Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Quick Change fix – Tom Downing
Avoid drifting into the bad habit of becoming a lazy angler by following Tom Downing’s tips to keep bites coming
BE HONEST with yourself – are you a lazy angler? I know I am! I have lost count of the number of times I have felt a change has been needed immediately to catch more fish and put off the move for too long. Inevitably, the bites dry up while I procrastinate and as soon as I belatedly make the switch I am back in action. More often than not the alteration I needed to make was minimal, such as a change of hookbait, and I’m sure I am not the only one guilty of this. Thankfully, Tom Downing reckons his extremely simple approach will help you iron out any indolence.
Most anglers have either packets of hooksto-nylon in their tackle box or a box of pre-tied hooklengths. But the Bait-Tech-backed rod has a trick to make switching hooklength even easier. “Being organised is important if you want to have a good day on the bank,” explained Tom. “I love my bomb and Method feeder fishing but these aren’t tactics where you can stick to the same thing for several hours and keep getting a bite every chuck. “Changing your hookbait can make a huge difference to your catch rate but this can involve a different device to attach your bait and that is why I have a range of options ready on my sidetray so I can make a switch in seconds.”
Hookbait rotation
The main reason for rotating hookbaits is that fish soon wise up to the same offering. If a few fish are hooked and cause a commotion as they bolt off, others in the shoal will become much more cautious. But by putting on a different hookbait every cast you can make sure you come back with a fish attached each time you reel in. “There are four hookbaits I have a lot of faith in but they all require a different method to present them.
Straight hooking “Dead maggots are fantastic on the Method feeder because they don’t wriggle out of place and are extremely light. This enables the fish to suck them up with minimal fuss. Use a fairly big hook such as a size 14
and directly hook four or five grubs so that its presentation stands out.”
Hair-rigging “I love using corn on both the Method feeder and bomb but because it is very soft, it comes off quite easily when hooked directly. To prevent this happening, I use a baiting needle to slide it on to a hair-rig and trap it in place with a little boilie stop. Single or double corn are both worth trying.”
Bayonet “Some baits are too hard to be directly hooked or hair-rigged effectively. Bait-Tech’s ‘The Juice’ Dumbell Wafters are brilliant because they are light and easy to suck up and also stand out because they come in bright colours. A bayonet or bite spike can be tied on to a hair-rig and then used to impale tougher baits.” Bait band “Pellets are unbeatable on a lot of waters simply because the fish see so many of them. A 6mm or 8mm pellet will crumble if placed on a bayonet or baiting needle so I use a bait band that is tied to a hair-rig to secure it in place.” Regardless of whether Tom is fishing the bomb or Method, he will use a snap link swivel so that he can simply open the clip to it and change the hooklength in an instant.
Which tactic?
If you have a feature to attack in your peg then you can be pretty confident that there will be fish milling around nearby. Both the bomb and the Method feeder have the potential to work up against an island but how you want to present your loosefeed will ultimately determine your weapon of choice. The Method keeps everything tight because all the bait is moulded around the feeder, while feeding over the top of where you have cast a bomb is done with a catapult which means the loosefeed will spread out. “If I feel I need to get the fish moving around to get them more active then the bomb is better, but on days when they seem to want to stay tight to a feature the Method is more effective.”
Casting routine
There’s no doubt the fish are now having a proper munch in order to pack the pounds on for their forthcoming spawning routine. In
order to give them the amount of bait required Tom makes sure he keeps busy with his catapult. “When fishing the bomb, the catapult never leaves my hand and I will ping out five 8mm pellets every minute. This ensures there is always some food in the peg and the noise they make when going in also attracts more fish. “If the rain of bait isn’t getting me as many bites as I would like I will cast elsewhere and continue to feed at the same rate.” When the Method comes into play Tom will look to recast every few minutes to top up the swim. IYCF caught up with Tom at Somerset’s Plantation Lakes and I arrived when Tom already had a bend in the rod. “This one has come on the bomb and pellet but I’m going to switch for the next cast,” he said as I joined him at the peg. The banded pellet hooklength was exchanged for hair-rigged corn and the trap was reset. Tom’s tip regularly twitched as fish clearly mulled over the area he was pinging pellets and less than 10 minutes later a 2lb skimmer had swallowed it. While he was waiting Tom made sure that the hooklengths on his sidetray were all baited up so that there was even less messing about when it came to preparing for the next cast. There was no doubt that the hookbait rotation policy kept the fish coming and a little experiment of seeing how many bites he could get on an orange wafter on the bounce saw him catch two before he couldn’t get a bite. Despite this, the tip was still tapping to suggest fish were in the area and moments after winding in and casting back out with a banded pellet the tip flung round again. “They simply wise up so quickly to what the trap is. Having a few different hooklengths set up on your sidetray is definitely the cure to laziness and that will certainly help you put more fish in the net.”