My silver rigs
Today’s swim offers 7ft of water and I’ve opted to fish at 11m. I want to catch roach and skimmers, but if I go into really deep water at Meadowlands
I’ll only catch skimmers and few roach. If I fish shorter, I will probably catch roach but no skimmers – so 11m is an ideal middle ground for both.
My two rigs both feature KC Carpa Gloucester floats – 4x16 and 1.25g. I’ll start with the 4x16 so I can fish through the water, but if the skimmers arrive, I’ll pick up the heavier rig and concentrate on catching the skimmers on the bottom.
Mainline is 0.15mm Guru N-Gauge to a 6ins hooklengths of 0.12mm Pure Fluorocarbon. I use Guru F1 Maggot hooks, which are incredibly sharp and keep their point well. Being long-shanked, they are great for speed fishing.
They’re also an ideal maggot hook, and either a single maggot or single caster sit nicely on the bend, important for big roach.
shotting patterns are very different for both rigs. The 4x16 Gloucester is all about fishing through the water, so I use a high strung bulk of No8 shot with four No9s spaced at 6ins intervals.
I can then lay the rig in and hold on to it, with bites then coming either in the bottom third of the water or as the float settles.
The 1.25g Gloucester is shotted in a more standard manner with an olivette 18ins from the hook and two positive droppers in the form of doubled-up No9s spaced at 6ins intervals above this.
Positive droppers are essential for skimmers, owing to the way these fish feed. Lift bites tend to be very common, and positive droppers accentuate these.
Finally, let’s look at elastics for this type of fishing. I go for yellow Hydro, the reason being that no matter what I strike into, I can ship straight back and the elastic is soft enough to prevent hook-pulls.