBAIT - A whole worm or three or four dead maggots
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 | 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!
