Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Ignore the pole on snake lakes – Robbie Griffiths
Pole tactics dominate on snake lakes, but Preston Innovations’ Robbie Griffiths explains how a maggot feeder approach will boost your catches
SNAKE lakes have grown in popularity, but there is one aspect that continues to irk many anglers. You’ve set up your pole to a comfortable length only to find that you are agonisingly close to the far bank, but not quite near enough to put your hookbait among the fish. You could put on that extra extension that has been gathering dust in your holdall, but there’s only going to be one result – a tiring day that is riddled with errors because you’re fishing a length of pole that’s simply too heavy for you. Trying to fish down the track and in the margins instead will produce a few fish, but there is no doubt that getting a bait tight to the far side will help you catch a lot more fish. Some will simply be resigned to the fact they don’t have access to that zone. Robbie Griffiths, however, believes there is a solution that everyone can turn to. “Anglers seem brainwashed into fishing a pole in every scenario when on a snake lake, but
there is a time and a place when a feeder set-up is deadly,” explained Robbie. “The far bank of almost every snake lake has a ledge where the water is at its shallowest. This is where you need to be fishing if you want to find the carp and F1s at this time of year. “If your pole is just a few feet short of touching the reeds, then you won’t be close to the fish and this is when it is time to pick up a rod and reel and use a maggot feeder.”
Building the swim
If you watch any top angler fishing on a snake lake they will always adopt a cautious approach when it comes to feeding. Rather than ship out with a big pot full of bait, they will trickle in a few morsels each time they place in their rig. The idea behind this is that the far bank will already be home to stacks of fish and you only want a handful of them to sit over the top of where you are fishing instead of drawing in loads more. If there are too many fish in your swim, you will be plagued by line bites and the fish darting around will spook each other. With this in mind Robbie doesn’t put down a bed of bait before fishing, preferring to build it up as he goes along. “You need a feeder that will take a handful of maggots. This is enough to get you a bite. At the start of a session I will cast every five to 10 minutes, but it is then a case of responding to the bites or indications on the tip. “If the tip is constantly nudging but you aren’t getting proper bites then it tells you that you are attracting fish, but you need to cast less frequently because the fish are becoming preoccupied with the loosefeed. “If you are not getting any indications you should cast more often to put in more bait.”
Chuck tight over
A snake lake will have a shallow ledge close to the far bank and if you don’t land on top of this your feeder will end up in the deeper water where there are fewer fish. To make sure your rig almost brushes against the reeds on every cast, you need to clip up and use the right pattern of feeder to keep hitting the same spot. “The Preston Innovations ICS In-Line Maggot Feeder has all the weight at the front and this helps make casting deadly accurate. “Bring the rod overhead, line up with a farbank marker and gently cast. The feeder will fly with ease. Just before it hits the spot, sweep the rod backwards so that it hits the clip at a slower pace. This will help the feeder fall into the water with a ‘plop’, as opposed to a loud crash that will spook fish.” Robbie uses a large 20g version for much of the time in conjunction with a 4in hooklength. This has several benefits, the main one being that the fish intercept the hookbait and the moment they move off they feel the weight of the feeder and this sets the hook. Bites will often show up as positive pull rounds and lifting the rod is all that is needed to set the hook the hook properly. A short hooklength will almost certainly avoid being caught up in far-bank vegetation when you are fishing tight over.
Deadly hookbait
When maggots are used as a hookbait they are usually put straight on to the hook but it can pay to put a twist on things from time to time. And Robbie is adamant you will get more bites if you present them in a different manner. “I always place my maggots in a bait band because I believe that leaving all the hook showing leads to more fish going in the net. “If you put the maggots directly on the hook they can mask the point which can lead to either lost fish or just not hitting the bites at all.”