Commercial Fishing Tips | How to shot the waggler for carp - Bob Nudd
There’s no point in using a bulk down the line for summer carp on the waggler, as I want the hookbait to fall slowly and give me a chance of picking up fish on the drop.
I fix three No8 shot evenly-spaced down the line in the bottom half of the rig. These give the bait that slow fall and help straighten the line out when the float lands to cut down on tangles.
The rig also uses a tiny swivel that reduces line twist when winding in but also lets me quickly change hooklinks from one with a hair-rigged band to one with a plain hook.
I want the hookbait to fall slowly when fishing the waggler for carp
Canal Fishing Tips | Target the wides for canal bream with Alan Donnelly
Canals are generally narrow, with not much more than 13m of water to go at. But dotted along the length of most of them are wider parts.
These are turning points for boats or, in some cases, they were widened out when the canals were first dug back in the 1800s. From a fishing point of view, these wides act as a magnet to fish and anglers.
Boats don’t have too much of an impact on the waggler line because it’s tucked well away from the boat channel
Some wides can have 30m-plus of water while others can be incredibly shallow and are not all that they seem. Given a good depth and some cover, though, they’re brilliant and the ideal sort of swim to banish any thoughts that canals are all about tiny fish and battles with barges and mountain bikes.
Bream, especially, like these wider sections, but there’s a problem. Often the pole won’t be long enough to get to the fish. The answer is very much old-school, ditching the pole for rod and line tactics with a little waggler. This approach was the norm on canals back in the 1970s before the pole took over. We’re talking short rods, stumpy light floats and loosefeeding – a lovely way to catch fish.
Bream love to hang around in wide sections
My local Grand Union Canal around Tring has plenty of wides and they’re all home to bream that can be caught on the float. It’s easy to find a wide swim. The hard work is in deciding where to fish in the peg and how best to approach it. Groundbait can play a part, but loosefeeding can be better on some days.
The waggler is a great option to get the best out of a wide peg, letting you fish places you can’t reach with the pole and catch the fish that may have backed off to the other side of the canal.
I use specially-made floats by Graham Welton
It’s also a lot easier to fish than the long pole. Not everyone can manage 16m of pole, especially if the wind is blowing, then there’s the hassle of unshipping back on to narrow towpaths with bikes, joggers and dog walkers filing past.
The waggler does away with all of that. It’s an efficient method too, in fact when you’re catching well on it, it’s miles faster than fishing the pole.
Tackle doesn’t need to be specialised, you may well already have a lot of what’s needed in the shed. Base your attack around short, light floats, small hooks and minimal shotting down the line. A good through-actioned match rod is just the job. Add a few pints of casters as bait and a catapult and you’re more or less there!
An 11ft rod gives you the control for relatively short casts and is easier to use than a 13ft model. I use an 11ft Drennan Ultralight Matchpro.
Commercial Fishing Tips | Reach for the waggler with Des Shipp
I’ve fished enough rock hard winter matches to know that the pole isn’t the be-all and end-all when it comes to catching enough to put you in the money.
In truth, it can be the worst tactic to pick in clear water despite its superior rig control and bait presentation.
The problem is that the distance you can fish with the pole may not put you on the fish, which back away from disturbance on the bank. What’s more, any pole, even if the top kit is painted grey or white, will cast a shadow that won’t be to the liking of carp and skimmers.
Change to the waggler and it’s a completely different picture. The likelihood of spooking fish has gone, and you can cast around the peg to find a few bites.
On top of that, the waggler is just a lovely way to fish, one that’s all too often forgotten in favour of the pole or tip. You just need the right conditions and the right peg to put it all into practice!
When to fish it
Obviously, if there are no bites on the pole, the float is your next choice. Cast several metres past where you’ve been on the long pole to see if the fish have backed off a little or have been sat there from the start.
This range has to be comfortable enough to loosefeed over, and you also need the right wind to fish the float properly. Blowing over your back is ideal while a side wind, as long as it isn’t too strong, will do as well. You want to be able to cast, sink the line and have the float stay put for up to five minutes. If this isn’t happening, it might be a day for fishing the feeder or bomb.
Terminal tackle
I use 3lb Sinking Feeder Mono as mainline attached to a 20cm hooklink of 0.12mm Accu Power and a size 16 SFL-B hook. This balanced kit will easily land big carp and skimmers.
If the rod is too stiff, you’ll bump fish off and casting becomes awkward and inaccurate. I go for a classic match-style 13ft rod, the Supera, with a casting weight of 3g-10g. This isn’t cosmetic guff and is a useful guideline to help you get the most out of your fishing!
Fish overdepth
Owing to the lack of close control on the waggler, the rig is left to fish on its own, as it were, and you need to avoid any chance of the float being pushed through the swim by the wind or tow on the water.
Fishing overdepth is therefore a must. I start four inches over and see how it goes. This may increase to eight inches if the wind is bad. Another tip is to add more depth if you are missing bites. This gives the carp and skimmers more time to get hold of the bait before a bite is registered on the float tip.
Getting twitchy
Once I’ve cast out it’s not just a matter of leaving the float alone until it goes under.
Skimmers like a bait that’s being twitched along the bottom so, as you would on the feeder or if lifting and dropping on the pole, I’ll wait a few minutes and then move the bait.
This is dead easy to do and involves flicking the rod tip towards me as if I were sinking the line.
Watch the float come back to the surface and be ready to strike, as a bite should be pretty swift in coming.
What waggler?
I carry three types with me and all are loaded. This does away with clunky bulk locking shots and makes for smoother and more accurate casting through any wind.
In ideal conditions, an insert waggler is perfect but when it is blowing, a bodied or straight float comes into play – a 2.5AAA to 3.5AAA loading in old money is about right for most casts.
These are locked on the line with No8 Stotz, two above the float and four below, as these are easier to move than split shot. The remaining weight in the rig it taken up by a couple of No8 shot which are evenly spread down the line and a tiny quick-change swivel.
This lets me change hooklinks from unbanded to banded in a matter of seconds and also cuts down on spin-ups on the hooklink.
Feeds and baits
Skimmers love pellets and corn just as much as groundbait and maggots, so to give myself the chance of catching them and bonus carp, I err on the ‘commercial’ side with regard to the bait tray. Corn is brilliant in winter, easy to see and super soft. Sonubaits F1 Corn makes up my hookbait and loosefeed.
I fish a single piece on the hook but vary the size on each cast, from big to small, to see if it makes a difference.
Feeding is via the catapult at the rate of a dozen grains every cast – don’t worry when the feed spreads out before it lands as this is another great plus point for the waggler.
Because it’s not super-accurate, it will draw fish in from a wider area and also give you plenty of different spots to cast to, knowing that some corn will have landed there.
Sonu’s 4mm Pro Feed Pellets are my second feed but these are only introduced from time to time.
They pack a bit of a fishy smell to get the fish interested and also allow me to switch over to fishing a banded 4mm or 6mm pellet on the hook if I feel a change is required.
‘Spodding’ ground bait
Should your venue respond to groundbait you’ll have to use it. You can fire in small balls with a catapult but I find this a bit of a faff. I prefer to have a large cage feeder on a separate rod and use this as carp anglers would a spod, filling the feeder with crumb and casting several times to get a bed down at the start.
It looks weird, but it works!
Commercial fishing tips | Catch more beyond your pole line with Cameron Hughes
A common problem in the clearing water of commercial fisheries at this time of year is having a pole line you have been catching well on suddenly die a death.
From regular bites, the swim suddenly appears devoid of life and you’re left scratching your head as to what to do next. Do you feed more aggressively to trigger a response or carry on in the hope that things will return to normal given time?
Both these could work, of course, but for me the answer lies in changing tactics completely and digging out the waggler rod. Casting past that original pole swim into ‘new’ water will always find fish that may have backed off from the disturbance created from catching well on the pole.
It’s not a tactic that will catch lots of fish – I tend to use it more as another option if the pole fades or if I feel that my original catching area needs a rest. It’s definitely an enjoyable way of fishing in the way we used to be before the pole began to rule all.
You can catch carp on the waggler, but it’s for silver fish where the float really comes into its own. Roach and skimmers are famed for backing off the main feed area as a session progresses and they also feed at all depths. This allows the use of a lightly shotted waggler to search the depths and find where the fish are.
My local fishery, Rycroft near Derby, is a typical commercial venue full of silver fish, and I’m currently in the middle of a silver fish series on there where the waggler plays a vital part in my match plan.
It’ll work just as well, though, if not better, on a pleasure session – so for a bit of practice and to show the benefits of time spent on the float, I’m tackling the Carp Lake, home to some big old roach and plenty of chunky skimmers.
Why fish the float?
It’s an enjoyable way to fish that works when the going gets tough and the fish show signs of shoaling up towards the middle of the lake, which is always beyond pole range. The fish are there and catchable, but you need to find a way to get to them. The waggler is the only sensible option, and I use it as an ‘occasional’ tactic to rest the pole or search around if things show signs of slowing down.
I may only catch half-a-dozen fish on it, but they tend to be a bit bigger on the float. At the end of the day, these are fish that I probably wouldn’t have caught if I’d stayed on the pole.
The right distance
You can cast a waggler as far as you like, but going too far will mean you struggle to feed accurately. I always loosefeed on the waggler for commercial roach and skimmers and want the feed to spread slightly but not too far.
A distance of 20m-25m, wind depending, is about right. This is far enough away from the pole line for you to catch any fish that have backed away.
Always loose feed
Groundbait can work if you are catching lots of skimmers and bream but a waggler allows you tofish through the water to get bites at all levels – so loosefeeding is the best course. Maggots are good when things are really hard but if it’s still relatively mild I’ll always go for casters, which will catch the quality fish.
I’m also quite aggressive with the amount I feed, typically 40 casters at a time to create a reasonable-sized catching area to cast around in – but this can change quite quickly if I am not catching as well as I’d like. If bites are slow in coming, cutting back on the feed will come into play, so let the fish tell you how much bait they want!
Top hookbaits are single or double caster, but I would always start on a single red maggot to get a few bites and work out exactly what’s in the swim before I make the change to caster.
Casting about
Because of that slight spread of loosefeed, the cast doesn’t need to be in the same spot every time, but it makes sense to return to the same area if you are catching. By all means drop the odd chuck slightly past this or off to one side.
As to how long to wait before casting again, I’m quite active so I will cast, let the rig settle and wait 30 seconds. If there’s no bite, I’ll twitch the float around a yard, wait another 30 seconds and then wind in.
Ideally, I should get an indication just as the bait settles or shortly afterwards – the only time I would leave the float in for longer is if I was catching bream and skimmers on the bottom and not roach.
Get a bite every cast with these waggler tactics
Learn how to get a bite every cast when reaching for a waggler with Steve Ringer.
In early spring when the water is cold and clear and not quite warm enough, the fish tend to back away from the bank.
Because of this, there is no better way of picking them off than by using a waggler! The beauty of the waggler is that you can fish further out than those using 13m-16m of pole. While they’re doing that, you can fish at 20-25m on the waggler. This obviously gives you a real edge, as you are fishing a line that you have all to yourself.
Additionally, you have the benefit of no pole waving about over the heads of the fish. Despite all these advantages, I see hardly anybody fishing with rod and line in the cold. however, here’s how I do it…
Bait
On commercials there is no better bait than pellets. All species eat them, from carp and skimmers right through to roach. Today I’m on Warren Pool at Meadowlands, near Coventry, where you are allowed to feed pellets only to a maximum size of 4mm. As it happens I wanted to feed 4mm pellets anyway, so this suits me. I wet my pellets before fishing. The reason behind this is that they become heavier, which allows me to loosefeed them further than would normally be possible.
The second benefit to wetting my feed pellets is that soaking them starts the breakdown process within the pellet, which means they release a lot more attraction into the water.
Alongside my 4mm feed pellets I’m also carrying some expanders. I have two different types today – 4.5mm Ringers Cool Water pellets and standard 4mm Bag Up pellets. This gives me a couple of different colour hookbait options, with the Cool Waters being slightly lighter in colour than the Bag Ups.
Plumbing the depth
Plumbing the depth with a waggler is a lot easier than a lot of anglers think. Whatever you do, don’t cast a big plummet out into the lake. You’ll scare every fish in the vicinity. Instead, squeeze an SSG shot on to the hook and then cast that out to get the depth. This creates a lot less disturbance and at the same time gives a very accurate reading.
Feeding
Little and often is the key. I don’t like to put a bed of bait on the bottom straight away, but prefer to build the swim up gradually.
As a guide I will kick off feeding 8-12 pellets every cast. In fact I normally get into a rhythm of ‘cast out, sink the line, feed and then wait for the bite’. It’s then simply a case of repeating the process throughout the session.
Of course, sessions rarely go perfectly – you need to vary your feed rate and frequency to take into account how many fish are in the swim. For instance, if the fishing is very hard I will keep up the regularity, as I believe the noise of pellets hitting the water attracts fish, but at the same time I will drop the amount down to 4-6 pellets at a time. You just have to think about what’s happening under the water and adjust your feeding accordingly.
On the subject of feeding, I’m not too worried about keeping my bait in a really tight area. One of the great things about the waggler is that it allows you to cover a lot of water, so I don’t mind feeding a decent area as opposed to a really tight spot.
Hookbait
This is a usually a single 4mm expander, which pretty much matches a soaked 4mm feed pellet in size so it blends in nicely with the loose offerings.
I could, of course, fish a banded hard pellet on the hook but when looking for a mixed bag I always feel a soft pellet has the edge. In the cold I do feel a soft expander pellet leads to more bites anyway.
One little tip regarding hooking an expander for waggler fishing is to make sure the hook has as much purchase inside the pellet at possible. In other words, don’t just nick it on, but instead thread it on. This just gives that little bit of extra security on the cast.
The second hookbait I like to have with me is sweetcorn. A single grain of corn often produces a bonus fish, so every now and again I will slip a grain on, even though I haven’t actually fed any.
Hookbait (left) and feed – wetted 4mms.
Casting
Expanders are a very soft hookbait so if you cast with a really fast action then chances are they are going to fly off the hook. The secret to fishing expanders on the waggler is to keep the cast nice and smooth. This ensures that your hookbait is still on once the float hits the water.
It’s also important to sink the line slowly once the float has landed on the surface. Winding the float under the water at 100mph is again going to tear the hookbait off. So instead I give the rod-tip a quick flick and then a slow but firm wind to sink the line.
This way I can be sure that the bait is still on the hook. Of course if it’s flat calm then there is no need to sink the line.
The Set-Up
Warren Pool at Meadowlands Fishery in the West Midlands lends itself perfectly to waggler fishing. It’s shallow, with just 2ft 6ins of water at around 25m. With this in mind, my float is a 5BB Drennan Glow Tip Antenna.
I love these for pellet fishing as they have a very fine tip which is very sensitive, and are easy to see in even the poorest of light.
To fix the float in place I use two AAAs and a BB, but rather than put them straight on to the 4lb mainline, which could potentially damage it and lead to a breakage, I thread some fine silicone on to the mainline first, then squeeze the shot on to that. This prevents the shot damaging the line. A 4lb Guru Pulse mainline makes a massive difference when waggler fishing. Not only does it make casting a lot easier, it also aids presentation as a light mainline isn’t picked up as readily as a heavier one by wind or tow.
I have recently started using size 14 Cralusso Fine Quick Snap Swivels to connect my waggler mainline to hooklength. These allow me to change my hooklength fast, should I need to, and are no heavier than a No9 shot. The swivel acts as my bottom dropper and above this, at 6ins intervals, I have two No9s.
For waggler fishing I like an 8ins hooklength of 0.14mm Pure fluorocarbon, with a size 16 Guru F1 Pellet hook, fast becoming my favourite in the cold! On Warren Lake I am fishing for skimmers, small stockie carp and the odd big carp, so 0.14mm is perfect. If the fish were all ‘proper’ carp, I would step up both hook and hooklength.
