My waggler set-up
I’m using classic long wagglers for this type of fishing – they sit far better than a pellet wag and are a lot more stable.
my choice is a Drennan loaded Visi Waggler from 2g up to 4g, depending on how far out I want to fish. The bulk of the weight is at the base, so these floats fly well and I don’t have to put large shot either side of the float to hold it in place, risking damage to the mainline. Instead I put two small line stops below the float and one above. I am then casting off the two stops, which won’t move on the line.
If I do move these stops they won’t damage the line. Fishing the waggler in the cold, I will be changing depth a lot and not having to keep moving shot about is a big plus.
Good visibility is key at this time of year when the light can be bad. These floats, as the name suggests, have hi-viz tips.
mainline is 5lb Guru Pulse Pro, which has a diameter of just 0.185mm. That might not sound important, but being low diameter it makes casting a lot easier and, as a result, lets me use a lighter float than might otherwise be the case.
A light float makes a lot less disturbance on the cast, something I feel gives a big edge when the water is cold and clear and the carp are easily spooked.
Hooklength is 30cm of 0.15mm Guru N-Gauge to a size 16 Super LWG hook.
I like a slightly longer hooklength than normal on the waggler to try and get as slow a fall of the hookbait as possible.
To attach my hooklength I use a mini QC Swivel, which also acts as my bottom shot.
Above this I then fix three No9 shot, evenly spaced between the swivel and the float.
waggler really does take some beating, believe me!
THE BAITS TO TAKE
As far as baits go, the first thing I will say is that you don’t need a lot – in fact, all you really need is a couple of different hookbait options. As a guide, though, I always like to fish with maggots at this time of year if small fish aren’t likely to be a problem.
Colours see me go for reds and whites for more hookbait variations – for example, double red, a red and a white or two whites – but there’s no hard and fast rule as to which will get you more bites.
Other baits worth carrying are bread and corn, particularly on venues where there is a large head of silver fish that would make maggots a waste of time.
TO FEED OR NOT?
Winter waggler fishing involves feeding nothing and casting about to catch: I am effectively dobbing with a rod and line!
I reckon feeding will actually spook the fish because in the cold, carp tend to sit motionless up in the water. The only way to then catch them is to put a hookbait right in front of their mouths and hope to get a reaction, which will actually happen quite often.
WHERE TO FISH?
For me, fishing the waggler is a tactic that works best when I have a decent amount of open water in front of me to cover. As a rule, I will start off casting relatively short rather than to the extreme limits of my peg.
In an ideal world this lets me pick a few fish off before I have to follow them out as they start to spook. I like to start deep, to build a picture of what’s in front of me by getting a few indications and so finding the fish. This could mean kicking off 4ft deep in 6ft of water
Sometimes you can start off too shallow and never know there were any fish there in the first place. I’ll also never plumb the depth at the start, preferring to set the float to the depth I want and then start fishing. Plumbing the depth creates too much disturbance, even when doing so with just an SSG shot nipped on the hook.
In cold, clear water when the fish don’t want to feed, there is nothing worse than repetitively casting out before the start and spooking any fish out of your peg!
WATCH FOR CARP
Keeping your eyes open is a massive part of waggler fishing in the cold, and today’s session at Alders Farm was a brilliant example of this.
I spent 30 minutes casting about trying to find a fish for absolutely no result, despite chopping and changing depths.
Then, out of the blue and having not seen a sign of fish, I finally saw a carp move on the extreme righthand boundary of my peg.
Quickly reeling in, I cast on top of that carp and had an indication before missing what looked like a bite. Back out again and I had another indication but no bite.
At this point I’d found a fish or two and I could begin to get to work. Reeling in, I took 12ins off the depth and had a bite on the drop, which I connected with.
Carp number one was soon in the net!
It was now a case of following that little ‘pod’ of carp around the swim in an attempt to keep in touch with them.
Interestingly, even though the swim was 6ft deep, I caught most of my carp fishing just 2ft 6ins deep and several of them actually came on the drop.
Whenever I tried going deeper, I either had nothing or just the odd line bite and foul-hooker.
It was also a case of ‘keep moving’ as catching more than two fish from the same spot proved impossible without them moving off.
When they moved I simply cast 4m or 5m to the right or left to try and find them again. If that failed, I simply cast 2m or 3m further out to see if they had backed off.