Steve Ringer shows you how to target the hotspots in your swim.
Discover how to get the best out of your swim, whatever the conditions!
EVEN the plainest-looking swims will include a hotspot that you must find and fish at this time of year.
What you’re looking for is a feature that offers the fish a bit of cover. There are some really obvious ones, like bridges and aerators, but it’s also worth checking out natural ones such as undercut banks and rush beds.
These areas can be a magnet for carp to hold up around or even under, as the water tends to be a fraction warmer under the cover.
The fish will also feel safer in the clear water with a roof over their heads, so to speak.
START BY DOBBING…
The important thing to remember when fishing to features is that the fish are already there, so you don’t need to feed them, at least not to begin with.
Therefore, I always like to kick off fishing just off the feature with an 8mm piece of punched bread,
set to fish 12ins off bottom.
Quite often, you can pick up a few fish early in a session while still leaving the fish somewhere to back off to.
One piece of advice – while I will start 12ins off bottom when dobbing bread, if I don’t get a bite I will vary the depth to try and locate the fish. For instance, if I’m getting the odd movement on the float but no bites I will shallow up to try and find the level the fish are sat at.
If I don’t get any indications at all I will go right down to the bottom so I’m covering more water, just to see if I can nick a bite or even an indication so that I have something to work on.
…GET CLOSER…
From this point on I will start fishing closer to the feature, trying to nick a fish here and there.
Once I get to the feature, I will fish all around it rather than just in the one spot.
When I get a bite, a fish, or even an indication I will always go back to that same spot, as where there is one fish there are normally two or even three.
Once a spot goes quiet, I simply work my way along the feature, looking for another ball of fish.
It’s a very effective way of fishing a feature and finding out just how many fish it holds.
… T HE N T R Y F E E DI NG
Once the dobbing is done, it’s time to have a think about feeding a little bit of bait.
What I like to do is pick two