Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Big balls = big rewards on the Trent
England Youth International Jordan Holloway reveals his aggressive groundbait attack for big, running- water weights
RIVER fishing is so diverse. I find it fascinating and that’s why I love it so much! Now, I am a Bewdley lad and have grown up fishing the River Severn around that town on methods such as the stick float, Bolo and waggler for hard- fighting barbel and chub. Proper heart- in- the- mouth stuff.
But today, I have come to the River Trent near Hoveringham to spend a day fishing the pole after smaller fish such as dace and roach for, hopefully, a more hectic day’s sport.
Now, I must admit this is not somewhere I’ve been to before so I’ve done my homework to find out as much as I can about the venue. Facebook is a great tool as it’s home to a wide range of people with a little more experience on the river and I discovered some important details.
The first thing I found out was about the host species. Mainly roach and dace, with a chance of a bonus bream, chub and barbel. Secondly, that it’s tap water clear so fishing light will be essential. And finally, the pace is steady so pole fishing will be ideal.
I am not a ‘ faffy’ angler and I love to attack the peg. I have therefore decided to start the session by balling in groundbait.
Why would I ball it in?
I do this to attract fish into the peg. The noise will attract them and the spread balling ( I’m not the most accurate!) creates a wide grazing area which will make the fish feed more confidently, and easier to catch.
My mix is 50/ 50 Sonubaits Natural Roach and River. The Roach is quite a hempy mix with some coriander - both firm favourites of the species. River groundbait adds the stickiness needed to hold the balls together when thrown in and to hopefully slow the breakdown on the deck to keep me bagging for longer.
To my initial balling mix, 10 ‘ baby’s heads’, I include 150ml of particles such as hemp, casters and dead maggots. This is plenty as I don’t know how many fish are here and don’t want to overfeed them before I even start fishing.
If I find there are more big fish knocking about I’ll add some chopped worms and top up via a big pot to hopefully attract more and build a bigger match weight.
A good little tip is to always throw your bait slightly downstream. This has a few advantages. One, it gives your rig a chance to settle and be fishing before you reach your bait. Weirdly, you’ll sometimes get fish sitting upstream of
“If I find there are more big fish knocking about I’ll add chopped worms to my groundbait”
your bait – often the bigger chaps. Why the fish sit above the bait is something I’ve never properly understood. Anyway, it gives you a chance of catching those fish before the rig reaches the loosefeed.
Rig options
The peg is around 7ft deep and I’ve set up a number of rigs to fish at 14.5 metres where I’m just getting into the flow of the river, a great holding spot for several species.
The first few rigs out of the bag are a couple of different PT Series 7 floats in 0.75g, 1g and 1.5g. The 0.75g is set up on 0.12mm Preston Reflo Accu Power with an olivette and three No. 10 shot as droppers for more finesse. This isn’t really my cup of tea unless the going is tough!
The 1g has an olivette and a couple of No. 9 droppers and a size 18 N30 hook. This is going to be my small- fish rig. The 1.5g set- up is on a much heavier 0.17mm Reflo Power mainline with a couple of No. 8 droppers. This is going to be presented significantly overdepth in case I encounter a beast lurking in the dark!
A trusty get- out- of- jail rig is a 4x14 Chianti float with strung out No. 10 shot in the bottom half of the rig. As the
water is so clear, the fish will watch the bait as it’s falling and snaffle it. This rig has a longer line above it to search my swim if the fishing is more difficult.
Bites from the off
I’ve started on the small- fish slayer – the 1g rig – and I’ve had bites instantly. This isn’t a surprise and is usually the case after balling in groundbait. To begin with, the fish are babies of just a few ounces. I’m using a single red maggot on the hook as they are just a little more resilient than a caster so I can catch a fish every drop in and steadily build my match bag.
One little tip when fishing over groundbait is to hold back on loosefeeding until you have to. Today, I’ve caught steadily just plopping in my rig and running it over the groundbait. If you loosefeed while catching like this, it can send the fish loopy! They go wild, zooming all over the place off the bottom and in a bigger area creating a longer time between bites.
The sun is now high in the sky and it’s just a joy to be out. Unfortunately, these conditions have caused the bites to tail off. This means the Chianti rig has come into play. Picking up the catapult and pinging in hemp and casters has kept the odd fish coming. Sometimes, when feeding just hemp, the fish can become preoccupied on the stuff. It’s like a drug. This can make them hard to catch on other baits so it is important to vary what you feed.
Having a couple of inches of line on the bottom has been the way. Letting the bite develop, counting to one when the float slides away, before striking.
Preston No. 5 slip elastic has been a fantastic choice. Fish have not splashed on the surface, it’s not too light and I can swing fish to hand. No one wants to be netting 2oz roach! It also has enough stretch should I happen to hook one of those big, match- winning fish I keep mentioning.
Big roach arrive
Now the light has started to fade, the bigger roach have joined the party. Fishing my 1.5g rig and a single caster, I am now catching fish twice the size of what I did earlier. Mr Esox has spoilt the party somewhat but I’ve managed to put together a 15lb- 20lb bag of prime roach and dace.
So, there you have it. A great day’s sport on a stunning stretch of river, throwing in loads of groundbait, a bit of loosefeeding and using a variety of rigs.
What’s not to like?