MAKE THE MOST OF GROUNDBAIT
Boost your chances with a downrigger.
The use of groundbait, chum, rubby-dubby or whatever else you call it, is a proven technique for first attracting and, ultimately, enhancing your chances of catching many species of fish, and is used in several forms of boat angling.
For example, when drifting for sharks, bags of minced fish and bran that, invariably, have been liberally laced with concentrated fish oil are suspended over the side of the boat so that they hang on the waterline. The oily slick that continually leaches out of these bags very quickly attracts any sharks in the vicinity, resulting in an inevitable hook-up.
Many anglers routinely use groundbait when targeting black bream afloat, but in this instance they will mostly be fishing from an anchored boat. This is far more problematic because it is necessary to ensure the fish attracted to it are drawn to the exact area where the anglers’ baits are fishing. The last thing you want is for the groundbait to draw the fish away from the fishing zone.
POPULAR METHODS
There are various ways of achieving this, but most rely on a bag full of groundbait being lowered directly over the side of the boat and down to the bottom, where some form of tripping mechanism releases the bait, allowing the current to carry it downtide.
Another popular technique is to tie a bag filled with rubby-dubby on the anchor before lowering it. Once on the seabed, the oily fish-attracting juices soon work their magic, drawing any foraging fish towards the source of the scent trail. This technique is very effective and used when targeting many species, but it has its disadvantages.
Firstly, once the anchor has been lowered, the only way to check and refresh the contents of the bag is to recover the
anchor, which, of course, is the last thing you would want to do once you have attracted feeding fish to the boat.
Secondly, while this technique is effective when the current is strong enough to hold the anchor, boat and anglers’ lines in more or less a straight line, as the tide eases and the wind pushes the boat off this line, the position of the bag in relation to the boat can result in the scent trail working well away from the anglers’ baits.
This may not be such a big problem when fishing in shallow water when it is possible to anchor using a minimum of warp, but when fishing in greater depths of water under certain conditions, it can be impossible to get everything working perfectly.
Many years ago, I fitted a downrigger to one of my boats. I used it when trolling lures at specific depths for bass, pollack and a few other species, and it proved to be an effective piece of equipment with which I caught plenty of fish.
At the time, I often mulled over the idea of using my downrigger to present baits when fishing at anchor in deep water, and also about the practicality of utilising it to lower a bag of rubby-dubby down to the bottom, but I never got around to using it for either.
SCENT TRAIL
A few months ago, I spent a day fishing with my friends Glyn Pressley and Andy Samuels aboard their boat Happy Days, which is based at Cardiff Bay. On exiting the barrage lock gates early on a winter’s morning, we ran west and finally dropped anchor in about 70ft of water over a patch of mixed ground off Aberthaw.
With the seabed in the Bristol Channel being scoured twice daily by the second highest range of tides found anywhere in the world, at best these waters are the colour of weak tea. Clearly, the only way any fish is going to locate a bait in these waters is by following a scent trail. For years anglers fishing hereabouts have used very large baits specifically to produce the strongest possible scent trail.
Our target species included conger eels, rays, bull huss and possibly a cod or two. With these in mind we started off fishing with whole squid, which is a proven bait for numerous species. It is also tough enough to withstand the unwanted attention of the many smaller species of fish and crabs. Because squid is full of juice, it emits a very effective scent trail.
PIPE TRICK
During our first hour, the sport was quiet, apart from a few small dogfish. Without saying a word, Andy disappeared into the cabin, reappearing several minutes later holding a downrigger.
This he proceeded to fit to a bracket secured to the port side of the boat, which is unusual, as, from my experience, downriggers are almost always fitted somewhere across the stern.
For his next trick Andy produced a section of plastic piping with numerous holes drilled in it. It was weighted to produce what, in effect, was a giant swimfeeder.
Of course, I had guessed what Andy was doing, and I continued to watch with interest as he mashed up a tub of frozen pilchards, loaded a few handfuls of these into the swimfeeder, clipped it to the end of the downrigger cable, and finally lowered it to the seabed.
“That’ll soon stir them up, you wait and see,” he declared with a knowing grin, and that is precisely what happened.
Whether or not the noticeable increase in bites was due entirely to Andy deploying his swimfeeder, which he retrieved and refilled at regular intervals, the combined scent of our hook-baits, or merely the state of the tide, I cannot be sure, but from that point onwards our rod tips never stopped nodding.
I quickly lost count of the number of conger eels we caught, mostly straps weighing between 5-15lb, but one or two of the better fish weighed well in excess of 20lb, with the biggest possibly topping 30lb.
We also caught several bull huss, a couple of thornback rays and the inevitable hordes of dogfish. The action was constant, and for several hours each of us was kept busy rebaiting, casting out and then shortly afterwards retrieving yet another fish to unhook, release and continue the process.
Andy told me that the downrigger has proven to be a valuable piece of equipment to have aboard. Aside from the species already mentioned, he found it especially effective for spur-dogs and tope.
We don’t catch many black bream in this section of the Bristol Channel, but I’m certain that if we did, then using a downrigger to accurately deploy a regular stream of groundbait beneath the boat would be an effective technique.
The more I think about using a downrigger aboard an anchored boat, the more I wish I had followed my instinct all those years ago and tried this aboard my own boats.
Certainly, I can recall several particular days fishing at various venues around the UK and Ireland, when I am certain that a trail of groundbait along with a strong fish-attracting slick being emitted from a point directly beneath my boat really would have made a big difference in our catch.
Why not invest in a downrigger for your boat, and see for yourself just how effective this innovative piece of tackle can be? ■