How do I stay in touch with F1s?
I’VE read about moving around the swim to stay in touch with F1s on commercials when the weather turns cooler, but how far do I need to move? Will I need to start a completely new swim?
Karl Mitchell, Preston
IN CLEARING water F1s can move away from feed or a pole over their heads, but often they won’t swim very far, sometimes as little as a foot to the right or left.
You don’t then need to go adding pole sections to catch them! If you start fishing directly in front of you and get no bites or indications, move to your left or right, but at the same range, and effectively start again.
This change may only put the float a few feet away from where you started but that can be as far as an F1 will move before it refuses to budge.
Don’t feed a swim when you’re not fishing it – you don’t want to draw fish into the peg. Instead, sprinkle in a few micro pellets when fishing and try to trick the fish into having a go. If you haven’t had any sign within five minutes, come off this spot and start again to the left or right, repeating the feeding process.
If you get a bite or catch a fish, stay on the same spot here, still feeding micros via a pot, and keep everything crossed that a run of F1s will turn up.
On some days, though, you may only nick two fish from each swim.