Give ’em feed! Win on deep lakes, with Ian Chadburn’s help
Why groundbait – and lots of it – is key to deep water wins
THE rulebook for winter match feeding always recommends going steady to avoid ruining a peg.
Faced with deep water and lots of roach, though, keeping the feeding minimal and light won’t get the best out of your swim. You need to ladle in the feed!
In the past I’ve tried being negative on deep lakes and really struggled before changing to regular balls of feed. The difference has been astonishing, in terms of quality and quantity.
The lakes at McCallum’s Fishery near Doncaster are old, deep quarries stuffed with roach, with 12ft of water on the pole line. Try loosefeeding in that lot and you’ll only bring the roach up in the water, where they’ll be hard to catch. Likewise, feed just the odd ball of groundbait and you’ll never be putting enough in to attract the fish in that depth.
Therefore, I will think nothing of giving the roach up to 18 balls of groundbait at the start and feed perhaps another dozen through the day, even in December. This massive hit of bait will keep the fish on the bottom just where I want them, as well as pulling a few skimmers or bream into the peg.
FISH TWO LINES
Because there’s the chance of big roach and skimmers, I like to have a dedicated line for these and a second for catching everything that swims.
Both are at 13m, spaced 4m apart. The big-fish line gets 10 balls and the other area 18, all cupped in over an area 50cm square. Throwing in by hand is simply too inaccurate.
TOPPING UP
Those early balls may seem more than enough to catch over all day, but not so!
When bites fade, or you’re catching very small roach or even perch, it’s time to feed more – just one egg-sized ball – to try and encourage those better roach back into the area.
Cupping in half a pot of casters on their own can also work if I think that the fish are becoming too preoccupied with the groundbait and I am missing too many bites.
KICKING OFF
I’ll always start on the exclusive joker line and expect lots of bites, but by regularly feeding the big-fish line with a caster, pinkie and groundbait combo I’d try it after an hour and hope to catch on caster. If nothing happens, I’ll go back to the joker and keep feeding both swims.
What I want on the caster line are immediate bites from better fish, and I’d expect this caster line to get better towards the end of the day as the light fades.