Steve Ringer reveals how you can catch big weights of roach on the pole
After a successful trip to the World Pairs event, Steve reveals the rigs and feeding tricks behind his big weights
THOSE who read last week’s column will no doubt already know what a fantastic event the World Pairs in Ireland was this year.
What makes it so good is not only the fact that you’re fishing in stunning scenery on vast venues, but also the variety of the fishing you encounter.
For instance, one day you can be catching big hybrids on Lough Erne and the next you’re fishing for big nets of roach on the pole.
Now, most of you reading this will be well aware that I love my feeder fishing, but on this occasion I have to admit I really enjoyed the pole fishing aspect of the event.
The reason for my enthusiasm was that there were lots of roach there. They weren’t easy to catch, but I do love a challenge!
Get it wrong and you would struggle for a bite, but get it right and there was 30lb of roach to be caught…
MY BAIT APPROACH
On the bait front, it was a pretty simple choice with groundbait, casters, worms, and some maggots for the hook.
This year I used a new mix, which included 40 per cent Ringers Euro Feeder, 40 per cent Dynamite Frenzied Hemp Black and 20 per cent brown crumb.
Once mixed with water, this combo is dark in colour, but not what I would call black, and it proved to be ideal for roach.
As for casters, I took four pints to my peg but this was for both feeder and pole. In reality, if I fed three pints on the pole, that would be a lot.
I also took a kilo of worms to my peg but I wouldn’t expect to feed more than a quarter-of-a-kilo on the pole.
FEEDING THE SWIM
To kick the swim off I like to ball it in with 8-10 balls of groundbait on and around the pole tip.
I don’t like to feed these balls too tightly. By feeding a wider area I can pick roach off from all over the swim rather than in just one spot.
This help to prevent the roach spooking and keeps bites coming for longer periods.
I add 125ml of finely chopped worms and the same of casters to the starting balls – not a lot of loose offerings – and will make four of the balls soft, so they break up on impact and help get the swim off to a fast start.
The rest of the balls are squeezed hard so they get to the bottom and work back up. As for loosefeeding, it’s all about casters, and I will kick off by feeding 20-30 every 45 seconds or so.
Regular feeding is really important, as bait falling through the water helps to pull fish in.
It can pay to mix things up a bit, though. Catching the right stamp of fish is key to catching 30lb-plus, and this year I actually found the more casters I fed, the smaller the stamp of roach I caught.
Therefore, it was much better to cut back to just 10-12 casters at a time once I started to get bites. This saw a marked improvement in the size of fish caught.
When bites began to dry up I potted in a ball of soft groundbait full of finely chopped worms, and this got me an instant response.
Incidentally, I’m convinced that roach are attracted by noise so I always pot the ball in from a height to capitalise on this.
HOOKBAIT CHOICES
This is massively important when trying to catch 200-plus roach.
Normally when speed fishing for roach I’d fish either a maggot or a worm head so I can catch multiple fish on the same hookbait.
These roach were far too clever for that, though, and the only way to get regular bites was to fish a single caster on the hook.
With the water being so clear and the roach feeding on casters, anything else was largely ignored.
When you think about it, it’s amazing that there can be so many roach there competing for the loosefeed yet they are clever enough to ignore something different to the norm falling through the water. Hooking the caster was also important. If you buried the hook you missed too many bites.
Therefore it was much better to thread the caster on and leave the hookpoint showing. A dark caster was also miles better than a light one on the hook.