Steve Ringer
How to crack island swims with maggots and micros
“The point swim means you’ll get the first bite of the cherry, so to speak”
WE’RE going through a period of change on the stillwaters right now and there are decent catches to be had – if you think smart.
As the weather warms up fish tend to move out of the deeper water, where they have been laid up all winter, and into shallower areas. When this happens, there is no better place to target them than at the point of an island.
This is a hotspot that offers shallower water with the safety of being well out from the bank, and where the fish will arrive first. If you fish the middle of an island margin, chances are the
fish will have to swim past other anglers to get to you, but the point swim means you’ll get the first bite of the cherry, so to speak.
I’ve come to the famous Big Gearys Lake at Packington Somers Fishery to show you my tactics for getting the best out of these hotspots…
FEEDING YOUR SWIM
To kick off I always like to introduce everything via a small Guru pole pot. I feel that feeding in this manner often tends to give me a head start. Initially I’ll feed a 50-50 mix of dead maggots and micros, probably filling the pot to the two-thirds level every time.
A little tip, and something I do a lot, is to always add the maggots to the pot first and then use the wetted-down micro pellets to cap them off. This way I get very little bait spilling out of the pot even when shipping out to 16m.
As I’ve said, this is a very positive way of feeding but the trick is to try and work out how many fish you can catch off each feed.
Sometimes it might only be one, while on other days it could be three or four fish per feed. The way to do it is to empty the pot, catch a fish, refill the pot and
ship back out.
Before you tap in the contents of the bait, just let the rig fish for 30 seconds or so. If you don’t get any signs then feed again, but if you do get signs or, better still, a bite, then land the fish without feeding.
From then on it’s just a case of repeating the process.
By feeding and fishing in this way I can quickly work out the best way to feed the swim.
TOPPING UP AND RESTING
What you might find when fishing in shallow water is that every now and again you’ll have to rest the swim to keep the bites coming.
If bites do dry up, then what I
like to do is pick up my cupping kit and feed around a third of the 200ml-sized cup of maggots and micros.
I then look to rest the swim for around 15-20 minutes to let the fish settle again. Nine times out of 10, when you go back to the island swim you’ll get a good run of fish as a result of the rest. I’ll repeat this process as often as necessary throughout the session.
The idea behind feeding the swim and resting it is to try to give the fish something to eat while I’m not fishing it.
This way, when I do go back, the chances are that not only will there be more fish there but they will be more confident too.
BIG HOOKBAIT
As far as hookbait choice goes there is only one... and that’s maggots.
After all, I’m feeding maggots and micros and I can’t put micros on the hook, so it makes perfect sense to fish maggots.
How many maggots I choose to fish depends on whether I’m targeting carp or F1s.
Normally, when F1s are the target, I’ll fish two dead maggots because I always feel these fish deal with a smaller bait that bit better.
As far as carp go, it’s normally the case of the bigger the better in terms of hookbait!
That said, today I’ve tried to catch carp by fishing three dead maggots and have actually ended up with a real mixed bag of carp, F1s, and some big skimmers.