Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Change feeders to keep catching – Phil Ringer
Phil Ringer explains how you can maximise catches by altering feeder tactics to target both bream and carp
MAKING my way along Clattercote Reservoir’s wooden walkway I can see Phil Ringer in his distinctive red jumper pushing his net out into the water and drawing his rod back over his head as a carp came towards the net. Always a welcome sight at the start of a feature. “It’s not a bad one,” grins Phil, as I arrive in peg 24. “I’ve already had several bream and a couple of carp, so things are looking good,” he adds. Situated near Banbury, Oxfordshire, Clattercote has a history stretching back more than 230 years but was largely unfishable before the wooden walkway which encircles the venue apart from the dam wall was built. At 21 acres it is heavily stocked with carp. With a large head of double-figure specimens you will find anglers fishing two rods and bite alarms alongside those casting flatbed Method feeders from a seatbox. As well as the carp, there are also good numbers of bream, tench and roach in the popular day-ticket water controlled by the Canal & River Trust. Rather than just setting his stall out for the resident carp, the England Feeder Team member alternates his approach throughout the day to put a few bream in his net too. “Most anglers will go fishing with the intention of targeting either the carp or the
bream. But with not much more effort you can fish for both and end up with many more fish by the end of the session,” said Phil. “All that is required is a few different types of feeders and a small selection of baits.”
Start with bream
Bream will invariably be the first fish to arrive in your swim when you first bait up – as proved to be the case today. “Rather than waiting for carp to turn up I can get a couple fish under my belt and within the first hour I’d netted four bream.” There’s nothing complicated about Phil’s bream feeder set-up. A large cage feeder is fished running in a small loop. An 0.17mm N-Gauge hooklength and a size 16 Guru F1 Pellet Barbless complete the rig. “During the summer I’ll recast every five minutes. You will never overfeed the bream at this time of year in a venue like Clattercote. “The lakebed here is fairly uniform so I have simply cast a distance which I reach comfortably and will still be able to reach if the wind picks up. “Casting your maximum distance at the start is an easy mistake to make because if the wind picks up halfway through the day you may well be unable to reach the spot you’ve been baiting.” In among Phil’s collection of bream feeders are a couple which look a little different. These window feeders resemble a blockend feeder with a section cut out of the middle. “If things go quiet and you need a bite, use a window feeder – it’s amazing how quick you’ll get a bite. I think it works so well because it casts a little further so if the fish have backed away from the bait you’ll still be able to pick them off. “Once you’ve had a couple of bites on the window feeder you’ll need to switch back to a bigger feeder because a window is too negative to use for long periods at this time of year – it simply doesn’t deliver enough bait to hold the fish in the swim,” he explained.
Bream baits
There’s nothing complicated about the bait Phil uses to fill the feeder. Ringers Feeder Sweet Fishmeal groundbait is the sole loosefeed. “This groundbait is perfect for both bream and carp especially on commercial fisheries where the fish are fed plenty of fishmeal-based baits,” said Phil. A similarly simple approach is adopted when it comes to hookbaits. “I start with two dead red maggots on the hook and I also have dendrobaena worms as an alternative. “I always hair rig my worms as this leaves the whole of the hook exposed and the worm won’t be able to wriggle back on itself and mask the hookpoint,” he added.
When the carp arrive
On venues such as Clattercote which have a large head of carp, it is inevitable that sooner or later they will muscle their way in. When this happens, it’s off with the cage feeder and on with a Hybrid feeder. “On a big water, you need a big feeder,” he says, pressing dampened micro pellets into his 45g example. “The spot I’m fishing today is 20ft deep so I firmly press in the pellets so they remain in place until the feeder hits the bottom. The Hybrid is also better than a Method in this situation because the bait is shielded on three sides which helps to keep it intact as it falls through the water. “In shallower water, you can use a Method feeder, but Hybrid feeders are my number one choice at the moment. If fishing towards an island on a small commercial I would fish a pellet feeder,” he adds. Beneath the feeder a short 4in, 0.22 N-Gauge hooklength is tied to a size 10 Guru QM1 hook. “Any longer and there is a risk that the carp will take the hookbait but won’t hook themselves against the weight of the feeder. Any shorter and they’ll struggle to inhale the bait. “I use a 10mm Chocolate Orange wafter hookbait for carp, which can be hair-rigged or fished on a bayonet.”
Mixing it up
With carp regularly rolling over the spot he had been casting to, it was obvious they were here in numbers. And it doesn’t take long after recasting a fully loaded Hybrid feeder for the rod tip to whip round. A lengthy fight ensued with the carp taking full advantage of the deep water before it was eventually guided into the net with a Chocolate Orange wafter in its mouth. Another carp is landed before the action slows up despite carp still being caught by the angler in the peg next door. “When this happens I’ll switch back to targeting the bream,” says Phil, removing his Hybrid feeder and tying on a cage feeder. It takes a few casts, but he is soon back among the bream with three fish of around 4lb coming in consecutive casts. “It would be easy to keep casting out a Hybrid feeder and wait for the carp to come back. But by switching over to targeting bream I can keep the bites coming during the lull in carp activity. “For the sake of a little more effort in packing a bag of groundbait, a few extra feeders and a couple of different hookbait options, this makes a day on the bank far more productive,” he concluded.