The Fish Magnet

The pleasure anglers on the deeper banks appear to be catching fairly well – which at least gives me the confidence that fish are feeding, and if I tailor my approach correctly a good net of fish could be on the cards.

Because I don’t have depth on my side, and the water is still fairly clear, I know straightaway that there are two things that I will need to do to give myself the best possible chance of catching. When the fish aren’t entirely confident they shy away from two things. Firstly, bankside disturbance, so I know that I will have to feed as far from the bank as I comfortably can. This means 14.5 metres, so that I have the option of fishing past my bait at the pole’s full length of 16 metres.

Secondly, it’s the shadow of your pole tip. This means fishing at least two swims, so that the fish can be gaining con!dence over one feed area while you plunder the other. Plus, fishing a long line in between my pole tip and foat so that I am able to flick my rig past the shadow of my pole, where the fish will hopefully intercept my bait more confidently.

RIGS
When it comes to tackling up, there are two key considerations that you need to make. First of all, you need a rig that gives you optimum bait presentation and sensitivity, so when the fish aren’t feeding confidently you can tempt them into taking your hook bait. For me, this means a light strung-out rig; I’m using a 0.2g Rive 255 pencil float. This is shotted with seven No11s down to a 6in hooklength of 0.10mm Rive hooklength line and a size 18 Green Gama hook. This is matched to a soft No4-6 Rive hollow elastic.

The other thing you need is a more positive ‘bagging’ rig. After all, when the fish really switch on later in the day, you need to be able to plunder them! A lot of anglers go down a real gung-ho route when it comes to this. Bigger lines, bigger hooks, bigger elastics – but on days when you are only going to catch for a short space of time I steer clear of this.

Let me explain why. Say the fish switch on and you’re fishing your ‘normal’ rig, catching one every put-in, so you decide to switch to your bagging rig. All of a sudden, everything is a gauge heavier and several things could happen. Bites could become if!er because of your bigger float, line or hook. You could bump fish off because of your heavier-gauge elastic, or you might not get bites because of your cruder presentation. From nowhere, you are now wasting time and probably catching fewer fish than you were on your lighter rig.

This why in these conditions, all a bagging rig entails for me is the same line, float and hooks, but with a bulk and two droppers instead of a strung-out shotting pattern. This, in theory, means that I will get bites quicker and see them more positively. If I don’t, of course, I can simply pick my lighter rig back up.

Just to be clear, this is not my policy with all kinds of fishing. If I were on a flier and expecting a bumper day, I might use heavier line, floats and hooks. But when I know that my catching time is going to be at a premium, I don’t like to take any unnecessary risks.