After dobbing for a while, I find the bites dry up. What’s my next move?
“The first thing to consider is where my best dobbing spots have been”
HAVING bites dry up while dobbing is common, because more often than not it’s an approach that doesn’t tend to last that long, maybe one or two hours at most.
That’s unless you’re sat on a lot of fish, in which case it can last all day! A full day of dobbing is the exception rather than the norm, though, so it’s important to have a good backup plan to keep you ticking over after a good opening burst!
Dob what you can
I’d start the session by dobbing bread, trying to catch as many fish as I can before they spook and disappear.
This normally means thoroughly exploring the whole swim – tight across, down the track and even in the edges – because dobbing isn’t something that only works close to the far bank. Carp and F1s can sit anywhere, so it’s important that you look at every area of the swim.
Once they do spook, the first thing to consider is where my best dobbing spots have been. Normally, there’ll be two, or maybe three, spots in your swim that have produced regular bites. The next step is to identify these spots and target them with a bit of bait. Rarely do fish move far on snake lakes, so it makes sense to use these areas as your starting point.
Plan on a quick response!
In terms of what to feed there are many options, but carp pellets (2mm wetted-down micros) and corn take some beating. If there were more F1s than carp in the swim, maggots or pellets would be good options.
It’s then a case of trickling in small amounts of bait via a pole pot to try and get a response. When I say ‘small amounts’, I’m talking about a pinch of micros and two or three grains of corn or four to six maggots. In other words, I’m putting in just enough bait to get a bite.
If this tactic is going to work, I’d expect a relatively quick response, within 10 minutes. If nothing happens after that, I’d start looking at trickling bait into other key spots to try and get back in touch with the fish once again.
Quite often, with carp, I find that setting traps works best. This means feeding a couple of areas and rotating them, while for F1s, trickling bait in and catching what you can tends to work a lot better.
Fish light for a slow fall
In terms of rigs for this type of fishing, a light float is a good starting point.
For fishing in 3ft of water I would look to use a 0.3g Guru AR, while if I’m targeting carp in the 2lb to 8lb bracket my mainline will be 0.15mm N-Gauge to a 4ins hooklength of 0.12mm Pure Fluorocarbon.
Hook choice is a size 16 or
18 Guru F1 Pellet pattern, the shotting being a loosely-strung bulk of No11 shot.
The bottom shot is set 4ins from the hook and the rest of the droppers are spaced at 1ins intervals above this.
A slow falling hookbait is very important at this time of the year because I’m a big believer that carp feed on sight – whereas a hookbait bombed straight to the bottom is far less likely to catch their eye.
On the subject of hookbaits, once you’ve finished dobbing then sweetcorn is king for me. Being bright yellow in colour, it’s very much a stand-out, highly visible bait that carp can home in on. I’ll always kick off using a single grain on the hook, but if that fails or doesn’t seem right then I’ll switch to two grains.
Quite often it seems that a bigger, more visible, hookbait in the form of double corn gives a quicker response bite-wise than a single grain. The same thing applies to maggots as well, in that two tend to be better than one. If the water is clear, I’ll fish a red and a white one, but if it’s coloured then I’ll tend to stick to two red maggots.
Keep on the move
Another great tip that has served me well is to try and
make a fish have the bait, as opposed to waiting for one to do so. This means keeping the hookbait on the move by lifting and dropping the rig so that the hookbait rises and falls in the water. Bites tend to come just as the float settles.
It always amazes me how a little bit of movement will produce a bite when a static bait has been totally ignored.
Lift the float 4ins-6ins clear of the water and slowly lower it back in again.
Taking the rig out and laying it back in to one side can also work on occasions.