Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Richard Chapman
Follow Rich Chapman’s feeding advice and get bite after bite down the margins this month
Minimum feed, maximum results
When someone mentions margin fishing, I’m sure most of you will begin to think about filling in the edge with groundbait on a warm summer’s day while watching tails wafting around your float in little more than a foot of water.
It’s mega exciting fishing but more often than not you will end up with a peg full of fish searching out every last morsel of groundbait while ignoring any hookbait you put in front of them. Rather than spending the last hour of your session bagging up as intended, you end up using words your Gran would be less than impressed with!
Thankfully, there is a solution. By cutting back your feed to the bare minimum you can control the fish. Rather than absolute chaos, fins everywhere and foulhookers aplenty, this approach sees you feed just enough to get a nice clean bite every time.
The theory is really simple. Carp are easier to catch where they are comfortable, so generally in the last hour or two of a match they will naturally push into the margins.
Thanks to years of people chucking in bait at the end of the day, they know it will be rich pickings. exact timings vary from venue to venue and day to day, but the important thing to remember is they will naturally want to be there.
You don’t need to feed massive quantities of bait. If you feed five big pots, you are making getting a clean bite more difficult.
Initial feed
When fishing like this I always opt for softened micro pellets which can be fed in a loose clump, similar to groundbait. I’ll go into more detail a bit later but getting the preparation right is vital.
With so many different types of pellets, there are no hard and fast rules, so each batch will need experimentation to get them to behave just right. If you have that sort of time on your hands then crack on, but I’d rather spend it on the bank ( or down the pub!) so I’ve taken the easy option of using the Spotted Fin ‘ Method Ready Pellets’.
They have been designed for use on a feeder but they work perfectly for this tactic too. They are ready to use straight out of the tub, fully swelled up, nice and heavy, which is exactly what we want for this. As an added bonus they are shelf life, so any you don’t use can be kept in the tub ready for next time.
The first feed is the only time I use the big pot during the session and I make a loosely squeezed ball of micros the size of a tangerine.
The timing is the important bit – in a match situation I’d say 90 minutes before the end of the match is perfect. Although if you do see anyone else catching down the edge a bit earlier, I will use this as a trigger to sort out the first feed and get it into the swim.
Picking the right spot to target is also key. I generally just pick one and make sure I get it right rather than confusing things with a swim either side. You are looking for a nice clean bottom, ideally no more than two feet deep with 12in- 18in being prime. Any deeper and you’ll start getting issues with foul- hooking, any shallower and the fish don’t tend to settle.
When you are plumbing up check out the surrounding area by dragging the plummet around, making sure there are no snags or steep slopes which are likely to cause you issues.
Regulating your feed
With the spot chosen and the initial feed fed, I give it 10 minutes to settle but keep an eye on it for any signs of fish. My rigs are kept nice and simple but strong, with an 0.20mm mainline to an 0.16mm hooklength and a 4x14 float with a decent 2mm tip. Today I’ve used a MAP IS3 which is a short float with a rugby ball body and a glassfibre stem. It’s shotted with a bulk of No. 8s and a kernel of Jolly Green Giant on the hook.
The pots is where it starts to get a bit more technical. I use these to regulate the feed going into the swim. It’s all too easy to get a bit giddy
after catching the first one so these help me to remain disciplined. The pots themselves are the clear Frenzee ones to which I’ve added a few holes in the base to help the bait release. I carry them in various sizes and swap around during the session depending how the fish are reacting.
As mentioned previously, I only feed micros, so I load up my chosen pot, give them a quick ‘ thumb’ down to compress the pellets and ship out to my spot. Once there, I upend the pot and dunk it under the water where I hold it for a couple of seconds. As I slowly lift it out, the holes enable the pellets to fall out in a tight clump. You might need to play about as to how hard you squeeze your pellets, but the clear pots are great due to the fact you can see when the micros eject.
With the clump of pellets in my swim, I carefully lower the rig into position and wait – no lifting or dropping – just WAIT!
If I wait more than five minutes with no indications then I’ll fish another line for 15 minutes and repeat the process. If you get the timing right, you should only have to wait a few seconds before getting an occasional dither on the float which shows that fish are visiting, due
to the fact that your little pile of pellets is the only bait in the peg, with a nice piece of corn on top just like a method feeder.
You should quickly get a nice clean bite. Ignore any slow dips or the float getting dragged around. If it does get moved out of position, slowly lift and lower the rig on the spot and wait for that nice fast pull under.
If everything is working correctly then that should be a fish hooked perfectly in the mouth. It’s worth mentioning here that the only time I would introduce more loosefeed is if I’d struck at a liner and seen a few fish bow- waving from the peg. This will have dislodged my nice little pile of bait so the trap will need to be reset.
When to change pot size
Now it’s just a case of repeating the process and keeping it nice and controlled. I normally start on the medium pot and often use that for the rest of the session. But there are a few signs which indicate a change is required.
If you are getting too many fish in your peg, and your float is wafting all over the place but you’re not getting clean bites, swap to the smaller one. You might need to swap back after the peg has calmed down to keep them interested.
On the other hand, if you are finding that you are waiting a long time for indications, switch over to the bigger pot. This ensures that there is that little bit more bait after you have hooked the fish to keep them mooching around in the area. Again though, this will often just be for a couple of fish before swapping back to the smaller one.
By following this process you can control the peg and keep the bites coming. Just by reading how the fish are reacting to the quantities you are feeding and changing your feeding pattern accordingly will leave you with far more fish in the net than just reaching for the big pot every single time.