Bob Nudd How to fish close in and bag up with maggots
In the first of a new series, Bob Nudd reveals his tips for great mixed bag
FOR most anglers, fishing commercials is all about catching carp and F1s. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but I reckon they’re missing out on the fantastic sport these lakes offer from the variety of species living under the surface.
Aside from carp, your typical commercial will be full of roach, skimmers, tench, crucians, ide and – on some waters – barbel.
A mixed bag of these can be just as rewarding as a string of big mirrors and commons, and a lot simpler to catch into the bargain!
When it comes to putting together a mixed bag I don’t think you can beat maggots. You don’t have to fish far out either to get bites all day. Often a swim just a couple of rodlengths out on the waggler or the 4m or 5m pole line will enable easy feeding and super bait presentation.
Maggots catch everything that swims, and they’re my number one for feed. When it comes to hookbaits, though, ringing the changes will bring the best results so I’ll always bring a selection with me to try throughout the day until I hit upon what’s working best.
Decoy Lakes near Peterborough is one of the best mixed fisheries I know, offering the chance to catch almost every common species of coarse fish in the UK. It’s one of those venues where you never know just what’s going to be on the end next when you strike. It could be a massive carp, a battling barbel, a chunky skimmer or a plump roach.
With all this in mind, I settled on Lou’s Lake, one of the smallest on site and the most popular among pleasure anglers armed with a few pints of red maggots and a mix of hookbaits. My aim was to catch a lovely mixed bag on just a few sections of pole.
HEAVY AND LIGHT RIGS
Setting up two rigs covers all bases and lets me fish a hookbait with a slow fall if roach are not present or to bomb it to the deck if they are!
I’ll kick off on a light rig, but if I can’t get the bait down, out comes the heavy one, which carries an olivette and looks more like a rig I’d use for catching lots of fish at speed on a Fenland drain!
On the light rig I use a 0.3g pencil-shaped float with a strung bulk of shot in the bottom half to get the bait down to half-depth quickly and then let it fall slowly through the rest of the swim.
My heavy rig is very different, with an olivette and three No8 dropper shot under a 0.7g pearshaped
float. This will get the bait down fast, with the droppers strung under the olivette over 8ins of line.
If the roach are still intercepting the bait on the way down I will bunch all the weight together just above the hooklink to fire it to the bottom in double-quick time.