Tactic of the Week Jon Whincup on beating pole anglers on the feeder
Jon Whincup reveals his tactical secrets
MUCH as we may always want to fish the pole and benefit from its superior presentation and accuracy, there will be days when the wind is nasty and makes holding even a few sections of carbon out of the question.
This is especially true as we move towards October, a time of year when the autumn gales tend to blow in and wreck many welllaid pole fishing plans.
When the wind is howling, then, you’re often left with only one sensible option on commercial fisheries... the feeder.
However, that’s no bad thing. The feeder is, in my opinion, one of the easiest methods to fish. It always ensures that your hookbait is close to the feed, there’s no mistaking a bite, and it can see you fishing areas of your swim that on pole, regardless of how long it is, are way out of reach.
Take, an island for example. If it is out of pole range you could cast a waggler there but the wind and subsequent undertow created will soon pull the float out of position and make the bait look totally unnatural to the fish.
Switch over to a feeder, though, and everything stays precisely where you want it until you get a bite – and there’s no need to hold the rod while you wait!
Some anglers have made fishing the feeder for commercial carp something of an art form, but to my mind it is a very simple attack to put into practice, relying mainly on accurate and regular casting to get the fish into the swim and put your hookbait where they are. The rest will look after itself.
WHERE TO CAST
Knowing how deep the water is close to the island is important, so it is well worth asking around before you start fishing to get a rough idea. Generally, though, I’d think you’d be unlucky not to have a couple of feet of depth to go at just off an island. Most lakes are now dug in such a way that the water is incredibly shallow.
I like to begin by landing the
feeder a yard off the island, so I’ll have a little more water to move into closer if the fish show signs of backing off a little.
In an ideal world, I’d want to have a bare mud bank to cast to. This rules out any risk of the feeder getting caught in reeds or bushes. If you haven’t got a bare bank, try to find a spot that has no hazards from foliage and which offers a comfortable cast.
BEING ACCURATE
The easiest way to ensure accurate casting is to use the reel’s line clip. This does pose a problem if you hook a big carp that tears off, but provided you are using strong enough lines it should be easy enough to wind quickly to get some line back on the fish. This will give you some leeway when it powers away.
Because you are fishing close to an island, carp will not swim away from you as there’s nowhere to go. Instead, they swim to the left or right, which makes it a whole lot easier to get some line back on the reel double quick. I’ll then play fish off the backwind closer to the net. How you cast is also important, especially if there are overhanging
bushes or reeds close by. A looped cast is no good. This will land in the greenery – but by going for a slightly flatter cast that is punched out with a short drop of line between the rod-tip and feeder before casting you can almost arrow the feeder to the spot under any reeds or grasses.
TACKLING UP
You need to fish strong lines to put the pressure on carp. I’ll gear up with 0.24mm (10lb) Browning Cenex Feeder Mono mainline to a 4ins hooklink of 0.20mm (9lb) Cenex Hybrid Power Mono, finished with a size 16 Drennan Carp Feeder hook and pellet band.
It’s hard to get broken when fishing this kit as long as your rod is relatively soft, and the 10ft Browning Sphere Plus 10% Power Bomb Rod is just that, bending a long way down the blank to absorb a lot of the pressure.
IT’S ALL ABOUT PELLETS
To go into the feeder you only need micro pellets (I like to fish Bait-Tech’s Carp & Coarse 2mm pellets). I prepare them by soaking in water for two minutes, draining off, then leaving them for 30 minutes. At this point they will go into the feeder perfectly but the longer you can leave the pellets after wetting, the better.
It makes sense to use the same thing on the hook what you are feeding. A hard 6mm or 8mm pellet in a band is a good choice, but wafters have become so effective in the last few years that I think you’d be missing a trick if you didn’t consider using them.
Bait-Tech’s Juice Wafters in the 8mm size are ideal. I’ll often start on the plain pellet-coloured baits to match the micro pellets, but I’ll have the coloured varieties to switch too, orange being a very good alternative.
If the plain wafters aren’t working, something as simple as changing the colour of the bait can trigger a massive change.
BE REGULAR
At the start of a session you want to build the swim quickly and get a bed of micro pellets in. This means half-an-hour of casting every minute. After this point, the job should be done and you can then wait three minutes before recasting, giving the carp enough time to find the bait and take it.