Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Two line attack on silvers – Adam Rooney
Reducing loosefeed while fishing pole and feeder lines is the way to maximise silver fish catches on summer commercials, says Guru’s Adam Rooney
IF YOU caught a fish every chuck you’d have a very good reason to have a big smile on your face. When going after silver fish on commercials that target is definitely achievable, with ravenous roach, perch and small skimmers giving themselves up easily. You might end the day with a satisfactory 20lb but Guru’s Adam Rooney thinks you could catch at the same pace and easily double that weight by banking on a much bigger stamp. “Almost every commercial is stuffed with silvers mopping up the bait that the carp leave behind. If you fine-tune your rigs you can catch one every drop in,” he said. “But exactly how you approach the peg will dictate the size of fish you catch. Putting small silvers in the net is generally quite easy, but if you want to pick out the quality roach, bream, perch and hybrids then you need to consider the rigs and bait you use carefully.”
Two lines of attack
It’s almost a certainty that whatever commercial you visit it will have a big head of carp. Avoiding their attentions at this time of year can be tricky, though, because they have a huge appetite. One of the easiest ways to do this is to pick a peg that is less attractive to the carp. “Carp will naturally gravitate towards pegs with cover on most fisheries so if you can get on a featureless peg with plenty of open water then you increase your chances of finding lots of silvers. “This will also enable the silvers to feed confidently without being bullied away by voracious carp.” Once you’ve settled down it is time to work out exactly where in the peg you are going to fish. Adam relies on two lines when big silvers are the target. The first is on the short pole 6m out while the alternative is a feeder chucked to a comfortable 30m. “I want to get bites from the off and you can pretty much guarantee that small silvers such as hand-sized skimmers and roach will respond instantly at short range,” he explained. “On the other hand, the feeder line will take time to get going and needs building up in order to attract the desired stamp of fish.”
Negative feeding
Your peg may not be home to tons of carp when you first set up but these fish are constantly on the move. Make a wrong move and your swim could soon be swarming with them. To prevent being ‘carped out’ it is vital that you pay attention to detail when feeding. “It can be tempting to lash the bait in when it is so warm but that will be the kiss of death when silver fish are the primary target because it will draw in carp,” warned Adam. “The very first thing I do is cast a medium cage feeder packed with groundbait and dead maggots three times. This is enough to draw the attentions of silvers but it doesn’t create a huge bed of bait that will be a magnet for carp. “On the pole line I cup in a small nugget of groundbait and dead maggots and then flick a few casters over the top by hand every minute or so.” Adam’s preferred mix for both lines is an even blend of Mainline Match Super Fine Pole Mix and Pure Expander. Half a bag of each will be enough for a whole day thanks to the negative feeding mindset. Dead maggot or caster is the hookbait for both tactics.
No-nonsense rigs
Scaling down seems like the sensible thing to do when targeting for silver fish and Adam does exactly that without overdoing it. “If an occasional carp does come into the swim I want a decent chance of hooking and landing it so that it is out of the way. I will then return it in the next peg if possible so it doesn’t instantly go back to my loosefeed.” Adam’s cage feeder rig consists of 6lb Guru Drag Line, a 0.13mm N-Gauge hooklength and a size 16 SLWG hook. On the pole line a softly-set white size 6-10 Daiwa Hydrolastic does the job, although he will step back to 4-6 pink if he is bumping too many small fish. Mainline is 0.15mm N-Gauge to a 0.13mm hooklength if the carp average over 5lb or 0.11mm for a smaller stamp. The hook is a size 18 Guru F1 Pellet. “These silver fish are rarely fished for by design so they aren’t particularly tackle-shy. A lot of anglers that target them will fish lighter than I do but, in my experience, it doesn’t equate to getting more bites.” Using his approach for IYCF on Lake Five at Warwickshire’s Makin’s Fishery, it seemed unlikely Adam would be able to avoid the attentions of carp, with stacks of them cruising
on the surface. But many of the day’s visitors had congregated around the island and he was confident this would play into his hands. “There is going to be lots of bait piled in the bottom part of the lake so I will set up at the top end in a large bay where there are only a couple of other anglers. Less bait will go in here so there will be no reason for the carp to patrol the area in large numbers.” Three feeders of bait were delivered at 30m and that line was left to rest as he picked up the pole rig and shipped out. A steady trickle of casters was despatched by hand and the first fish to show were roach in the 1oz-3oz bracket. That stamp increased slightly but quality bream and hybrids didn’t appear. After 30 minutes the float dipped again and a substantial length of elastic zipped out – this was no silver fish! A 4lb common was banked before Adam reached for the feeder. “Once a carp has been in the peg it is best to switch lines and stop feeding for a period. If there is another lump there I want it to disappear as soon as possible.” The feeder produced a much better stamp of fish almost instantly, with fish between 1lb and 3lb frequently putting a bend in the recently launched 10ft Guru Aventus Feeder rod. Whenever carp turned up Adam would switch lines and that move ensured he only had to deal with four of them all day while managing to put over 40lb of big silvers in the keepnet. “It really is a balancing act when trying to catch commercial silvers, but lay off the feed and rotate swims and the carp won’t spoil the action,” concluded Adam.