Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
River Trent
Bleasby, Notts
FOR those like me that have fished the River Trent man and boy, Saturday, July 18, 1999 was a sad day. It was when Angling Times reported that the
‘ Old Girl’ had pretty much died as a fish- filled river, after suffering from a long illness in the eyes of many match anglers. The demise of this once prolific water was brought about by a combination of critically low levels and crystalclear water, which was blamed for the disappearance of a great deal of the Trent’s aquatic life. This included once spectacular shoals of roach.
The previous year, in a Trent National Championships, more than 700 of the 984 competitors along 20 miles of bank were unable to catch more than 1kg ( 2lb 2oz) of roach, and following this natural catastrophe the 1999 National on the river was scrapped. For the first time in 17 years there would be no championship match on the river.
To add insult to injury, on October 7, 2009, the Trent suffered a serious pollution incident when cyanide and ammonia from partially treated sewage found its way into the river, killing thousands of fish.
Things looked bleak for the UK’s third- longest watercourse. But moving forward to 2019, not only are the Trent’s roach back, but so are all the other silver fish species. Gaze into the margins along almost any length of the river these days and you will see fry in their thousands, proving that the river is back with a bang.
For me, it has been heartbreaking to see what the old girl has gone through over the past few decades. But, as always, nature finds a way. These days the Trent not only offers spectacular specimen and predator fishing, but the silver fish sport is out of this world. There are huge shoals of slab- sided bream, darting dace, feisty perch and, of course, one of my favourites, the roach.
I’d go so far as to say that it is possible to catch 10lb or more of silver fish in any swim on the Trent these days, be it the tidal or the non- tidal stretch.
Of course, fishing being fishing, some days are much better than others and certain swims are hotter than the rest, but if you fish well, the Trent will reward you handsomely.
Times are changing...
As the Trent’s fish population has changed and grown, so has how we fish for them. Years ago, in the words of the late, great Jan Porter, you would look to fish a pint of maggots an hour, to get the most out of your swim. Yes, maggots will still catch you fish, and plenty of them, but as the silver fish population went into such decline until the last decade or so, more anglers fed pellets... the Trent had naturally become a big- fish river.
This has seen the shoals of roach, bream and dace growing fat on the broken- down pellets that the barbel boys were feeding. They now regard them as more of a natural bait than maggots or casters.
As I said, you’ll catch loads on maggots, but it will tend to be a much smaller stamp – 2oz or less. To get through to the 6oz- plus fish, I now use a combination of Dynamite Baits’ Robin Red pellets and corn. I feed these through a feeder with Robin Red groundbait.
The power of red
I have always liked red baits. Over the years I have caught well using The Source groundbait as well as Silver- X Red Bream, so turning to Robin Red hasn’t been as big a leap of faith as some match anglers would think.
As well as standing out well on the bottom, the slightly spicy and oily nature of Robin Red not only attracts the silver fish, but I have lost count of the number of bonus barbel – some well into double figures – that I have taken both pleasure fishing and in matches.
Also, Robin Red is red – unsurprisingly! – so it matches the red maggots and bronze casters that silvers are so very partial to. It’s also worth bearing in mind that at this time of year the trees are laden with lots of red soft fruits and berries. These bushes often hang over the river and so their fruits fall into the river, where the fish eat them. It is similar to using elderberries when hemp fishing.
“Using corn and 6mm pellets for roach may sound barmy, but you need larger baits to get to the better fish”
Caught red- handed
As I’m looking to fish the feeder today – I’m on one of the Nottingham AA stretches at Bleasby – I need something to go in the feeder itself! I find neat Robin Red groundbait a little too sticky for targeting silver fish, so I mix it one part to two parts brown crumb.
This not only makes for a cheaper day’s fishing, but the addition of the brown crumb gives the groundbait a lovely fluffy texture, helping it break down and escape the feeder quicker.
I mix the groundbait quite dry. So dry, in fact, that I can’t quite make it bind into a ball. But, as I’m looking to loosefeed corn and moistened 6mm Robin Red pellets through the feeder too, the extra moisture from these two baits helps to slightly dampen the groundbait.
Ideally, I want a little groundbait to escape from the feeder as it descends, to draw the silver fish down to the riverbed. To enhance the number of bites, I combine this with a 6ft hooklink, so I get the odd bite on the drop.
I also add 2mm Robin Red pellets to the feeder mix, as these get lodged under the gravel and stones and help to hold the bigger fish and keep them grubbing around.
Using corn and 6mm pellets for roach may sound barmy, but as the Trent’s silver fish are so prolific these days, you need to use larger baits to get to the better fish. Maggots, casters and worms will see you either being plagued by ‘ waspsized’ perch or ‘ eyes and fin- sized’ roach and dace!
Match the feeder to the flow
Kit- wise I’m using a Shimano 14ft 120g Beastmaster feeder rod combined with 0.10mm braid with 25ft of 10lb mono shockleader. This may sound very heavy for roach fishing, but the braid enables me to see even the tiniest of bites, while the heavy rod helps me to cast the 60g feeder that the flow dictates I need to hold bottom today.
The need for the big feeder is because there is a fair bit of flow on today. If the levels were lower, I would use a much lighter feeder. This is something that you can only gauge on the day. Basically, I like to use as light a feeder as I can get away with – be that 30g or 80g.
The feeder is an open- ended version, not a cage, as that would release too much of the payload before the rig had touched bottom. I don’t mind a little bit coming out, as this helps to draw the fish down, but I want 90 per cent of
the payload to reach the riverbed intact. The feeder is set up to be free running but I place a float stop 6in above it for a bolt rig effect. The float stop also collects any weed that runs down the mainline, ensuring that the hook and hooklink remain clear.
My hooklink is 6ft of 0.14mm ( 5lb 2oz) Silk Shock to a size 16 or 14 Drennan Specimen hook.
Today I have opted for a cast and catch approach. You can make a few casts with a much larger feeder to first put down a bed of bait in the traditional style, but I don’t find it particularly necessary on the Trent these days. There are so many roach, I was getting bites within minutes of casting and so you naturally top up the swim the more
“There are so many roach in the River Trent, I was getting bites within minutes of casting out”
bites you get. I find doing things this way helps me to better regulate how much I am loosefeeding.
If, for some reason, I didn’t get quick bites, I’d still recast every five minutes anyway. From there you can regulate the amount you cast and feed by what you are catching. If it’s mostly roach, you can cast more frequently. If the bream turn up, I slow it down to five- or six- minute casts.
Today has turned out as I thought it would, with me weighing 20lb- plus of beautiful Trent redfins. All caught on a Robin Red, something that only a few years would have been unheard of, both in the numbers of fish caught and what I was using to catch them too.
Long live the Trent, I say...