Keith looks back to when two innovative matchmen changed the face of feeder fishing

ARTHUR’S ARCHIVE

“The lads were all-but invincible on their Hever Castle water”

WHEN two mates put their heads together more than 40 years ago to solve a problem on their club’s water, they couldn’t have realised that they’d change the face of match fishing forever.

Ken Staton and Mick Emm were members of Edenbridge AC, which controlled the fishing at Hever Castle in Kent. The lake – the brainchild of the owner of Hever Castle, William Waldorf Astor – was formed in the 1900s by channelling the tiny River Eden through the grounds.

Over the years the lake silted up, leaving shallow water and soft silt. The shoals of bream were easy to see but difficult to catch, because groundbait balls or feeders sank without trace in the silt, leaving the bream to filter-feed and cause massive sheets of bubbles, but very few bites.

Ken and Mick came up with the idea of a three-vaned, bomb-shaped frame feeder, made from light hollow copper tube, around which soft, fluffy groundbait could be moulded for casting but which came off as a cloud when it hit the surface, leaving its payload of feed to fall naturally to the bottom. The light frame sat on the silt, thanks to its shape.

The lads were all-but invincible there, and the system worked on any similar water. They took the idea to Mick’s friend Bob Gleed, who owned the famous weight and feeder manufacturers Thamesley, and they set about producing the EmStat Frame Feeder.

Roll forward a few years to the advent of commercials, and a mechanic in Leicester devised a way of using firm groundbait on it, and burying the baited hook – which was attached to a length of pole elastic – to avoid small fish and catch carp. The Method feeder was born.

Refined in its shape by Andy Finlay, it evolved into a flat frame with an internal elastic on to which groundbait could be moulded. It has since been refined into banjo, Hybrid and all manner of other shapes and types of feeder. But, if Ken and Mick hadn’t set the ball rolling, would it ever have happened?