Match Fishing Tips | Five tips to fish the margins this autumn

October 15, 2020 Guest User

Despite colder nights there are still lots of fish to be caught in the edge – using a more cautious approach…

Easy on the feed

WITH summer now just a memory, piling in lots of groundbait and dead maggots down the edge has no part to play. Success is all down to how much – or rather how little – bait that ends up getting fed. Be wary of overfeeding the carp. Precision feeding with tiny amounts always catches more fish in early autumn.

Opening feed should barely cover the bottom of a large pole cup – effectively a small handful of dampened micro pellets and a few bits of meat and corn.

After that, switch to a Kinder pot holding a few micros and bits of meat and corn.

Light feeding is required to pull fish into the margins at this time of year

Pick a heavier float

Provided that the peg is snag-free, there’s no point in fishing stupidly strong lines. A 0.17mm mainline to an 0.15mm hooklength will land pretty much every carp in a commercial fishery, teamed up with a hollow elastic around a grade 12-14 and a size 16 Barbless carp margin-style hook.

The float is important. Diamond-shaped patterns taking roughly 0.3g are popular. This heavier weight will deal with the additional depth but also keeps the rig still in one spot – when feeding with a Kinder pot, it’s vital to ensure that the rig and bait are sitting right on top of that small helping of bait. For that reason, gently lower the rig down on to the feed to ensure pinpoint accuracy.

A heavy float will ensure pinpoint accuracy

Fish deeper water

In terms of depth, forget the 12ins of shallow water that produced in the summer. Very few fish will move into this depth to feed so instead, try edging the rig out into the lake to try and find 2ft 6ins of water. Any deeper there’s the risk of foul-hooking carp as the fish will still be quite active.

Feed both margins if you have the room in order to double your chances of catching. The water is starting to clear now, so you want to fish as far away from yourself as you can, at roughly 13m. You’re not going to be feeding by hand as you would in summer, so this longer distance shouldn’t pose a problem in this respect.

No bites? Don’t panic!

If nothing happens when you drop in, the panic button shouldn’t be pressed. Instead, leave the margins alone for 10 or 15 minutes before having another look. When the carp do decide to move in close, bites occur within seconds.

Have just the one drop-in without a bite before leaving things alone – if a carp is there, it should pick out the bait quickly.

If a carp is about you should know fairly quickly

Meat for the hook

Meat is a bait synonymous with autumn, fished as 6mm cubes and more often than not with two cubes on the hook to present a slightly bigger bait to grab the attention of the fish.

Corn can be a good alternative, especially in very clear water, fished singly or as double grains.

Meat is a great bait in the autumn months

Match Fishing Tips | How to prepare bread for punch fishing - Ray Malle

October 13, 2020 Guest User

You can use bread straight from the bag, but I much prefer to ‘steam’ the slices first at home.

This results in a tacky bread that stays on the hook if I miss a bite and, at times, I have caught two or three roach on the same piece.

To steam it, I remove the crusts from the bread, microwave a slice for a few seconds and then wrap it in clingfilm to seal the moisture in. I then zap another slice and fold it into the clingfilm and so on, ensuring each slice is moist.

I then remove one slice at a time on the bank. Bread prepared this way very seldom falls off the hook.

Match Fishing Tips | 5 tips to catch more canal silvers in summer

August 21, 2020 Guest User

We all like to catch bonus fish, but on canals it’s small fish that are your weight-building summer bankers. Here are five tips to help you fill a net with silvers…

Avoid deep water

You can rule out catching well from the central boat channel of a canal in summer. There will be too much disturbance from narrowboats, even though the water is deep. On the whole, roach prefer shallower water anyway, and a classic spot to find them is on top of the far-bank shelf where the deep water merges into the shallows. Typically this area can be found around 11m or 12m out, a comfortable range for feeding and shipping the rig out. Depth is unimportant – it’s more about finding the point where the peg just begins to deepen into the channel.

Find the point where the peg deepens into the channel

Create a slow-falling rig

Because you’re loosefeeding, the rig needs to allow you to catch fish through the water, anywhere from a few inches under the surface down to the bottom. Firing in pinkies and squatts will naturally bring roach off bottom, so gear up with rigs taking light floats and shotting patterns that have small No11 shot strung as a bulk around an inch apart, stopping 12ins from the hook, finishing off with a couple of dropper shot between bulk and hook.

Light floats and strung out shotting will help the bait fall slowly through the water

Get on hemp

Don’t think you’re only going to catch small roach on the canal – they also hold plenty of big fish that can make a difference in a match! Casters are a well-known bait for quality roach, but hemp is just as good and almost always means a bigger fish each time the float goes under. Pick a spot close to any far-bank cover with a couple of feet of water, well away from where you’re fishing squatts, and fire in a dozen grains every 10 minutes, aiming to try hemp on the hook in the second half of the match.

GO easy on the groundbait

As much as roach love groundbait, it comes into play on shallow canals as a way of kicking the swim off before loosefeeding takes over, or for feeding when a boat has gone through the peg and you need to settle the fish back down. One large ball fed at the start is ample, feeding again with the same size of ball when a boat has done its damage.

Try not to fill the fish up with groundbait

Pick up your catty and start feeding!

As soon as you’ve fed that groundbait at the start, pick up the catapult and start firing in squatts or pinkies. Twenty to 25 squatts at a time is not too much, and the feeding needs to be very regular, every 40 seconds or so, to leave a constant stream of bait falling through the water and keep the fish hunting around. On the hook, a single squatt matches the hatch, but you can change to a fluoro pinkie to try for a slightly bigger fish.

Regular loose feeding will keep the fish in the peg!

Match Fishing Tips | Get down the margins early! - Vince Cross

August 13, 2020 Guest User

Unlike a lot of anglers, I always feed and fish the margins from the start as I’ve found that a few catchable carp can move into the edge early.

Action down the margins can start early on

My plan is to fish two margin lines, feeding one negatively and one positively and beginning on the positive one.

This is fed with a full pole cup of loose groundbait and some particles, be they dead maggots, meat or corn.

If I catch two carp early on, then that’s good going.

After this I will leave the swim alone until there’s around two hours of the session. This gives the fish ample chance to move into the edge and start feeding properly.

You don’t have to leave the margins till the last hour. Bonus fish can be caught early on.

Match Fishing Tips | 5 tips to win big with bream

July 29, 2020 Guest User

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.

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.

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.

Match Fishing Tips - How to compete with the jigger - Robbie Griffiths

July 24, 2020 Guest User

WHETHER you like it or not, the jigger can be a devastating method on its day, as it allows you to catch fish at different depths and its self-hooking properties mean you don’t miss any bites.

That said, you can certainly still compete using normal rigs, but you need to have several of them set up to find the exact depth the fish want to feed at on the day.

Once you find the right depth, a fixed rig can be even more effective than a jigger because you are fishing in the ‘feeding zone’ at all times.

A great tip is to have a really short line between your pole-tip and float, if fishery rules and conditions allow it, as this will help you to turn every bite into a fish in the net.

Commercial Fishing Tips - How to keep bites coming in the middle of the day - Des Shipp

June 11, 2020 Guest User

When bites dry up and things get slow in the middle of the day, don’t just sit there waiting for something to turn up. Look no further than fishing off your rod-tip or on a top kit on the pole in front of you.

Action doesn’t have to be slow in the middle of the day - stay active!

Rig up with a size 16 hook and a 4x14 pole float or a small 2BB waggler, feeding maggots or casters.

A typical Stillwater roach rig perfect for margin work

This will catch mainly silvers, but something bigger can turn up too.

Steady feeding with maggots close in can draw all sorts into the peg

I’ll feed a dozen maggots by hand here every five minutes and when my other lines slow up, switch to this one. You may catch all day here or it may only last 30 minutes.