What should I do immediately after drawing a match peg?

Michael Fenner, via Facebook

HERE’S what I would do on a typical snake lake swim such as the one at Barby Banks Fishery, which has good stocks of carp, some F1s and silverfish.

On arrival at my peg I’ll have a look at what I have in front of me and look for obvious fish-holding features such as aerators, overhanging trees, big rush beds or even a bridge.

However, maybe there’s just a far bank sparsely lined with rushes. This still gives me cover to go and catch a few. The next step is to plumb the peg thoroughly. I’m looking for any underwater feature, be that a deep hole or a sudden depth variation, either of which can hold a lot of fish.

For that reason, I’d limit myself to three main lines and one ‘just in case’ swim on a largely featureless peg. Here’s where they will be and how I will fish them…

Swim 1

The first swim will be across to those rushes. Setting up my kit will spook fish and push them over to the far bank, so it makes sense to start there.

I’ll kick off dobbing bread to all the likely spots. If I catch a few carp in a couple of areas I’ll make a note of this – once bites on the bread dry up, I’ll start feeding a bit of bait in areas where I have already caught.

Fish don’t move far in the cold so if I’ve had signs in an area on bread, it’s safe to say there’s a pocket of fish there. When the bread dies, I’ll switch to dripping a little bit of bait in to try and get a response that way. Pellets and corn are a good option for feed and hookbaits.

Swims 2A & 2B

My second line is what I call my deep-water swim, which is usually fished down the middle or just past the middle of the peg. If there’s nothing obvious to fish to, like an aerator, I will opt for two swims at angles of 10 o’clock and two o’clock.

I like to have two swims on the go in the cold because if I do start to get a few bites, I can rotate them to try and keep the fish coming. Angles are important, as they allow me to hook a fish and steer it out of the swim. I can then play it in the middle of the peg without ruining my two baited areas.

I will often feed both lines very negatively to start with and then, if there is no response, I will up the feed on one line to see if I get a bite. If I don’t, it means that I haven’t ruined both lines as one will have had very little fed into it.

I must add that if I do find some sort of deep hole I will always fish it, as the chances are it will hold fish. At first, I will go in without feeding, using just a grain of corn on the hook to discover if any fish are present. Sometimes, if there are fish there already, feeding will spook them, so I always like to have a dob around first. By doing this you can sometimes get a quick run of fish before you need to feed anything.

Swim 3

My final main swim is in the margins. Catching in the ‘edge’ depends on one thing – depth – so if there’s little water to work with, chances are you aren’t going to catch much.

I’m looking for a minimum of 2ft and ideally 3ft-plus with some cover, such as rushes. If I can find that depth, I reckon there is a real chance of a late fish or two on this line.

The feeding strategy is again a case of ‘less is more’, and more often than not I won’t even feed the margins until 30 minutes before I want to have a look there. When I do, I will feed just enough bait to try and catch a fish – six or eight grains of corn and a pinch of pellets.

Swim 4

There is one final swim that can come into play during the match, and that is a short line straight in front of me at the bottom of the near shelf.

If the margins are too shallow to fish, this is an area I will look to target but quite often I will use it purely as a ‘throwaway’ line and just trickle a bit of bait in throughout the day.

Normally this means flicking in three or four grains of corn every five minutes or so. I will then drop in here every now and again just to see if a carp is at home.

Late in the day, the fish often frequent the bottom of the near shelf. This is a great area to target with a little bit of bait because it is a natural patrol route for the fish.