Tactic of the Week Starve ’em on to the hook with Matt Godfrey!

Matt Godfrey says less can be more when it comes to quality

WHEN you’re faced with a lot of fish to catch in your swim, surely you’ll need an equally large amount of bait to feed and keep what’s in front of you happy?

Well, that’s not entirely the case. As winter draws near, I’ve found that less is more. By using a more frugal feeding strategy, I can catch quicker, better-quality fish into the bargain. It’s all to do with giving the fish little choice as to what they eat.

If you pop your hookbait in among a continual stream of feed or several large balls of groundbait it’ll take the fish longer to find what’s on the hook compared to if they have only a minimal amount of bait to get stuck into.

Feeding regularly also seems to pull in more small fish, so if we’re talking quality, almost starving them on to the hook is best.

So, after bagging a load of rudd on the waggler early on in my session on the Stainforth & Keadby Canal at Wykewell (last week’s issue), it was time to have a look on the pole for some big fish – we’re talking skimmers, big roach, perch and perhaps even a tench – all for the price of just a few balls of groundbait and some chopped worm, casters and dead red maggots!

GETTING THE FEEDING RIGHT

We’re talking minimal feed, but how much goes in at the start?

My peg is always home to lots of fish at this time of year so I don’t need to ladle the bait in to pull those skimmers and roach into the swim.

Instead, two large balls of groundbait are ample. To these I’ll add a little finely-chopped worm,