Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Get on the cone for winter carp action – Robbie Taylor
Halfway between a bomb and feeder there’s nothing half-hearted about the pellet cone for catching winter carp. Dynamite Baits’ Robbie Taylor is your guide
SINCE its arrival in the mid-2000s, the pellet cone has revolutionised cold-water commercial carping. In the past, the option was to use some form of feeder, running the risk of overfeeding the swim. Alternatively, you could use straight bomb and corn tactics. The beauty of the pellet cone is that it sits neatly between the bomb and the moderate feed tactics of a pellet feeder or small Method. It has certainly helped me win more than the occasional match or two. It is one of those tactics that offers so many advantages over other standard techniques that I find it difficult to understand why so many anglers ignore it. They’re missing out!
Advantages of cone fishing
Early in the year, water in the nation’s stillwaters is as cold as it is going to get. Having come through winter, this is not a time to assume that just because spring is around the corner you have been given carte blanche to heave in a load of loose-feed. There are days when the pellet or Method feeder will work well, but it’s always best to err on the side of caution, heeding the old saying that you can’t take out what you have put in. The cone enables me to perfectly regulate the amount of loose-feed I’m introducing.
The first advantage of a pellet cone over, say, a PVA bag, is that when the water is really cold, a bag could take up to five minutes to dissolve. Also, when I fish a PVA bag, I like to use Dynamite Baits’ 4mm or 8mm XL pellets. At this time of year, you can very easily overfeed the swim with these sizes of pellets. Unlike when I am fishing the Method feeder, I can alter the size of a pellet cone every cast if the need arises. A Method feeder has to be fully-loaded every time in order to make the presentation correct. This will see me loosefeeding around 10 times the amount of 2mm XL pellets every cast compared to when fishing the cone. By only feeding a minimal amount every cast you are able to cast around if you see a showing fish, rather than building one area as you would with the feeder. This is important because when the water is cold, the fish will be tightly shoaled. By casting around you can often fall on the shoal or alternatively get line bites, which helps you to track down where the fish might be sitting. There’s nothing to say that you have to use pellets as the loosefeed. I have done very well using either neat groundbait or a mixture of the two. Again, this offers more precise regulation of the loosefeed, so you can better tailor your approach to the bites you are getting.
Robbie’s bait choice
When it comes to pellets, I will use Dynamite 4mm XLs, but my general go-to is the 2mm version. These will be soaked for two minutes before being drained and allowed to stand for an hour to get nice and tacky. This is a must with the pellet cone. There is no hopper to contain the payload as there is with a feeder, so you need to be 100 per cent confident that the pellet cone won’t explode on impact with the water’s surface. To help with this, you can add a little groundbait to act as a glue. The other mistake many anglers make is to think that just because it’s called a pellet cone, you can only use pellets with the tactic. In the past I have used, and caught very well, using either pure groundbait or a mixture of pellets and groundbait. For my groundbait choice, I use my standard Method mix. This comprises Dynamite’s Green Swim Stim mixed 50:50 with Marine Halibut. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this would be too heavy and oily for winter, but that is what the fish want. When I’m using groundbait with the pellet cone I want that strong flavour and attraction in the water. The other factor is that I’m using so little of it compared to the Method, that its high food value shouldn’t pose a problem – if anything, it works in my favour. One thing to remember, regardless of what you use to load the cone, is to ensure it is well compressed. I always have a couple of cones filled with bait between casts. I then squeeze the bait into the cone a few times prior to rigging it on to the hooklink and casting. This ensures that the cone doesn’t burst on impact with the water, which would result in you effectively fishing a straight bomb over a very light scattering of loosefeed, rather than the intended tight pile of feed directly around the hookbait. As for the hookbait, today at Gold Valley my choice is either an 8mm Dynamite XL pellet or a 10mm punch of plain luncheon meat. I like to use a big hookbait, so that it stands out well over the small micro pellets and/or groundbait. The idea is that it is hopefully the first item a fish picks up when it wanders above the loosefeed.
Fishing the cone
Another common mistake when fishing with a pellet cone is to use too light a bomb. Today, I’m fishing at around 45 yards, but even if I was only fishing at 25 yards I would still use a 1oz-plus bomb. Today’s choice is 1 oz, to cope with the extra distance. The reason for the heavy bomb is that if I used anything under 1oz I would end up casting the cone, not the lead. This would cause the 10in hooklink to tumble and windmill through the air and the rig to become tangled nearly every time. Either that, or the cone will explode on the cast! Also, as well as making casting easier, the larger weight amplifies the bolt effect. The rest of the tackle is standard commercial fishery fare –an 11ft feeder rod, 8lb Guru Pulse mainline to a free-running bomb and a 0.22mm (5lb 8oz) Pure Fluorocarbon hooklink to a size 10 QM1 hook. At this time of year I add 3ft of 0.30mm Pure Fluorocarbon as a leader. This ensures the line behind the lead is pinned to the floor, well out of the way of the feeding fish. With the water so cold, I’m looking for one fish at a time. This means sitting on your hands –in a five-hour match I might make as few as eight casts. The fish need time to find the bait and gain the confidence to take it after the disturbance of the large lead entering the water. One thing that has revolutionised my fishing is the use of a stopwatch, so I can precisely time each cast. Today, I’m looking to leave out the rig for 35 minutes at a time, and the watch enables me to do that exactly. I have found today that most bites have come between 25 and 30 minutes after casting, a time when most other anglers would have wound in long ago. Leaving the rig out that little bit longer has been the difference between catching a few fish and snagging just the odd one. By having the bait correctly prepared, using the right rig and leaving the cast a lot longer than most, I have been able to finish the day with five ‘chunks’ for a weight of well over 50lb – a net that most anglers would be more than pleased with in high summer, let alone the depths of winter!