Steve shows you how to stay in touch with the fish all session
Champion angler Steve takes an in-depth look at your angling problems How do I know when to fish dead depth, overdepth or even off the bottom?
KNOWING what depth to fish at is something that comes with experience, but as with anything there are some general rules to follow.
Some basic rules such as fishing overdepth for bream and skimmers still apply, but the real trick comes in knowing how far overdepth to go or, indeed, when to come off bottom and catch.
We all miss bites, yet so many anglers rely on plugging away, thinking the fish will eventually take the bait properly.
Occasionally this will happen, but if anglers only thought about what was happening and made a few changes, the transformation of bites to fish hooked would be remarkable!
Dead depth is best
If we’re talking commercial fisheries for species such as carp and F1s, then 99 per cent of the time I’ll fish at dead depth. This means plumbing up so that when you are holding the plummet on a tight line, just the body and bristle of the float are visible.
Some anglers will take dead depth even further when conditions are flat calm and plumb so there’s literally just the bristle of the float showing! However, a good rule of thumb is to leave the bristle and body standing proud.
This suits baits like pellets (soft and hard), corn, maggots, casters and sometimes even worms. The advantage of fishing at dead depth is that if a fish sucks the hookbait in you should get an indication on the float. If you’re fishing overdepth, a fish can suck the hookbait in and blow it back out and you’d never know.
Of course, fishing dead depth should never come at the expense of good presentation.
Going overdepth
There are a couple of times when I’d look to change this, though. The first scenario is if there’s a big tow on the water and I’m fishing for bream. In this case I will look to fish 6ins-8ins overdepth, so that I can present a still bait. Fishing like this suits baits such as worms and maggots.
“When plumbing up, ensure your rig is straight below the pole-tip”
I’m not a fan of fishing pellets and corn overdepth because fish seem to suck these baits in and not hang on to them as they tend to do with worms and maggots.
If tow is a problem and I’m targeting carp and F1s I’d still stay fishing dead depth, but would look to lift and drop the rig more often to try and keep the rig straight and minimise the effect of the tow. A heavier float is also an option to assist stability.
Coming shallow
The second scenario is if line bites and foul-hooking are a problem. At this time of year you’ll sometimes find there are fish in front of you, but they just don’t want to feed on the bottom. In this case I’ll mark the actual depth on my pole with a line marker pen and look to experiment.
The reason I mark the depth on the pole is so that I have a base point and know where the bottom is. I’ll then try coming 6ins off bottom to see if that results in proper bites and fish hooked properly in the mouth.
If the problems persist I will simply take another 6ins off the depth until I find the level the fish are sitting at.
Plumb up properly
It’s worth mentioning plummet size for finding the depth. I’ve always been a fan of a big heavy plummet, so I use the Guru 30g version.
I feel that a bigger plummet gives me more ‘feel’, which is important when trying to gauge the depth.
I can also get an idea of what I’m fishing on with a heavy plummet. I can work out if the bottom is gravel, clay or silt.
If the plummet sticks when it hits the bottom and you go to lift it back out, that’s a good indicator that you’re fishing on a soft bottom which is more than likely silt. Equally, if the plummet hits the bottom with a proper ‘donk’, it means it’s a hard bottom, which is likely to be clay or gravel.
In an ideal world it’s always easier to fish on a hard bottom, but quite often you’ll find a peg just doesn’t offer that opportunity, in which case it isn’t something I’ll worry about.
If I feel that the bottom is very soft, then I’ll sometimes plumb up with the 30g plummet and double-check the depth with a smaller 10g model.
The reason for this is that a 30g plummet can sink into very soft silt, hence it can be worth just plumbing the spot with a 10g plummet just to check.
It’s also very important to make sure when plumbing up that your rig is straight below the pole-tip, not in front or inside slightly.
If you’re plumbing up with your rig at an angle, you aren’t plumbing up accurately, so it’s vital that you let the rig straighten and lower it down as opposed to swinging it in.