Commercial Fishing Tips | Six tips to get the most out of soft pellets - Lee Kerry

November 16, 2020 Guest User

It's time to make the seasonal switch to soft pellets! Here are six tips to get the most out of them…

SOAK THE FEED PELLETS

My No1 cold water feed pellet is a soaked 2mm. Referred to as micros, I soak mine heavily, submerging them in a Pellet Wetter for three to four minutes so they dissolve as the fish eat them.

MIX UP HOOKBAIT SIZES

You can’t beat an expander pellet on the hook. A 4mm bait is the optimum size, but I have a mix of 3mm, 4mm and 6mm expanders on the go and change them depending on the size of fish I’m catching.

HOOKING EXPANDERS

I like to thread the hook fully through the pellet, getting as much hook into the bait as possible. This makes it less likely that the hook will pull out of the bait when you strike or lift and drop the rig.

Try to get as much hook into the bait as possible

THE RIGHT RIGS

When fishing pellets, you need complete control of your bait. I use a maximum of a 4ins hooklength so that as soon as a fish picks up the bait, the bite registers on the float, even if the indication is tiny.

You need the bite to register on the float as soon as the fish picks up the bait

BALANCE YOUR KIT

The lighter the hooklength you use, the more bites you’ll get. I love the Preston Innovations 9h Hollo elastic, with a stiff mainline such as 0.18mm Accu Power, but hooklengths down to 0.10mm if required.

The lighter hooklink you use, the more bites you will get

THEY MIGHT NOT WORK!

Sometimes soft pellets won’t catch that well. If you’re on a difficult water, then soft pellets are a good choice. However, if you are getting lots of fish you don’t want to target, go for a hard pellet or corn.

If you are getting lots of bites from small fish, try switching to hard pellets or corn

Commercial Fishing Tips | Ready your pellets with Steve Ringer

August 25, 2020 Guest User

Given the range of pellet sizes, shapes and colours on the shelves of tackle shops, it’s easy to see how anglers can get confused about which is the right one to use.

Years ago, life was a lot easier. We had plain brown pellets in just a couple of sizes but now we’ve got micros through to big 10mm ‘donkey chokers’ and colours from bright yellow to black. You’ll get bites on them all, but some will be much better than others – if you know which ones!

I tend to use just a couple of sizes – micros and 6mms – for much of my summer pellet fishing, and I stick to plain-coloured baits. Most carp and F1s are reared on plain pellets, so they see them as part of their diet.

Having an edge, though, is important and that’s where colours come into play.

On some venues, I’ve struggled to catch on a brown pellet but emptied the lake by changing to a red one. Swapping sizes can also have a big effect. Experimentation is key, but getting the basics sorted is the first thing to get right.

Micro pellets

At this time of year micros won’t get to the bottom due to small fish. I will only use them in shallow water and on a Hybrid feeder.

Big pellets

The best all-rounders are 6mm pellets. Big enough to be loosefed on a waggler or feeder line, they make plenty of attracting noise.

The plop of a 6mm pellet is hard for a carp to resist

Expanders

Expanders are a great, light hookbait for carp and bream. The only time I’d feed them would be on shallow and very silty lakes.

Colour them

On venues where the water is heavily coloured, a red expander pellet will stand out that bit better because it creates more of a silhouette.

Colouring your pellets can be a real edge

Commercial Fishing Tips - Break out the pellet wag! - Steve Ringer

June 19, 2020 Guest User

There’s something unique about fishing the pellet waggler. Incorporating big floats, big hookbaits, regular casting and aggressive, frequent bites, it’s a method that really gets the adrenaline pumping.

It comes into its own at this time of the year, when the sun is high in the sky, the mercury is hovering at around 20 degrees celcius and the fish are cruising about in the upper layers. Although the main quarry is carp of all sizes, it will catch other species too, and it’s a lot easier to fish shallow than the long pole.

Now is the time to get active with the pellet waggler

It’s also a very busy method, one that gives you better results if you work hard at it. You might make 50 casts without a bite but on that 51st chuck, the float will bury. If it doesn’t, then you should wait no longer than about 30 seconds before you reel in and repeat the process.

Get things right and the bites will be almost instant, as the fish will be sat waiting for the splash of the float hitting the water and the pellet hookbait alongside it.

Pick your float

There are two main types – balsa and foam-bodied. The balsa is an all-rounder, while the foam is for going very shallow on hot days.

Make sure you pick the right float for the conditions

Get the right size

Loaded floats are my only choice. On big lakes, we’re talking floats with a 10g to 12g loading but elsewhere half that size will do.

Don’t sit and wait

Cast so the float lands just behind the feed and twitch the reel handle to draw it into the feed. Bait and twitch again, then it’s time to recast.

You have to stay active to win with the pellet waggler

Choose pellets

For F1s use a 6mm hard pellet fished in a bait band and for carp try an 8mm pellet. A good change bait is a pellet wafter.

Use hard pellets, 6mm for F1s and 8mm for carp

Commercial Fishing Tips | Hard pellets for winter carp with Jamie Hughes

December 30, 2019 Guest User

When you think of winter pellet fishing an image of fishing small expanders over micros immediately springs to mind.

But while this may be spot-on for catching F1s, for ‘proper’ carp hard pellets are my choice.

These baits are associated with the bagging days of summer, but they can still be effective in winter if you use them correctly.

I think these baits are better suited to commons and mirrors, and a small quantity of 4mm or 6mm baits is all you need for a day’s fishing.

Setting Traps

The way I fish hard pellets is to rotate a few lines on the pole, tapping in just a small amount of 6mm or 4mm baits and holding my rig right over the top.

I’m setting little traps all around my peg and am waiting for the carp to slip up.

And ‘waiting’ is a key word – you’ve got to be patient at this time of year. You may only get 10 bites, but when they’re from proper fish it’s worth doing.

It’s always worth having a good plumb around to find the different depths of your peg, and you can then try these various areas to find where the fish are sat.

Jamie Birch House Feb-5 - Hard Pellets.jpg

Accuracy is Key

When fishing this way, being accurate is essential, and I will feed almost exclusively with a small pole pot.

Catapults are brilliant in summer, but in winter they spread your bait around a bit too much, and when you’re only feeding tiny amounts this isn’t right.

My rigs reflect this pinpoint approach, and I see no place for strung-out rigs that work through the water.

I opt for heavy floats shotted positively. These are very stable and help to keep my bait firmly in place while I await a bite.

On tackle, I never go too light when fishing for proper carp and wouldn’t go below 0.12mm hooklengths and No8-12 elastics.

Last Resort Micros

If the fishing is absolutely rock-hard then I’ll reach for micro pellets, as these can scrape out a fish when nothing else can. But this really is a last resort.

Micros bring small silvers into the peg, and when you’re after proper carp this is the last thing you want to happen.

Catch quality fish on pellets with Des Shipp

February 10, 2017 Richard Grange

When the chips are down in the depths of winter, there’s a bait I always turn to for F1s and that’s maggots.
From Tunnel Barn Farm to Hillview Fisheries, I’ve enjoyed some great results since the turn of the year fishing and feeding maggots, even when there’s ice on the water and the added bonus is that a pint or two of reds will also catch me vital weight-building silverfish while I’m waiting for the F1s to arrive.
However, this best of both worlds isn’t always the right way to go about things, especially if the peg is full of tiny roach. The silverfish have to be of a decent-enough stamp to make fishing for them worthwhile but you have to accept that there will be days when there’s only tiny fish to be caught - in this instance, I’ll reach into the bag and break out pellets.
True, pellets are more selective and you wait a lot longer for a bite but you’ll bypass the little fish and know that when the float buries, it’ll be an F1 or a decent skimmer. However, I’ll rarely try and turn a maggot line into a pellet one – instead I will begin a new line a few metres away and feed just pellets. This always seems to work better than trying to catch off one line that’s already full of little roach and skimmers!
On a cold, misty day at Hillview Fisheries in Gloucestershire, low water temperatures combined with a never-ending stream of half ounce roach knocked the theory of catching a big bag of F1s on maggots on the head. Feeding a dozen maggots with a small pot every drop in at 13m only seemed to encourage more little fish into the swim without a sign of an F1. Not ideal but not a disaster either as I had pellets in my bait bag! Yes it was going to take longer to catch but the pay-off would be something that pulled back when I got a bite. All it needs from the angler is a bit of patience.

Feeding
With the decision made to switch to pellets, how does the feeding change? Not much to be frank and I will still begin using a small pot introducing eight or nine dampened Fin Perfect 4mm pellets every drop in. A 4mm pellet is the ideal size for winter F1s and I also have a catapult on my tray in case I need to begin firing in bait to make a bit of noise to encourage the F1s to investigate.

Band on the hook
A soft expander pellet will simply be ragged off the hook by tiny skimmers and roach so that means using a hard pellet for the hook. A hard 4mm Fine Perfect to complement the feed is just the job and I fish this in a small pellet band but rather than tying up a hair-rig with the band tied to it, I simply slip the hook through the band and then slot the pellet into place. It’s not strictly hair-rigged but I find this way of fishing quicker and get no less bites doing it.

Two rigs for one job!
The maggot rig that I have been fishing with to begin the session can also be used for pellet work with just the addition of the pellet band. The float is a 4x12 F1 Maggot from my new range, which is light enough to give the pellet a slow fall through the swim because I’m convinced that F1s and skimmers in winter sit a foot off bottom and watch it fall in the final few feet of the swim before taking it. Use a heavy float and the bait will bomb down too quickly and you’ll miss out on so many bites.
Lines for this rig are light in keeping with the conditions, so that means 0.13mm Powerline main to a hooklink of 0.10mm to 0.12mm Precision Power depending on how hard the fishing is, and a size 18 PR434 hook, which is a very light hook but still capable of landing a bonus carp when used with 9h original Hollo elastic. I set the rig to fish slightly overepth, plumbing up so just the float body is above the surface, being sure to dot the float down well and strike at every dip.

Lowering it in
Because the fish watch the bait it is important to gently lower the rig into the peg rather than being in a rush to get the float cocked and ready for action. I’ll lay the bottom half of the rig in and then lay the upper half of the rig complete with float in the opposite direction over the top. This means that there is no tight line as the rig settles and so the pellet sinks naturally giving the fish time to pick it out and take it. A strung bulk is ideal for this, situated in the bottom third of the rig.

How to catch winter F1s on PVA bags and Band Ums with Adam Wakelin

January 5, 2017 Richard Grange

Bonus fish are always worth their weight in gold on any type of venue, even more so in winter when 5lb can cover to the top four at the end of a match but dividing your time between catching bread and butter weight-building fish and spending time in search of a bonus is a delicate tight rope to walk.
Waste too much time fishing for a carp and drawing a blank and you’ll fall behind whereas if you don’t give it enough time, you’re not doing the swim justice. This is common on venues where there are lots of skimmers but also a good head of big carp that can really knock your weight up a few notches.

All in the timing
So when do you have a go for a carp and for how long? There’s no text book written about this and each day is different. However, one thing always remains the same in that carp normally feed best in the opening and final half hour of the match so I would devote this time to fishing for lumps! After this, I will be fishing for carp and F1s much as I would if I was after big perch on a canal – having a quick look every 20 or 30 minutes. You only need the quiver to go round once and you’re in business. One or two casts in the maximum I would make each time.

Bags of promise!
I don’t even consider using a feeder or groundbait to catch carp. I’ve found that big fish much prefer to feed on ‘hard’ baits, namely pellets. Add groundbait and you only draw skimmers in, which are what you don’t want to catch. So pellets it is and although you could use a Method or pellet feeder, these would involve feeding dampened softened pellets, which is a recipe for attracting skimmers too!
That only leaves me with PVA bags to get the feed close to the hookbait. By filling Avid PVA Stocking Mesh with a mix of 4mm and 6mm Sonubaits F1 hard pellets and a few 2mm hard krill pellets, the carp and F1s are presented with a small pile or crunchy goodies right on top of the hookbait. I make my bags up the night before and load each one with enough pellets to fill up a small Cad Pot – the finished bag should be around the size of a 50p piece.

Go the distance
Only on an odd occasion will a carp or F1 venture onto my skimmer feeder line and experience tells me that the big fish much prefer to sit well out into the lake away from any commotion. That means winding up a big cast of perhaps 60m, where you can find your own water. This basically means fishing a line that those anglers around you aren’t. This way you will have any fish on the area coming to your feed and your feed alone.
The longer you can cast, the better your results will be so you may have to blast the rig a long way but in general, a 50 or 60m cast is comfortable and far enough. However, you’ll need a more specialised rod than a standard 11ft bream rod to hit the spot. That means digging the 12ft Preston Innovations Equis Feeder rod out of the holdall to really put some backbone into the chuck, especially when there’s a PVA bag attached to the rig.

Stepped up tackle
You could hook a 15lb carp on this rod so you don’t want to lose it. That is reflected in the tackle used, made up of 5lb Preston Powermax mainline with an 8lb shockleader and a 50cm hooklink of 0.17mm Powerline finished off with a size 14 PR27 eyed hook to hair-rig baits. Because I’m not using a feeder, I fish an inline Match Cube bomb of 1oz or even 1.5oz. Inside this I run an elasticated Interchange Stem to help make the rig even more self-hooking. Many fisheries won’t allow elasticated bombs or feeders but where allowed, I want to use them. If not, I simply run the bomb on the mainline.

Hookbaits
Because there’s only a small patch of bait for the carp to home in on, I like to give them a bit of a helping hand by fishing a bright hookbait. Again, hard is best to avoid trouble from skimmers and pretty much all I need is a tub of 8mm Sonubaits Band ‘Ums, which are hard dumbbell-shaped pellets in a range of colours.
As a guide, the red Krill or orange Band ‘Ums are excellent for carp and F1s when the fishing is good but if sport was slow in cold weather, I’ve caught more by changing to a white or yellow bait.

Threading the bag
If I was casting short then I wouldn’t hesitate to nick the PVA bag directly onto the hook but this is no good for a long cast, as the bag will rip off the hook. The solution is to thread it down the hooklink and onto the hook as this will hold in place perfectly. Here’s how to do it: