Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
3 RIGS TO TAME RIVER PREDATORS
When he’s tackling running water, Kodex’s Justin Beale relies on a trio of tried and trusted presentations...
LURE fishing on rivers can be a doubleedged sword. On the one hand they offer the mobile angler acres of water to target. Conversely, this is also their biggest disadvantage as you could be literally miles away from your quarry. One man that loves lure fishing on rivers is Kodex and Bait-Tech-backed Justin Beale. With a current personal best perch of 5lb 9oz, a back-up fish of 5lb 1oz, five four-pounders and countless three-pounders to his name, all from his local River Thames, he seemed perfectly placed to take us through the finer points of tackling running water.
Location is paramount
Although we joined Justin on board his boat for the day, he also does do a huge amount of angling from the bank. “I find if I’m going all day, the boat enables me to cover miles, rather than yards in a day. For shorter sessions, I walk,” the 42-year-old told us. “The problem with rivers is that the fish can be so nomadic – any particular swim will bring a blank today, while tomorrow it will throw up a 4lb fish! “Basically, like any form of lure fishing, the more water you can cover, the greater the potential for bites.” When choosing where to fish, Justin considers
perch to be fairly universal in their habits – whether they live in running water, stillwaters or canals and drains, they always frequent the same ‘types’ of area. Features such as weed beds, boats, bridges, moorings, outflows, snags and structure all attract perch because they often hold good heads of prey fish.
He ain’t heavy
With ultra-light fishing;,the clue is in the name. Generally Justin’s preferred jig head or drop shot weight will be between 3.5g and 5g. “As I know the river so well and keep an eye on the level gauges, when the Thames is at its lowest levels, the river practically stands still,” he explained. “This enables me to use my standard canal/ stillwater tackle.” For the Bourne End lad, the lighter you can fish your lures, the better the presentation will be and the more you should catch. If the wind gets up, Justin will increase the weight of his heads or drop shot to a maximum of 10g. If he needs to use a heavier weight than 10g due to the fast flow, he will look for slack areas of water to fish as this is where the prey will be more likely to be holed up in such conditions.
The colours of a rainbow
Like all lure anglers, Justin has a rubber fetish, carrying dozens of different patterns, sizes, shapes and colours of soft plastic baits. Like most, he follows the rule of mutedcoloured baits in clear water. These include light blue, shades of silver, browns and even clear and flecked patterns that may appear a touch more natural. Hi-vis colours such as bright pink, orange, chartreuse tend to be better in coloured water. If the river is chocolate brown, he will gladly use either a jet black or bright white lure to offer maximum contrast in the water. “I’ve had some truly massive perch using white lures,” Justin told us. “It is definitely one of my ‘go-to’ colours in heavily murky water.” Of course, all these ‘rules’ are a moveable feast and you may find that going against advice by using a bright pink lure in crystal clear water may produce the goods.
Three choices of rig
Rig-wise, Justin tends to use three. His first choice is a jig head. Jigging gives good hook-up potential because the hookpoint is better exposed but, if there is weed about, this will quickly ruin the presentation. “I love jig head fishing because I can fish a variety of retrieves – dragging the bottom, liftand-drop, or a straight retrieve,” said Justin. “This also enables me to cover a lot of water, very quickly.” His second choice is drop shotting. For Justin, there is a time and place for drop shotting. This is usually in and around structure, because it enables him to work the bait close to the areas perch launch their ambushes on prey. However, if the bottom is weedy or the water temperature very low, experience has shown drop shotting is less effective than other styles. Justin’s final presentation is ‘weedless’. It’s a
must were weed is a problem, but the downside of is that hook-up rates aren’t as good as a straight jig head. This is because the hookpoint lies flat against the body of the lure. On the positive side, it does open up many more areas to fish and a weedless presentation can see the same lure ‘working’ differently through the water column because of the way it is mounted. On some harder days, little things like this can make a really big difference. “There is no ‘perfect’ presentation, you just try to find and use the best you can on that given day,” he added.
Be prepared for pike!
As Justin loves to fifish as light as possible – 7g rods, 6lb braids and 3lb leaders – he is always primarily targeting perch. The use of a wire trace, regardless of how light it is, will always affect the number of perch bites you get, so he always starts the session with a flfluorocarbon leader. If pike become a problem, he will swap to one of his homemade 8lb seven-strand wire traces. “With ultra-light jigging or drop shotting, nine times out of 10 you tend to hook pike in the scissors of the jaw,” said Justin. “But, getting bitten off can happen, the same as it does with match anglers. It’s not ideal, but they do get rid of the hooks quite quickly.” He then went on to recall catching a distinctive pike. All but beaten on the surface, it rolled and snapped the leader. An hour later, Justin caught the same pike again, and the lure and hook were gone. “If the area you are fishing is well known for pike, or looks ‘pikey’, I will start with a trace, taking no chances. Also, if I’m fishing with a lure fitted with treble hooks, it is always used in conjunction with wire. “There is always the chance of a pike when river fishing, regardless of the swim choice, so if you are concerned, use a trace rather than fluoro from the off just to be on the safe side,” he concluded.