Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Tom Scholey
Tom Scholey shows how deadly a simple Hybrid feeder and super bright hookbait combination can be at this time of year…
The carp trap
SPRING is one of my favourite times of year to go fishing. You join me today at the lovely Larford Lakes, the daffodils are out and the birds are singing in the trees… but most importantly, the fish are starting to wake up and have a feed.
The Specimen Lake, where we are fishing, is a great mixed venue with a large head of both skimmers and carp – including some real monsters! One of the most effective ways of targeting both species at this time of year is the Hybrid feeder. It is a deadly technique, that enables you present your hookbait perfectly, and is also one of the quickest and simplest tactics to set up. I will come on to tackle a little later, but first let’s look at why it is so effective. First, it enables you to achieve a perfect presentation at range with a good degree of accuracy. At this time of year you often have to find the fish, especially early in the session, and the Hybrid feeder enables you to do that with great precision.
The feeder’s streamlined shape means it flies like a bullet and the walls around the sides mean that your feed and hookbait stay in perfect condition on the bottom of the lake.
Second, when a fish intercepts the bait, even at distance, the self- hooking nature of the set- up means you hook it, and land it.
The bait…
There are two strands to a Hybrid feeder attack – the bait you put on the feeder and the hookbait. Both do very different jobs.
The end game is a neat pile of micro pellets on the lakebed, with a bright, fish- attracting hookbait nestled on the top. Let me deal with what goes on the feeder first, as in many respects this is the most difficult to get right. Many fisheries nowadays only permit you to use pellets supplied by the owners onsite. Larford is no exception.
The majority of fishery pellets are supplied by two manufacturers, and there can be some variance between batches. I have seen that people try to give set guidance on how to prepare your pellets, with instructions such as ‘ soak for 30 seconds’ or ‘ soak for five minutes’ banded about. These can be misleading, given the many different types of pellet available.
I picked up a much more universal guide from my good friend Les Thompson last year. He completely covers his pellets with water. Then he watches closely until he begins to see the water around the pellets discolour, before draining it off and leaving the pellets to stand for 20 minutes. This generally produces the perfect micro pellet for use on a feeder.
The consistency you are after is a soft outer, but a firm core. This will enable you to squeeze the pellets firmly on to the feeder, and compress them so they stay put until the feeder reaches the bottom. Only then, because of the soaked core of the pellets, do they begin to de- compress and break down.
Bright & beautiful
That’s the hard bit out of the way! For me, hookbait choice is a lot simpler. For the last few months I have been playing around with a new, totally unique product from Fjuka.
Basically, it is a hyper- fluorescent hookbait called Neeonz. They are available in four distinct colours – white, orange, yellow and pink. These really are bright baits, which is a key quality.
They stand out and draw in any inquisitive fish.
It’s not just the colour that I love about these hookbaits, their texture and flavour is just as important. They are soft, but not so soft that they don’t stay on the hair rig. We all know how deadly soft, malleable baits like bread and paste are. These offer a similar advantage.
Neeonz are flavoured with a unique attractant called Sensate. Without getting too scientific, this gives off micro particles which disperse quickly and evenly into the water column. One thing is for sure, the fish love it.
Finally, let’s look at tackle. I mentioned the simplicity of this approach – you can quite literally buy everything you need for this approach ready- to- go from your local tackle shop. At this time of year you can start to feed some bait, so the largest size is used. To help casting, I use the 45g model with the long stem, and black Hydrolastic to cushion fish on the way in. Hook choice is a pre- tied size 14 QM1, complete with Quick Stop, which is the perfect length and size to accommodate my Neeonz hookbait.
Go long
In winter, I am a big advocate of saving yourself water – by this I mean casting short, and leaving the furthest reaches of your peg until much later in the session. This gives the fish somewhere to back off to.
At this time of year, however, I change my approach. I expect the fish to be towards the middle of the lake to begin with but, as the water warms during the course of the day, they will come in closer to feed.
For this reason, I start long. A comfortable cast of around 60 metres puts me just short of the middle of the lake. Then it’s a game of patience. Sometimes, bites can take as long as 30 minutes to develop, but it is important to keep your eye on your tip. It can tell you a lot about what is happening out in front.
Short plucks on the tip indicate that fish are close to your feeder, while longer, slower pulls show that the fish are closer to you on the bankside. Today, I haven’t had to wait too long for a pull. Ten minutes in and the tip eases round,
as the first carp of the day is hooked.
There’s no need to strike – the fish hook themselves and it is simply a case of taking up any slack line that may enable them to shake the hook, and steadily winding them in.
It feels like a good fish – and as I get a few turns on it, it becomes apparent that a large carp has been hooked. Soon, it is nodding under the rod tip, and by maintaining gentle pressure we soon have a good double- figure mirror nestling in the bottom of the sprout sack! Get in! Next cast, I revisit the same spot and another bite comes fairly quickly. This time it’s a good skimmer. I’m convinced that the bright, visible Neeonz hookbait is the reason for this quick response.
A procession of skimmers follow and I’m waiting anywhere between 10 and 15 minutes for bites, which I am happy with given the stamp of fish. No more carp, though…
A fresh spot?
Carp can be fickle things at this time of year. One pattern that I have observed in the past at this time of year, especially early in the day, is that you’ll catch a fish straight away, then other fish move in as the carp back away.
It is almost as though the commotion of silvers feeding puts them off. I try a cast at 40 metres and sure enough, my first fish here is another carp. Then the skimmers move back in, and although these are still great fish to catch at 2lb3lb each, I feel I have sussed the carp.
As we move into the third hour of the short session I drop back to 20 metres and find yet another carp first cast. This one feels a real good one. A pristine mirror of well over 15lb is my reward. I have also been experimenting by trying different coloured Neeonz on the hook, but this has proved inconclusive, as I had each of my carp on a different coloured bait. I think the main thing is that they are bright, and really stand out on the bottom.
It has been a great session, and proof of just how deadly effective the Hybrid feeder can be.
“I expect the fish to be towards the middle of the lake but, as the water warms, they will come in closer to feed”
INDISPUTABLY the best commercial fishery bait in the world, pellets will catch everything that swims in such waters. Available in a huge range, from low- oil coarse pellets through to high- oil trout versions, when it comes to the hook, it is expander pellets which match anglers often turn to. They are one of my favourite baits for early season. Winter has seen anglers scratching for bites using maggots, pinkies and casters, with the odd expander pellet on the hook. But, now that the water is starting to warm and colour up, expander pellets become my ' go- to' hookbait, prior to swapping over to hard pellets in the summer.
What is an expander pellet?
Originally developed for the aquarium/ pond trade, the reason these pellets float is so those not eaten can be scooped out by the fish farmer. This means they are not breaking down on the pond/ tank bed, blocking filters and destroying the water quality.
Being purely a ‘ feed’ pellet’, expanders are packed with vitamins, proteins and feeding triggers. This is the reason why anglers were quick to adopt them.
By first soaking or pumping pellets in water so they ‘ expand’, which allows them to sink, soften and become hookable, it was found they would readily take on flavours and colours. So, a new hookbait was born.
You can loosefeed them, although being so attractive to fish, they are normally used just as hookbaits, so they stand out from standard hard feed pellets.
Why are they so good?
Expanders are one of those baits that tick all the boxes for me.
Light and easy for the fish to eat, they are brilliant at this time of year. One of their plus points is that they better ' match the hatch' of what you are feeding, so you can fish more subtlety for carp that are just starting to wake up and want a feed.
Compared to a hard, banded pellet, which looks very crude, nearly all of the hook is buried and hidden within a nice soft 4mm or 6mm expander. Generally, I'll be feeding 2mm micro pellets, so I want a hookbait that stands out enough to get me quicker bites, but not so much as to arouse suspicion in fish that are not yet hard on the feed.
Soft pellets, like expanders, offer the fish something good to eat, but being soft they are highly digestible.
For this session – at Royal Berkshire Fisheries – I am using Dynamite’s new Swim Stim F1 Sweet Pro- Expanders. I’m primarily targeting F1s but these sweet fishmeal pellets are great for skimmers, bream, carp and tench alike. Unlike standard expanders, these have flavour, additive and colour already added.
Standard expanders tend to wash out and turn lighter in colour when pumped. But these new pellets are yellow and I prefer my hookbaits to look similar to my loosefeed early season, so these F1 versions match my 2mm Carp Pellets.