Do winter bream like a big helping of bait?

Neil French, via email

THERE’S no right or wrong to this. You can feed very positively or negatively!

Putting a load of bait down and fishing over it, or trying to build up the peg through the day by regular casting both have a part to play.

Recently I’ve having a good deal of success, particularly with skimmers, by doing the former and putting a bed of bait in to let the fish settle on it. Here’s how I see it…

Lay off the worms

I may kick off by feeding two pints of wetted-down groundbait using a large sevenhole Guru Bait Up feeder. To this initial feed I’ll add particles such as casters, dead maggots and dead pinkies.

You may notice there’s no chopped worm being mentioned, and that’s because I’m always a bit wary about the effectiveness of worms at this time of the year. With this in mind, unless I know they are working on a venue, I will hold them back to use as an impact feed later in the session.

When putting the initial feed in I also try not to be too accurate. I’m looking to create an area for the bream and skimmers to feed over, rather than a tight spot. Skimmers can be very spooky in the cold, so by fishing a bigger area they are easier to pick off. When I say ‘big’ I’m talking maybe baiting a line around 3m wide.

Settle down!

Once that initial feed is in, I like to let things settle for at least an hour, ideally 90 minutes. This means that for this period of time, I will fish somewhere else, thus having two lines on the go. At this time of year I feel this isn’t a bad thing as it allows you to rest one swim whilst fishing the other.

For instance, I will bait heavily on a short line and then fish further out for the first 90 minutes. The problem with baiting up and then starting to fish the line straight away is that you won’t give the skimmers time to settle, and they’ll spook as a result.

However, by leaving the baited area alone for 90 minutes it means that when I do go on it, the skimmers are settled and feeding properly, which in turn makes them less wary and a lot easier to catch.

Small feeder

Once I do start fishing the baited line, small feeders are key. I’m looking at mini window feeders, two-hole slimlines and tiny three-hole rocket feeders here – but why?

The way I look at it, the feed is already in and on the bottom, so I don’t need to build the peg with a larger feeder to get more stuff in. Instead, the name of the game is to pick fish off with the mini feeder, which creates minimal disturbance.

On the subject of disturbance, this is another vital factor.

I have no doubt that when the water is cold, big feeders crashing in can scare the fish – another reason why I like to get the bait in early and then keep any commotion to a minimum after that.

Follow the fish

Distance is also worth talking about here. Once I’ve baited up,

I like to clip two rods up to fish over the bait. The first is clipped to fish exactly on top of the feed while the second is set to put the feeder around 1m past. Then I fish on the feed to start with but, if things are hard, I will switch to fishing just past the feed by that metre or so.

Quite often, when the fishing is tough, a few fish will still come to the feed, but instead of sitting on it they will be just beyond it. By casting to the back of the baited area, you can catch them.

Solving the liner problem

If I’m fishing past the feed and start to get lots of indications but no hooked fish, I will simply pick my second rod up for fishing on top of the bait and switch to that. Those indications are most likely being caused by fish feeding on the bait.

By setting up two rods to fish in this manner I’m getting the best of both worlds and not putting all of my eggs in one basket.

Just because I’ve fed a lot of bait doesn’t mean I have to fish bang on top of it, as fishing around the area can be just as, if not more, productive.

Empty feeder trick

One tip if the fishing is tough is to try fishing with a bomb or even an empty feeder.

It could be that the fish don’t want the constant introduction of bait into the swim each cast.

Equally, if you catch a few and then the swim totally dies a death, try resting it altogether for half-an-hour before dropping back in. Sometimes, just taking your feeder and line out of the swim altogether will be enough to let the fish settle.

For this reason, even when I’m not fishing my starting line, I will top it up every now and again so that if I need to I can drop back on it to rest my second swim. I’ll still have a good chance of picking up a fish or two.