feederfishing

In snaggy hit and hold type swims I step up a bit! Using 15lb carpsilk and size 8 continental type carp hooks(that is also what I use fishing tiny pieces of hair rigged meat). This will be used with the stepped up MK1V not once have I suffered a hook pull, or have a fish reach a snag (which I knew to be there) even in extremely tight situations on the river teme, using this set up. Some advocate using a few yards of mono on the bottom of the braid, to act as a shock absorber and reduce hook pulls, that is the job of the rod and reel clutch, not the line! If one is getting frequent hook pulls it is due to a couple of main things; using rubbish hooks, or not using strong enough hooks to suit the occasion, or leaving too long a time to pull the hook home. A decently set hook will not pull and the non-stretch qualities of braid aid this. Another way to cut down on hook pulls in open swims, is to play the fish on a light clutch letting the river current tire the fish (Just incase the hook has not gone home properly) If you watch how a barbel reacts when it first pricks itself. You will see the logic behind this, the just hooked barbel will immediately try to twist off. It is when you pull hard that it succeeds, that horrible thump and gone feeling! Giving them nothing to thump against, i.e. a loose clutch should make this unpleasant scenario a thing of the past.

Another way I frequently see fish lost is when they have bolted downstream and into the nearest streamer weed bed! This can pose a problem if one can't get below the fish and pull them out. If this happens then try this: Slacken the clutch and point the rod at the fish, use a finger to hold the spool tight and very slowly pull, the fish will not be impressed with the high pressure you are applying to the hook, let it take line when it shakes its head. Repeat the process until you have freed the fish, good luck!

Firstly a bit on gear, rods are usually glass MK1V,s usually with centerpin reels loaded with 20lb braid. Feeder is always a 2.5 0z Thamesley sometimes with more weight put into it to hold bottom in floods. Hooks are either a size 10 animal spade (baited with four maggots) or size eight super spades tied to 10-15 inches of 12lb carpsilk, or 12 -15lb micro-braid with a proper spade whipping knot (5-6 turns), not the knotless knot rubbish! This attached to the mainline with a strong carp swivel. This is my standard (snag free swim) set up. I have never had a knot slip the hook, and it is now extremely rare that fish "bump off". Infact I can't recall the last time I had a barbel bump off! There is never a need to fish any lighter than this, roach, dace and general small stuff still oblidges on this set up. Once one has a feeder rig that catches, don't chop and change the hooklengh, hook or bait (putting less maggots on smaller hooks etc), in a bid to bring dormant fish on after a feeding period. If it aint broke don't fix it! You will soon see that changing something that works is a waste of time! If conditions remain favourable the fish will "un-mysteriously" switch back on for the next period. Also resist scaling down, all this is likely to achieve is getting you snapped up, either by a big chub in the dead spell. Or even worst to my way of thinking, a big barbel at the onset of the next period.

Firstly the old days on the kennet, when feeder fishing I would bring a gallon of maggots and ten pints of hemp in the belief that was the amount of bait needed to get and keep the fish going. This was the amount my father and others used on the royalty, so being brought up observing my father and other top anglers fishing the royalty during the sixties I knew from an early age how a swim was supposed to be fed. I can recall sitting with the old man in "Harrigans" and the way my heart would pound at the sight of the barbel as they came upstream over the dips in the river bed, and get their heads down.

Back to the kennet, two swims would be baited with about 4 pints of hemp and 2 pints of maggots, using the home-made kiwi boot polish tin bait dropper, the kettle would go on and tea brewed the swims would be rested for at least an hour. All of my kennet, and holy brook, swims were under the rod slacks. The feeder would be lowered in after the rest period, the rod placed on two rests and sometimes the pin would scream straight away, sometimes it would take several hours, and sometimes nothing at all happened despite ideal conditions! There was a pattern though where sometimes for a couple of hours the minnows, perch and bleak would preceed the barbel feeding, then very often the rod would bang, and not go over, reeling in the maggots would be "pinched" but not broken. This told me the barbel had arrived. When that swim dried up, blame was put on the last fish spooking the shoal! The next swim was visited resulting in the same inconsistances as above! More often than not the second prebaited swim would throw up a chub or nothing, the swim would be dead for maybe a couple of hours. I would be cursing the chub for spooking the barbel! Now I know that is not the case I had simply fished out the first peg during a feeding period, then moved during the dead spell. I also used to think "surely that last fish in the first peg has not spooked the whole river!".

After a few years (around 1985)resting the swim after baiting was mostly given up with and fishing commenced straight away with no detriment to my catch returns. The kennet never threw up a double to me on maggot feeder, the best was a 9.13. Kennet Doubles being rare and elusive creatures during the seventies and early eighties. We are told that it is best to rest the swim after baiting up, that way we may be able to take the whole shoal rather than one or two fish, this is supposed to give the fish "confidence", really? So billy the 10lb barbel feels confident, because they (the shoal) have been happily munchin away for a long period without any being hooked and throwing a wobbly in the swim. Then because they are all so confident one hooks itself, the others and billy are so confident they don't notice, and all continue to throw themselves upon your hook! Some of the same anglers who advocate "resting the swim to give barbel confidence" in the next breath say "barbel are thick everything they do is by instinct" even that thier real place in the world is "on a plate surrounded with chips" (Fred Crouch). Surely if a fish can become "confident" it is therefore making a decision, therefore has some degree of intelligence.

The start of the nineties I moved to Herefordshire, and concentrated on the river Lugg. Winter 1996 the lugg was unfishable and I had a chance meeting with a Hereford angler called Ken, he kindly put me onto a wye barbel stretch, we met there the following day. It was noticeable that after Ken cast the feeder he would pay out a bow of slack. This at first seemed a daft idea, after all how would he see the bites! As far as I was concerned you fished a tight line to the feeder and struck all movements. Mostly striking into thin air and often reeling back the feeder while it dispensed its contents all over the place, wasting untold bait!

Fishing several sessions with him it was soon noted just how many barbel he banked with his bow of slack, so I tried it and have not looked back! When the feeder hits bottom pay out a bow of slack, somewhere between 6-8 feet and place the rod top high. Set the clutch loose enough so, the hooked fish will not drag the rod in, but tight enough to pull the hook home. Do not overdo the strike, the fish in most cases is already hooked, and lifting the rod into the fish is enough. I cannot understand how I failed to make the natural progression from using a critically balanced bobbing while meat and close range feeder fishing, to leaving a bow of slack for long range feeder fishing. Guess we just do not always see the obvious! Sometimes today I use the bow of slack in conjunction with hair rigged meat, when the swim is pushing through too much to use a bobbing, this works best with a heavy weight. There are a couple of swims on the lower severn that consist of gravel patches in mid river in these swims when the river is low I use a bow of slack, a light bullet weight, and a bobbing. No resistance is definitely the way forward in todays barbel scene, the nearer one can get to freelining the better which is why "trundling" is such a good method. However, as yet that method has not grabbed me, still preferring to watch a bobbing.

Nowadays that initial bang on the rod while feeder fishing results in hooked fish and sometimes they are doubles, that fall for a no resistance set up. Wonder how many of those bangs on the rod, that didn't develop back in the kennet days were from doubles that had not hooked properly? Todays maggot bill runs to about �3 for a days feeder fishing, rarely do I use more than 1.5 pints, in conjunction with a couple of pints of hemp. This relatively small amount of bait is enough to keep the biggest shoal of fish grubbing about! With such amounts, I have taken 38 chub (not chublets) forty eels and 4 barbel in a session. 22 barbel and 4 chub in another. If fish are having it, then whacking feeder full upon feeder full of bait at them every few minutes is a waste of bait. This constant bombardment may also spook anything big in the area! It is also a waste of bait doing the same to bring them on the feed; they will come on when they are ready.

From time to time I recieve e-mails from anglers concerned that leaving "bows of slack" and the use of light bobbings, may increase the chances of deep hooking barbel. I have not had this happen once using the methods described above. Rarely do I even need to use forceps, when I do it is usually in winter when ones "digits" are too cold to get ahold of the hook properly, not because the fish is deep hooked! The last fish I deep hooked was from the Lugg in 1992, this was "straight" legering. A fish snapped me up on 10lb maxima mainline to 12lb braid hooklink, with a size 2 super specialist attached. 90 minutes later I had a screaming take and managed to keep this fish from the snag. On netting it I saw my "snapped up" hooklink hanging from its mouth the hook about 3in down its mouth, and easilly removed with the decent pair of forceps I carry. It was 8lb and soon recovered in the landing net.