FILL YOUR NET THIS WEEKEND!
MATCH ACE REVEALS HIS MAGGOT ATTACK FOR WINTER ACTION
TO FEED or not to feed? That’s the question anglers lining up on a commercial carp fishery in winter will ask themselves.
Make the wrong choice and you can wreck a peg and be staring a blank in the face.
Fluctuating temperatures, melted snow and ice and tightly-shoaled fish can change the appetite of carp and F1s overnight, seeing them go from wanting a bit of bait put into the peg to refusing to open their mouths completely.
The old adage of ‘you can’t take out what you’ve put in’ rings especially true at this time of year. Even just a few maggots dripped into the swim can kill any chance of catching. To further muddy the waters, it’s possible, even in bitterly cold weather, that the fish will indeed want some feed to trigger them into having a go!
Confusing, isn’t it! It’s easy to see how you can get things wrong, so what’s the best plan of attack? Anglers preparing for the upcoming Angling Trust Winter League Final on Cambridgeshire’s Decoy Lakes will be in this exact position. The lakes are prolific, but in winter you could easily believe there’s not a fish in the peg.
Tri-Cast and Van Den Eynde matchman Richard Bond has his theory on how to form a plan that takes in the ‘feed and no feed’ options in the same peg at Decoy without ruining his chances of catching – the best of both worlds if you like.
Such tactics might not win you the match, but in a team event it can make the difference between good points and your team mates getting the hump with your performance! Over to Richard...
Your options
“Basically in winter you can feed or not feed. Sounds simple, but it’s far from it! Feeding nothing and dobbing a bait around the peg is a great way to locate fish in the peg, as chances are they will be balled up in one spot.
“Even when you feed, I don’t think you’re going to pull any fish into the swim because you’re fishing to catch one carp or F1 at a time. This is why dobbing is a must – even if you don’t catch that much, you can get a very good idea of where the fish are.
“When you find some fish, and if dobbing isn’t catching, then you can begin to drip in a little bit of feed and see if they respond to this.
“Sometimes a few maggots falling through the water can be enough to get bites. If feeding doesn’t work here, though, you’ve done no damage. Little has been fed and you can go back to dobbing, searching elsewhere in the peg.”
starting off…
“I’d always begin by dobbing to find those fish, and this is a very instant method in that if anything is about, it’ll take the bait on the first or second drop.
“Plumbing up carefully is important so that I can find any underwater contours, especially variations in depth where the fish will sit. This can be as little as a six-inch change, but it’s enough to attract a lot of carp.
“My plan is then to kick off at 13m to the extreme left or right of my peg or, if I am an end peg, up to the bank fishing a 4x14 Malman Roob float set a foot off bottom with double red maggot on the hook. “Bread isn’t allowed at Decoy so maggot is the next-best option, although a corn skin is also worth a try through the day. I give this two or three drops, waiting 30 seconds on each, and if nothing happens, I move out to 14.5m (which is the pole limit on the strip lakes at Decoy) and do the same.
“It’s then a case of moving a metre to the side and repeating the process, covering all the peg until you reach the other extreme side. I’ll also change the depth I’m fishing at. If I’m not getting signs I go deeper, while if I am, I come shallower.
“With luck you’ll have had an indication or bite before you reach the end of the peg, which gives you a spot where you know some fish are.
“I’d then concentrate my efforts here. If there are no signs then I’ll go back and repeat the sweep of the peg, but if there are still no fish then it may be time to think about feeding.”