Dave Harrell
On a low river, sometimes a feeder is the only way to reach the flow, says Dave
heads to the River Trent and finds its chub in feeding mood
FLOATFISHING remains my main passion, but there are times when a feeder will outscore a float.
For that reason I’m always ready and willing to switch tactics when the need arises. My latest midweek session saw me on a favourite stretch of the Trent, and it was definitely such an occasion on the swim that I chose.
The river level was as low as I’d seen it on this stretch and the only flow was all against the far bank, some 35m away. Any closer than that and there was no flow at all. Although I might have been able to catch on a big waggler and sticky mag, the sensible way to attack the swim was always going to be with a feeder.
I set up a Daiwa Tournament RS 1213PQ rod at its full 13ft length with a strong glass tip fitted. This was matched to a TDR 4012 reel, which is superb for strong line feeder approaches. The gearing is the best of any reel I’ve ever fished with. I use these reels with 10lb, 12lb or 14lb Pro Feeder line. For this session, I felt 10lb was plenty strong enough. It would enable me to use strong Pro Rig hooklengths up to 0.21mm (9.8lb) if barbel started to show, and would also be well balanced to thick wire size 14 or 12 hooks. For bait I’d got three pints of casters and three pints of hemp with me. This would be plenty for the five-hour practice session I had planned. I’d also got a pint of Lane’s finest bronze and red maggots with me for hookbait. A few exploratory casts with a 1oz bomb revealed a fairly clean riverbed but there was a fair bit of weed over there that could cause a problem with successfully landing any big chub that I might hook. I started off on a 30g feeder with a 60cm hooklength tied to a size 14 hook, and this was cast to within 1m of the far-bank tins. I didn’t have to wait long for my first
bite, which came 20 seconds after the feeder had hit the bottom!
A 6oz roach was the culprit, and more followed before a run of skimmers up to the 1lb mark showed, all to double or triple maggot hookbait. At this point, it was impossible to cast in and not get a bite within a few seconds, but a switch to a bigger feeder with the holes enlarged to allow the bait to escape quicker
eventually started to feed the smaller fish off, and bites became less frequent. I also reduced the hooklength from 60cm to 30cm so that the hookbait would be a lot nearer the feeder. The hook was changed to a size 12.
An hour into the session I had my first ‘proper’ bite from a chub which nearly pulled the rod in! I was glad I had a robust hooklength on, as the chub was going in the
opposite direction and would easily have broken a lighter line!
After a spirited battle, a 4lb chub slid into the net and 13 more followed over the next few hours before I ran out of bait. My final fish of the session was a barbel, a nice end to a really exciting day that had seen me catch in the region of 50lb.
All my fish fell to three casters on a size 12 hook, and while the rivers remain as low and clear as they currently are, my advice would be to use casters rather than pellets for daytime fishing. Pellets will still work in the evenings and when the rivers colour up again but for now, caster is a better and more reliable feed and hookbait.