Dave Harrell Cash in on rivers after the floods

Now is the perfect time for big river weights…

THE past few weeks have been really frustrating for many river anglers. We’ve had high levels all over the country and all my favourite venues have been hit hard with many matches cancelled, including the big-money RiverFest final on the Severn at Shrewsbury.

That’s the bad news! The good news is that when the levels are back down we can expect some really good fishing, as fish will be hungry and competing for food. This week, we’re looking at the tactics for rivers that are fining down after a flood. Give them a try over the next few weeks and hopefully they will help you to improve your catches.

GET YOUR FEEDING RIGHT

It’s important to get your feeding right when you are fishing these rigs, and I tend to do a mix and match of loosefeed and groundbait. There is no need to throw loads in at the start, though.

It’s much better to build the swim by feeding a ball every cast or every other cast to start with and loosefeed at the same time.

Before you throw any groundbait in, run your rig through a few times and only introduce the balls when you are certain that your rig is going to be presented perfectly over the feed that has broken up on the bottom.

I’ve seen many anglers feed far too high up the swim in a situation where fish are actually above where they can correctly present their hookbait.

Once you have worked out where your presentation is working, you can then introduce groundbait, and I’ll wager a bet that most of the time that will be further down the swim than you first expected it to be.

By keeping the groundbait downstream and loosefeeding slightly upstream or in front of it you will be able to create two catching areas. Quite often you

will find that dace settle over the groundbait and roach hold back further downstream, intercepting the loosefeed.

After a couple of hours, you can determine which part of the swim is producing best. If the fish are lining up on top of the groundbait, keep it going in, but if that part of the swim dries up, concentrate on loosefeeding for the rest of the session.

Big roach are eager flood! to feed after a

FEEDER OR FLOAT? After a flood, it’s possible to catch big weights with float or feeder approaches. The governing factor for me is the colour of the water, and if it’s still carrying a lot of colour then it’s feeder all the way. If, however, the colour is dropping out and you can see several inches into the water, I would recommend you to try float gear. For species like roach, dace, chub and perch you will catch far more with a moving hookbait, in conjunction with groundbait or loosefeed. STAY SAFE! The first thing I must stress to any angler visiting a river after a flood is to be careful. No fish is worth risking your life for, so always take care when you’re getting down the bank. Check, too, that the riverbank is safe and not likely to give way, as it’s possible that floodwater could have undercut it, leaving it weak and ready to collapse. Fish after a flood for some amazing sport.

Feed your groundbait downstream.

A ball of this every cast!