BALANCED RIGS FOR RIVER SPECIES
The Welland in Spalding town is packed out with quality redfins
FLOATFISHING
Species: Roach and dace
Rod: Daiwa Tournament Pro 13ft, 15ft, 17ft
Reel: Daiwa TDR 2508
Reel Lines: 3lb or 4lb Pro Match Hooklengths: 0.08mm to 0.12mm Pro Rig
Hooks: Fine wire sizes 20 to 16
Species: Chub
Rod: Daiwa Tournament RS 13ft, 14ft
Reel: Daiwa TDR 3012
Reel lines: 5lb or 6lb Pro Match Hooklengths: 0.12mm to 0.16mm Pro Rig
Hooks: Medium wire sizes 16 to 12
Species: Barbel
Rod: Daiwa Tournament RS 13ft Reel: Daiwa TDR 3012
Reel lines: 7lb or 8lb Pro Match Hooklengths: 0.16mm to 0.21mm Pro Rig
Hooks: Thick wire sizes 14 to 10
FEEDER FISHING
Species: Barbel, chub, bream Feeder sizes: Up to 2oz
Rod: Daiwa Tournament RS 13ft Reel: Daiwa TDR 3012
Reel lines: 6lb or 8lb Pro Feeder Hooklengths: 0.16mm to 0.20mm Pro Rig
Hooks: Thick wire sizes 16 to 12
Species: Barbel, chub, bream Feeder sizes: 2oz to 4oz
Rods: Daiwa Tournament Pro 12ft 6ins or 13ft 6ins
Reel: Daiwa TDR 4012
Reel lines: 10lb or 12lb Pro Feeder Hooklengths: 0.18mm to 0.21mm Pro Rig
Hooks: Thick wire sizes 14 to 10
Species: Barbel, big chub
Feeder sizes: 4oz to 8oz
Rod: Daiwa Infinity 2.25lb
Reel: Daiwa TDR 4012
Reel lines: 14lb Pro Feeder Hooklengths: 0.23mm or 0.26mm Pro Rig
Hooks: Medium wire sizes 20 to 16
POLE FISHING
Species: Roach
Pole: 16m Daiwa Air Z
Elastic: Yellow Hydrolastic
Rig Lines: 0.12mm and 0.14mm Pro Rig
Hooklengths: 0.08mm to 0.12mm Hooks: Fine wire sizes 20 to 16
Species: Bream
Pole: 16m Daiwa Air Z
Elastic: White Hydrolastic
Rig Lines: 0.14mm and 0.16mm Pro Rig
Hooklengths: 0.10mm and 0.14mm Hooks: Medium wire sizes 18 to 14
Species: Chub
Pole: 16m Daiwa Air Z
Elastic: Grey Hydrolastic
Rig Lines: 0.16mm and 0.18mm Pro Rig
Hooklengths: 0.14mm to 0.16mm Pro Rig
Hooks: Medium wire sizes 16 to 12
Species: Barbel
Pole: 16m Daiwa Air Z
Elastic: Black Hydrolastic
Rig Lines: 0.23mm and 0.26mm Pro Rig
Hooklengths: 0.21mm to 0.26mm
Pro Rig
Hooks: Thick wire sizes 14 to 10
IF YOU’RE looking for a big bag of roach, you’ll struggle to find a venue in better form than the River Welland in Spalding.
Every winter this prolific South Lincolnshire venue fills with fish, but this year catches have been better than ever and 40lb bags haven’t even secured a framing place in matches.
The roach are of an excellent stamp, and catching fish over 1lb is common, alongside some quality perch.
This week we’ve compiled a selection of tips to help you to make the most of this fantastic bit of water, that is free to fish through the town centre.
BREAD IS BEST
Most of this stretch is no more than 10m wide, which means you don’t need to fish much more than 5m out on your main line down the middle.
Usually when catching big bags of roach, a pinkie and groundbait approach is best, as this speeds up the catch rate, but on the Welland this isn’t always the case. Breadpunch fished over punch crumb will single out a better stamp of fish, which in turn results in larger weights.
Fishing bread is a cheap and clean way to fish, and a bag of punch crumb mixed with liquidised feed, plus a few slices for hookbaits, will set you up for a bumper day.
Many local anglers also add some fine gravel to their feed to get it quickly down to the deck.
HEMP FOR QUALITY
Hemp seems to attract the heaviest fish, and setting up a line to fish further across later in the day could see you clonking into dog roach every put-in.
When it comes to priming a hemp line the typical approach is to regularly loosefeed small amounts to get the fish competing – but Fenland expert Alex Bates opts for a different tactic altogether: “My feeding sees a full 250ml pole pot of hemp go in at the start, then I’ll
loosefeed 40 to 50 grains every 10 minutes until I start fishing across on the hemp,” he says.
“You don’t want to be firing it in all day because this pulls in more smaller fish. Once I start fishing on the hemp I won’t loosefeed at all unless I think the fish are backing off.”
PREDATOR ACTION
While roach are the main target on the Welland, there is also a good head of quality perch that go relatively unnoticed by local anglers. Fishing a chopped worm and caster line on the pole or roving around with jigs could lead to some surprise catches, with fish over 2lb a real possibility.
On worms you also have a chance of picking up some of the stretch’s biggest roach.