Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Whip up a netful of silvers – Tony Grigorjevs
If you want a day of non-stop action then use a whip. IYCF’s Tony Grigorjevs reveals how to fish this fun and simple tactic
IF A newcomer experiences a disastrous first session, the sport will have most probably lost a potential recruit. With that in mind, it is imperative that novices are given a debut to remember. Simple tactics guaranteeing lots of bites and fish in the net are usually all that’s required. Shipping back a long pole can prove tricky to the inexperienced hand and the potential ‘birds nest’ tangles that come with using a rod and reel send both these options out of the window. It’s all about taking it back to the basics – and you can’t get any easier than fishing the whip. An amazing tool for catching stacks of small silverfish, the whip is an approach that anyone can get to grips with, giving them an instant feel and thrill for fishing. I speak from experience. Without a 5m glassfibre whip when I was schoolboy obsessed with the aquatic world, it’s highly unlikely I would have gained the passion that is still well and truly alive over two decades since it started. If you are looking to do the sport a favour and help bolster its participation numbers, introduce a friend and make the whip your weapon of choice.
Catch them close
There’s every chance a pole plays a big part in your usual fishing approach and this can be used as a whip. You’ll only need a top kit and a No.4 section – the rest of the pole can go back in the bag! You could fish with just a top kit, but adding the extra
section enables you to cast slightly further out and get away from the nearside reedbeds and other features where big fish could be hiding. Let’s face it, a newcomer is going to struggle to play a bonus carp on light tackle on their first ever trip, so these lumps are best avoided in favour of many smaller fish. Make sure that the rig is 2ft shorter than the pole you are holding so the elastic can stretch as you swing in a hooked fish and it comes straight to your hand, not dangling around your feet.
Rig components
Traditional pole fishing involves laying a rig into the water so no casting weight is required, but things are different when using the whip. The pole needs to be brought over your head and the rig is then ‘whipped’ out and this is why a float with a little bit of weight is required. In calm conditions a 0.4g-0.6g pattern will suffice, with a rugby ball-shaped version best. Wire and carbon-stemmed versions are ideal because they quickly sit up in the water. As almost every fish you land is likely to be under 8oz, a light elastic is needed to prevent bumping lots of roach, rudd and perch. A Preston Innovations No.8 Dura Hollo is very soft but also provides a little punch that enables you to easily swing in fish under 4oz to hand. I use 0.14mm or 0.16mm mainline to a 0.10mm hooklength and a size 16 Kamasan B510. Fairly thick mainline is important as this helps keep a tight line between pole tip and float, which is vital if you want to hit the vast majority of bites. A light hooklength helps the business end look natural to any feeding fish, while the hook is a fine wired pattern. The long shank also enables you to unhook fish really quickly, which means you spend more time actually fishing. When it comes to shotting patterns, I have found that two different styles work. It pays to try both and see which is best on the day. Stringing out No.9 or No.10 Preston Innovations Stotz down the line will help the rig fall slowly and enable you to catch at all depths.
This is my starting point, but on some days the top foot or two of water seem to be full of the tiniest silvers that can soon become a nuisance. In order to avoid them I place a small bulk of shot 18 inches below the float and then string out the rest of the shot below that. This gets the rig through the top layer quickly and down to the better fish. I always place two No.9 Stotz directly under the float to make sure it sits instantly, helping me spot bites should they come within seconds of the rig going into the water. Plumb up so that the rig is just touching bottom, but expect most of your bites to come as the hookbait falls through the water column. If you don’t get an indication within a minute of casting, feed a few maggots and recast.
One bait wonder
Maggots are the only bait worth using and two pints is more than enough. Keep a trickle going in to keep the silverfish competing in the upper layers. It will also tempt the bigger roach, rudd and perch into bullying out the tiddlers. Fish a single maggot on the hook and there is every chance you could catch up to five fish on the same bait before having to change it. If the maggot looks slightly ragged but hasn’t burst, make sure it is still sitting on the bend of the hook and cast in – there is every chance the float will fly under again.
Suitable venue
The final part of the equation is picking a venue that is packed with small silverfish. Most of us will know a water close to home that fits the bill and for me that is Homeclose Fishery at Whissendine, near Oakham in Rutland. Hornbeam is a beautiful lake on the four-pool complex and although bream and tench are the usual target, there are thousands of rudd, small skimmers and perch eager to feed at close range. Within minutes of trickling in maggots, little swirls began to appear and the bites came thick and fast. Using a clicker, I was able to keep track of how many fish I put in the net in three hours, with more than 250 being the final total! Even though I have tried countless different tactics since I started fishing, I still get a real buzz out of this fast and furious approach. This is the ideal tactic to let a newcomer have a crack at and, if you set them on the right lines, you are highly likely to put them on their first steps to a lifelong angling obsession.