WAGGLER TACKLE
WAGGLER fishing on commercials in recent years has all been about causing as much chaos as possible, allowing the float to make lots of noise upon impact to draw in fish feeding shallow – but my winter approach is as far removed from this as you can get.
My rig is designed to enter the water in a subtle manner, and while it will be set a couple of inches overdepth, the aim is to get bites through the water column as the bait falls.
I use a semiloaded insert waggler that has a few No8 shot around the base, finished off with three No8s spread 1ft apart starting from the hooklength loop upwards.
What this does is allow the hookbait to fall at a really slow speed, enabling fish that are sat off the deck to take the bait, rather than bombing the hookbait straight to the bottom.
A 13ft rod is used to help with casting, as a lot of line could be hanging off the rod-tip on the cast when fishing on the deck in up to 8ft of water.
A longer rod also allows me to cast longer if needed. The reel is loaded with 3lb Preston Innovations Sinking Feeder Mono.
Balanced end tackle is key on mixed fisheries as you could land a skimmer one minute and then hook into a big carp or F1 the next. When every bite counts, you don’t want to lose the fish by fishing too fine.
For that reason, I fish an 0.11mm Powerline hooklength matched to a size 16 Preston