50lb Nets on The Tidal Trent at Laughterton
Like all tidal river stretches, these days the Trent sadly sees few anglers on its banks and most people who fish commercial venues week in, week out will be daunted by the prospect of setting up on a stretch like the one at Laughterton in Lincolnshire. Let me assure you however, that fishing here is not only excellent but far more simple than you think.
The river here is as much as 100m wide in places but don’t let that put you off as all that is required to catch a nice net of barbel, skimmers, roach, perch and chub which are usually taken, is a standard quiver rod and some open ended feeders. You’ll need stronger line than on a stillwater, say 10lb mainline with around 0.17 hooklink and a size 14 hook. Use a feeder around 3oz in weight but you can use a lighter version as long as you take some lead straps to add weight to the feeder for when the flow increases. The rig is not important as the rest as you can use it both free running or loop style for bream whatever you prefer. The barbel average around 5-6lb, with theskimmers going around 1-2lb. The trick is to fill the feeder with chopped worm and caster and then plug the ends with a standard bream style groundbait, such as Sensas Bream. Cast it our every two to three minutes at the start of the session to get some feed down as well as attract the fish but if you start catching barbel reduce this to around 5 casts an hour. You need to remember to point your rod up in the air at around 60 degrees to keep plenty of line out of the water and reduce drag, so setup your rests to achieve this before you start fishing. You also need to remember to fish further up the bank and away from the waters edge than usual, to allow for the rising tide as well as boat wash. After this it’s just a case of sitting back and enjoying the fishing which is often prolific at times here with nets to 50lb.
TIP: This venue fishes better when the tide is high or very low. To find out exactly when high and low tide are for any given day go to www.tidetimes.org.uk and add about one hour to the times given.
Prices: £4 a day on the bank, Lincoln & District AA
Contact: Lincoln DAA Secretary 01777 228133
Location: River Trent, Marsh Lane, Laughterton, Lincs, LN1 2JX
Rules: No live bait, no bloodworm or joker, no fires, no parking on the bank
