Go underwater

You may want to cast more often after reading this,

Dr Paul Garner reveals how Method feeder mixes work on lakes

THE Method feeder has to be the most-used stillwater tactic, but what do we actually know about how our feeders work once they are cast out?

This week, using a polemounted camera, I was able to get a carp’s-eye view of exactly what was going on below the surface – and the results were fascinating.

IS BIGGER BETTER?

Larger pellets for the feeder need to fully absorb the water they are soaked in if they are to become sticky enough to adhere to the feeder.

This means that they don’t expand so much when in the water, and take longer to break down than micros. Still, within a couple of minutes the pellets were falling away from the feeder and revealing the hookbait nestled inside.

A few pellets had already been dislodged from the feeder as it hit the water on the cast. I always squeeze on the pellets quite firmly to avoid this problem.

The hookbait tends to end up lying just to the side of the feeder. This, I think, shows that fish aren’t afraid of a lump of metal on the bottom and will happily feed right next to it. The silver fish soon started to demolish the pellets and within 10 minutes they had been spread out over the area of a dustbin lid.

Actually seeing what was happening made me realise that I need to recast more regularly in warm weather as the bait is dispersed very quickly.

GROUNDBAIT METHOD

I chose a straight-from-thebag Method feeder mix that I kept quite dry so that it broke down quite rapidly. I find it far more effective to compress the groundbait harder around the feeder, rather than use a mix that is too wet and will stick to the feeder and not break down properly.

Even with the dry mix, the groundbait was the slowest to fully break down. As the feeder sank it created a plume of tiny particles but virtually all the bait reached the bottom intact. I was impressed at how well the sandy-coloured groundbait matched the lakebed. No worries that the colour would stand out and spook the fish.

The outer crust of goundbait soon broke down, but the core moulded around the fins of the feeder took more than 10 minutes to be dislodged, even though rudd were attacking it voraciously. I liked the fact that some bait stayed on the feeder, acting as a point of focus.

Although I’ve filmed just about every possible rig and bait underwater, I still find myself picking up on the simple things, like how much of an effect small fish can have on the spread of bait, and how dark baits blend in so well on the bottom.

I hope you’ve found this look under the surface interesting – it’s made me think again about how often I will be recasting and which bait I will be loading on to my Method feeder this summer!