Commercial Fishing Tips | Get on the skimmers with Steve Ringer
AT this time of year, carp and F1s can be fickle creatures. Cooling water makes them less inclined to feed for long spells and, for the angler, that can mean a lot of wasted time spent waiting for a bite.
By changing your target species to skimmers, though, action is guaranteed. I know that they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, thanks to the slime they always leave behind on landing nets and clothing, but if they’re the right size, then skimmers are a great fish to spend those quiet spells of the session fishing for.
They grow big in commercials, thanks to a diet of pellets, meaning that catching 30lb of fish around the 1lb 8oz to 2lb mark is relatively simple. They also don’t need a specialised approach. When you’re fishing a commercial water the baits you use for carp will just as readily be taken by skimmers –namely corn and pellets.
Skimmers are a great fish to spend those quiet spells of the session fishing for
Catch close in
Skimmers like deeper water, and to catch them quickly you need to fish close in too. Look for so 5ft depth around 6m out. For the bigger fish you might have to go longer and deeper though.
Look for a depth of around 5ft for skimmers
Balls of pellets
Micros are the best feed on commercials, because the skimmers see so many. Instead of feeding them loose, where they can be spread out too much, feed a dampened ball of them.
A damp ball of pellets will keep the skimmers near your hookbait
Corn is king!
Although expander pellets would be my main hookbait, big skimmers love corn. I only use corn when trying for a better fish and will feed a few grains by hand to attract the bigger ones.
Skimmers love corn
Positive floats
You need a substantial float in deep water. The Guru Wire Pinger in 0.6g is very stable, allowing me to combat any wind or tow. I work the rig by lifting and dropping it to entice a bite.
Use a stable float in deep water
Commercial Fishing Tips | Pellets for winter silvers with Cam Hughes
SILVER fish can be life-savers on winter commercials, given the sheer number and different sizes of roach and skimmers out there to catch.
Silvers grow big in commercials as they eat pellets intended for carp, but if you use maggots, pinkies and worms it can be a job getting through to the better fish when their smaller brethren always get to the hookbait first.
Feeding more bait is not always the answer, as it runs the risk of killing the swim entirely or, worse still, pulling in a few carp if the weather is mild – the last fish you want to be playing on light tackle.
The solution lies in using pellets. When skimmers and bream are the target, I can be confident that every time the float goes under, it’ll be a decent fish. Provided I don’t go mad with the feed, there’s a minimal chance of a carp crashing the party. Pellets also seem to put off the little fish.
You see, skimmers see pellets all year round and accept them as part of their natural diet. I find that I also get a far more instant response to pellets as opposed to maggots and groundbait, so it’s the ideal bait to a session and get a quick burst of fish before things quieten down.
Don’t attract carp!
The more bait you put in, the more chance there is of attracting carp, even in the cold, so go steady!
I’ll fish two pole lines, one fed negatively and the other more positively, to see how much feed the skimmers will take and if the positive swim pulls in more carp.
My positive line sees a third of a big pole cup of micros go in, while the negative swim is fed only with a small pot on the pole to tap in little helpings of pellets.
I try to leave the positive swim for as long as possible to let the fish settle, but also just in case they don’t want more feed going in over their heads, as may happen if I fished here too early and had to feed more bait.
Start negatively
I kick off on the negative line and feel my way in, only feeding another little pot of micros after 10 minutes if I’ve not had a sign.
If I catch a fish, then I’ll feed again to see if any more are about, but those bites will tell you how to feed from here on.
If the plan of ‘catch and feed’ is working, then carry on, but if things die down you have to try and do something.
This could be changing to that positive swim – going on the waggler, for example – or feeding more heavily on the negative line to see if this is actually what the skimmers wanted in the first
Admittedly, this final option would be my last resort, since after an hour on the negative swim I would expect fish to have settled on the positive line and to be able to catch here.
The distance to fish
As the water begins to clear, the further away from the bank you can fish, the better, and that makes 14.5m my main fishing distance on the pole.
This also gives me the advantage of leaving enough space between this line and the bank to put in a short pole swim with casters for roach and perch, for example.
However, I won’t just stick to this one line as often the bigger skimmers will back off the feed.
Adding just half a section of pole and going past it can bring you a run of fish in no time.
If the swim goes quiet, I add a half extension and go out to what will be 15m and hope to catch here.
This won’t work every time you do it, and you should only spend 10 minutes maximum here, whether you catch or not, before reverting back to the main 14.5m swim.
River fishing tips | Fish the feeder for floodwater bream with Kelvin Tallet
Hopefully by the time you read this, the floods in your area will have subsided or at least begun to.
I live in the West Midlands, and I’m lucky in that there is a wide variety of rivers to fish. Except in the most extreme conditions, I can usually find somewhere to go. And as someone who loves running water more than anything else, I will go out of my way to find fishable areas.
Even when there is extra water in a river, as long as it can be accessed and fished safely, there will be fish to be caught.
Deep areas, the inside of bends, lock cuttings and backwaters will all produce fish, and it’s amazing what species will turn up in places you least expect. You’ll even catch out in the main flow, although fishing here can be challenging!
Warm flood
Of all the fish in our rivers, two species seem to positively thrive in what I would describe as a ‘warm flood’. This is where the river has been high and coloured for a few days, debris has been washed away, and levels have settled or maybe started to fall.
In these conditions, barbel and bream make good targets and it was bream I decided to fish for during a trip to the Warwickshire Avon near Stratford recently.
The famous Lido stretch of the river here offers numerous swims which vary tremendously according to the state of the river. Some that are hardly worth fishing in normal levels can suddenly produce when there’s extra water in the river, and for today’s session I visited one of these in the hope of catching some bream.
I’m sure there are swims on your local river that become similarly transformed in a flood. The fish you catch may not be huge, but the feeling of satisfaction can be immense when your quivertip goes round or drops back and you feel that tell-tale ‘thud’ of something worth catching on the other end.
Plenty of feed
Today’s session was always going to be feeder job with bream the target. My plan was to introduce a decent bed of bait at a nice comfortable cast towards the main flow, but not right in it.
I began with six big feederfuls of groundbait to which I’d added plenty of chopped worms and red maggots. Once the feeder had hit bottom I ‘struck’ to release the feed, and once I was happy I set my rig up. This incorporated a feeder with 1oz of lead attached – not a heavy weight but enough to hold bottom in the moderate flow. Had the flow had been stronger, a heavier feeder would be required.
The rig
Slide a Korum Feedabead on to the mainline.
Clip your chosen feeder on to the Feedabead.
Tie a quick-change bead on to the end of the mainline.
Attach a 2ft hooklength to the quick-change bead. The hooklength had a 9ins loop at the top, knotted at 3ins intervals to make three smaller loops acting as a boom.
Finally, fix a small shot 4ins above the hooklink to create a mini bolt rig
The session
It was a beautiful early winter’s day and I really fancied it for a few fish, but instead of the hoped-for bream, my first fish after 20 minutes was a small perch.
Not the ideal start, but I needn’t have worried because on the next cast the tip jagged round again and this time it was decent skimmer bream, which looked a picture in the sunlight. Another soon followed, again on worm tipped with a dead maggot on a strong size 16 hook, before bites stopped.
I wondered whether this might be because the fish were feeding well and they wanted more bait, so I added two more baiting feeders, this time with more worms added. This worked a treat as three more skimmers followed in the next half-hour.
Again, bites ceased, so two more big feeders of bait went in and the skimmers returned, along with a couple of roach and another perch. So it continued, and I ended the day with eight skimmers, two roach and two perch – an extremely pleasing result at a time when many anglers wouldn’t have gone anywhere near their local river!
CLUB INFORMATION
Kelvin was fishing the Lido stretch of the Warwickshire Avon near Stratford. Visit www.leamingtonangling.co.uk for details
Steve Ringer's guide to fishing for skimmer bream
Feeding loose micros into deep water can be the kiss of death when you’re fishing for F1s and carp, as it leads to lots of line bites and foul-hooked fish.
But for skimmers it’s a very different story. This is a method that I first came across a few years ago after making a trip up to Hayfield Lakes for a silverfish match.
My plan was to target skimmers over groundbait and dead maggots and pinkies. In theory it was a good plan, but despite trying lots of different ways of feeding the swim, after two-and-a-half hours I’d managed just one small skimmer.
With time running out I knew I had to try something different to pull fish into the swim. I’d been told that Kinder potting 2mm micro pellets worked well for the skimmers on there, but I had dismissed it – frankly, feeding loose micros into 10ft of water seemed like madness to me.
But with nothing to lose I decided to give it a go so I quickly attached a Kinder pot and filled it with micros. Two feeds later I had a bite, then another and another, and within 20 minutes I was getting a bite every put-in from small skimmers. The difference was quite simply amazing. I can only think that the micros falling through the water were pulling fish into the swim.
Since that day it’s an approach I’ve used a lot and it’s rarely let me down. Right now, on waters with a silverfish bias, it’s definitely worth trying. I have to admit, it still doesn’t seem right, but it certainly works!
Wetted-down 2mm coarse pellets and expanders for the hookbait
How many pellets?
When it comes to bait it really doesn’t get any simpler - all you need is a pint or so of wetted-down 2mm coarse pellets and a few expanders for the hook.
I always like to prepare my micros the night before, slightly overwetting them so they soak up as much water as possible and expand to their maximum size. In fact, if you have the right micro pellet it’s even possible to use them on the hook!
Coarse pellets are best for this type of fishing as they are light in colour and skimmers can spot them easily as they fall through the water. As I’ve said many times before, I’m convinced that when the water is clear fish feed by sight rather than by smell, so these falling pellets offer a high degree of attraction.
Feeding
Steve starts by sprinkling half a pot of pellets
To kick the swim off I like to feed a quarter of a small 100ml Drennan pot of loose micros.
After the initial feed I like to let the swim settle for at least 30 minutes – I’m not a fan of going straight in when fishing for skimmers as I feel they need time to feel confident enough to feed. When I do decide to have a look, though, I will first load up a small Guru pole pot full of wetted-down micro pellets.
I’ll sprinkle half out straight away and wait for a bite. If I don’t get one within two minutes I’ll sprinkle in the other half of the pellets. I’m totally convinced the reason this method works is bait falling through the water, hence even if I’m not getting bites I like to keep a bit of bait going in.
From this point on I’ll feed to bites, and once I start getting a few fish I will feed again. This is a busier than usual way of feeding for skimmers, but it works, believe me!
Start on an expander
Starting hookbait: A 4mm expander
When it comes to what to fish on the hook I will always start with a 4.5mm Ringers Coolwater Expander. Skimmers love a soft pellet, and an expander stands out well over a bed of micro pellets, giving the skimmers something they can easily home in on.
I also carry a variety of sizes and colours of expander, just so I can mix it up throughout a session. You’ll often find, for example, that you’ll catch well on a standard 4mm expander to begin with and then bites will go a little bit funny, even though there are still fish in your swim.
I think what happens is that the fish get used to feeding on the micros and start to ignore the bigger baits. When this happens I switch to a 3.5mm F1 Light expander pellet to match the feed and keep catching.
My Rig (click to open in full)
Follow my advice for a catch like this..