“How do I get the best from an openwater peg?” Steve Ringer answers your questions in his exclusive weekly column
I’M GOING to assume that we’re talking about winter – we’re not quite into spring, so the water will still be cold and the fish in a picky mood!
The first thing I like to do when I arrive at a venue is try and find the fish. Even in the cold you can still spot fish, so it’s well worth a walk around to see if they are making their presence felt. Don’t be in a rush to get fishing!
When it’s really cold, you’ll find the fish at the back of the wind rather than on it. A cold wind chills the water right down, so it’s rare you’ll find the carp sat in the choppy water at this time of the year. Calmer areas will be better.
Go the distance
Once you’ve found some fish, or settled on a swim that’s right in terms of the wind, the next step is to form a plan of attack. A good rule of thumb in the cold is start long and work back towards you. That’s because the fish are easily spooked by the disturbance of you setting up, no matter how quiet you are.
That means starting long makes sense, because you’re fishing where the fish, especially carp, are most likely to be. I’ll normally look to kick off at 14.5m because this gives me the chance to go out to 16m as the session progresses if I feel the need to.
If you don’t have a 16m pole but yours is 14.5m, I’d start at 13m. You can then got out to 14.5m if you have to. Sometimes you’ll catch a couple of fish early before they back off a little further.
That’s when it’s handy to have the ability to pop another joint on the pole to keep in touch with the fish.
In terms of what spot to fish in, I like to have a good plumb about at the start just to see exactly what I have in front of me. I’m looking for any depth deviation – ideally a little drop-off, because underwater features like this nearly always hold carp.
A little hole 18ins round where it’s 6ins deeper is a great example. Not every fishery will have this type of feature, so in those situations I’ll kick off by fishing straight in front of me.
“Fish are easily spooked by the disturbance of you setting up”
Short pole line
With the long line dealt with, I’ll then look at having two other lines, a short pole line and an edge line. I like to fish the short pole line at an angle of either 10 o’clock or two o’clock at the bottom of the near shelf.
This involves plumbing down the nearside slope until the bottom flattens out, and then fishing a foot out on to the flat bottom. This means I’m into the deep water in a depth where the fish are likely to feel confident enough to feed.
This normally involves fishing anything from five to seven pole joints out from the bank, depending on where the slope finishes. I put this line in at an angle too, so that when I hook a fish, I can play it in front of me without doing it right on top of where I’ve been fishing and feeding. For example, if I’m fishing to my left then, when I hook a fish, I’ll steer it to my right to play it.
Timing-wise, this is a line that I wouldn’t really expect to produce any bites until the last two hours. That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t use it as a resting line before this, because sometimes I might need to come off my long line to let the fish settle again.
As a rule, though, it’s those last two hours when I’d expect to get a bite or two.
Margin line
Next up are the margins. With it being so cold at the moment, your chances of catching in the edge are basically down to one thing, and that’s depth. If it’s only 12ins deep down the edge, I’d be amazed if you caught there when it’s really cold. Ideally at his time of year I’d look for a minimum of 2ft of water to stand a chance of getting a few bites late on. In the cold, carp don’t tend to come into the edge until very late, meaning often it’s the last half-hour when the margin line finally comes to life.
Another little tip regarding the edges is to look to fish long and stay well away from where you’re sat. Carp can be very spooky in cold, clear water, so by fishing long down the bank your chances of getting a bite or two are definitely increased.
If you also have some cover, that can be well worth a look because carp, in particular, love sitting in the rushes when the water is clear.