Kelvin Tallett
Ring the changes for double the action
“Switching between float and feeder I was able to stay in touch with the shoal”
We ARe all guilty of falling into lazy habits with our fishing, simply setting up one rod and waiting for a bite – but when targeting winter chub and barbel on the river this isn’t always the right way to go.
It’s very rare that you can lob out a feeder and catch steadily all day, as you can in summer, but by alternating between the feeder and the float you can stay one step ahead of the fish, and catch a lot more in the process.
I discovered this during a recent session on the River Severn at Arley, Worcestershire, where regularly changing my tactics resulted in a cracking bag.
Meaty Maggots
The only bait I took with me was a gallon of bronze maggots, with a few reds mixed in. I know that these are great for winter chub and barbel – the key to success would be to discover the right tactic for the day in question.
I’m a big fan of boosting my maggot hookbaits, and one of my favourite additives is Bait-Tech’s Sizzling Spicy Sausage glug. After riddling the maggots off, I’ll add a decent spoonful of flavouring to every few pints of grubs, before tying them up and leaving them in a bag overnight.
This gives the flavouring time to soak into the bait, but the biggest advantage, I find, of doing this is that it makes the maggots wriggle more in the cold, which in turn makes them more enticing to the fish. Although not everyone is convinced by glugs and additives, in my experience they really do work, so I would recommend giving them a go.
starting on the stick
I arrived at the river to find it running a foot above normal level with a decent colour. Combined with mild and overcast weather, I was hopeful of a few bites.
I sat in a typical Severn swim – long and open, with 500 yards of river visible downstream.
A hundred yards down the peg the riverbed shallowed slightly, and it’s an area where I knew the fish love to sit in summer. In the colder months, though, they move into the deeper water, which is where I would be focusing my attack today.
Setting up a stick float, a Bolo float and a maggot feeder, I started on the stick just to get a feel for things, feeding two half-pouches of maggots every run down.
You may be wondering why I didn’t just feed one big pouch, but feeding smaller amounts more regularly keeps a steady stream of bait flowing through the peg. This really gets the fish competing.
After an hour’s fishing I hadn’t received a bite, which was slightly unusual, but I wasn’t too worried
– I simply reached for the feeder rod instead.
Feeder success
Five quick casts put a bit of bait down in a specific area of the swim, and 20 minutes later the tip bounced round and I was into a hard-fighting fish.
A good barbel was netted shortly after that, and over the next halfhour I put two more barbel in the net, the bigger of which was a clonking fish close to 10lb.
Following this burst of activity, the swim went through a 30-minute lull and I suspected that the fish had dropped downstream.
I responded to this change by picking up my rod with a Bolo float attached. With this set-up I was able to follow the shoal as it moved gradually further down the peg.
Bolo Bagging
After feeding a few more pouches of bait I swung the Bolo out, and shortly after that the float tip plunged beneath the surface.
Another barbel was the culprit, and over the final hour it was followed by one more of its mates, as well as a bonus chub.
Eventually the fish backed off further and further downstream and it became increasingly difficult to keep in touch, so we decided to call it a day.
Had I not set up the Bolo rig the action would have come to a much swifter conclusion, and I would have gone home having caught just a few early fish on the feeder.
Pulling out the keepnet, I reckon I had around 30lb, all taken in just over three hours’ fishing. I’m sure that without the choice of tactics, my final tally would have been around half that weight, whereas by switching between the float and feeder I was able to stay in touch with the shoal.
There’s no doubt that you will still catch by just setting up a single rod, but next time you go out on the river make the effort to give yourself a few options – it could just result in a session you won’t forget in a hurry!