“It’s amazing how quickly the ‘wrong’ method can feel so right!”
EVER HAD ‘one of those days’ when the fish weren’t really at it, or waved two scaly fingers up at your favourite method?
Not so long ago I discussed the phenomenon of getting disinterested fish to react. Well, it’s one thing writing advice and another thing to follow it, because there I was at last week’s club match at Trinity Fisheries, getting completely stitched up. Whether it was topsy-turvy weather or the fish close to spawning, I couldn’t win a bite. Pole or feeder, worm or pellet, the carp were about as cooperative as a werewolf at a salad bar.
At this stage I noticed my neighbour doing something quite daring. There we all were, motionless and frustrated, while Sam Williams was splatting a little float plus pellet bait down on the surface. Which might have seemed a bit random or even desperate, before the elastic streamed out of his pole!
So-called ‘slapping’ is a strange-looking method, admittedly. Like mugging, or any number of other alternative tricks, it’s the sort of technique that gets labelled a ‘dark art’ by other anglers (usually because they can’t be bothered to try it). But why do we complain at such antics when we could so easily follow suit and radically change our fortunes?
For the uninitiated, ‘slapping’ is a clever, aggressive and rather hyperactive way to fish. Using a stubby little ‘Cookie’ float and a big pellet, the offender repeatedly smacks their baited rig down on the water. The idea is to create an audible ‘plop’. If you’re not a regular ‘slapper’, whacking your pole-tip down repeatedly while feeding naff all feels so wrong. But the commotion is a fantastic way to get any nearby carp to come and investigate. And that includes fish that weren’t thinking about lunch in the first place!
Looking on, I was both intrigued and a bit dismayed to be taking such a beating. So why didn’t I follow suit there and then? Part of it is pure stubbornness. “I’m no good at method X” or “I’ll just give Plan A another 10 minutes” are so often our default reactions.
With two hours left, pride relented and I dug out a shallow pellet rig to give it a blast.
Action wasn’t instant, and I suspect it was sheer frustration that was the turning point. Just as I whacked the bait down with a little extra feeling, there was a savage bite and my pole groaned as a seriously angry carp took off!
While I never caught ace ‘slapper’ Sam (I should be careful here, he’s as big and ugly as I am!), the end of the match was thrilling. Boy, do these slapped carp fight hard – and with the Trinity fish being big bruisers, just four of them were worth 35lb. Too little, too late in my case, but I’d been handed a valuable lesson about stubbornness and added a valuable new tool to the locker.
“So-called ‘slapping’ is a strange looking tactic, admittedly”