The Fishing Coach

In my previous post I showed a picture of two sets of floats I bought on eBay and mentioned that I was ordering some more - well they’ve arrived! They are all fluted avons and the picture below will show how the body of the float is shaped to ride the current.

I had ordered two sets, the ones on the right of the picture have a half inch balsa body on a crow quill stem and take from 9AAA down to 11BB and the others are three eighths of an inch balsa bodies on cane stems and range from 9BB down to 5BB. I have calibrated and marked them myself as they come unmarked. (Actually, Jan marked them for me as I can’t write that small and neat.)

I am really pleased with these floats (’cos I’m a tackle tart) and I thought I would pass on my recommendation to you. I enjoy using these hand made floats because they are a little different. Although I would not call myself a traditionalist, my rods are carbon and not wood, my centrepins all have bearings and I don’t understand why anyone would pay to have a rod rest made out of built cane. Apologies if that is your thing.

Yes, I will agree they are a little too buoyant and take too much weight for most rivers but the guy that makes them tells me he does a whole range of hand made floats. (Something else to spend my money on!)

I have spoken to Stan Payne and he has given me permission to post his phone number here - 0121 3545637 - so if you are pleased by using something a little different from everyone else, give him a ring. The most expensive float he makes is only £1.40.

Part of my coaching is teaching knots and as some of the modern lines require special new knots I also show them to the more experienced anglers I meet. I have found a great website that shows videos of most fishing knots. I hope you find it useful.

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Tuesday was the first day off I have had for some time with no urgent preparation to do for the following day and I awoke that morning with a feeling that something was missing. I went to my bait storage fridge and freezers to do a stock take and found that I had several small quantities of various baits left over from coaching sessions, some frozen, some in the fridge.

It seemed to me that it has been a long time since I had a day to myself where I can do what I like. As much as I enjoy coaching I still like fishing more. I decided that a day on the Predator Lake would use up some of my frozen dead baits left over from last season, the lake had only just re-opened on the 1st September. I started to look for a heavy spinning rod to use in conjunction with a multiplier reel to “wobble” a dead bait over the weed beds that would still be left from the summer. During my search I found a rod that I forgotten I had, not as strange as it sounds when you are a tackle tart like me.

Last year when visiting The Tackle Exchange in Walton-on-Thames I had seen a second hand Italian made match rod with a very fine tip which I thought might be ideal for very light lines. I was not able to test the rod in the shop as it was quite busy and I was unable to put a reel on it and run the line through it. When I got it home and tested it properly I found it was very “floppy” and the logos and decals on the butt section were horribly garish.

The rod had only cost me £20 so I cut off the butt section just above the handle and removed all the guides. I then removed the bottom cork of the handle and pushed the butt section up through the handle until the ferrule just protruded, I packed it in position with some pieces cut from the wide end of the blank and araldited it in position. (Don’t try this at home, sometimes the result is a disaster!)

I ended up with a short (10ft 5ins) trotting rod which at the time I was a little disapointed with as it seemed rather stiff and unforgiving, so I put it up on a shelf and forgot about it. Yesterday when I set it up again it did not seem so bad and I decided to give it a trial run on the river Kennet while I was on the Wasing Estate. I found a couple of pints of Dynamite Frenzied Hemp and a pint of fresh(ish) casters in the fridge, some frozen casters and frozen Dynamite Frenzied Tares in the freezer and with two centrepins, my favourite Harrison GTI match rod and my new found “designer” rod I was on my way to the Kennet by mid morning. I also took the heavy spinning rod, multiplier reel and some frozen roach dead baits for the evening.

Before midday I was thigh deep in the Kennet having set up both rods and fed some hemp and casters, I started with the Harrison and a stick float (one of the few swims on the Wasing Estate where you can use a stick float) with casters on the hook. I was into fish straight away, roach and dace every cast, so I introduced some tares into my loose feed.

The new rod was then put through its paces with 2lb mono main line and a size twenty hook to a pound and three quarter hook length, firstly with a single caster and then with a size sixteen wide gape hook with a tare on it. All my reservations disappeared, the rod had a fast crisp action similar to my Drennan Superstick rod but being shorter was suitable for swims with overhead cover as often found on the Warren Beat. It handled good fish on light tackle and I was delighted with this new found tool in my armoury.

The rod in question can be seen in the above photo but the floats are too heavy for the swim in question. The roach is about a pound but well on his way to becoming a big fish.

I fished for about four hours on and off, changing rods and baits regularly, I caught a fish nearly every cast with good quality roach and dace mixed in with smaller fish and little chub. Tares seemed to catch the better stamp of fish but as always were difficult to keep on the hook and only gave one chance to hit the bite. This is always a problem when dace fishing but the fast action of the new rod helped greatly with this and more dace were hooked with this rod than with the Harrison.

At about 6pm I packed away my float rods (none too soon, I was beginning to ache) and went to the Predator lake to try and catch a pike or two. The tackle was a heavy spinning rod with a multiplier reel with fifty pound braid. I always use very heavy breaking strains when pike fishing with braid as the lack of stretch can cause the line to break with a sudden shock particularly when casting big baits. The lake was still heavily weeded and I was only able to work the roach dead bait in the top foot or so and then only in the places where the weed did not reach the surface. I tried all along the road bank and was rewarded with one take only to have the fish come off as soon as I applied any pressure. These are always small fish, aren’t they?

A great day on my favourite river - I am so lucky not to have to work for a living anymore!

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As a result of a comment by Joe Perdoni on a previous post, I’ve decided to put my one of my theories, previously only spoken of to close friends, down in print.

Joe says: “Why is it that fish always decide to bite when you’re not looking or are in the middle of doing something; you can have hours of no action but as soon as you turn your back……….! “

All anglers have experienced this many times, too often to be a coincidence. Many years ago whilst “a serving of Her Majesty the Queen” in the British Army of the Rhine I did a bit of match fishing on the army match circuit and I expressed the same sentiment to a long serving Sergeant Major and I added that it seemed as though the fish knew when we were concentrating on catching them. He told me of certain soldiers who, even when in simulated field combat situations, could tell when they were being watched and often say from which direction.

When the subject came up again on another occasion, in different company, a fellow angler who had done a lot of deer stalking said he was always being told by professional gillies never to look directly at a deer until he was ready to pull the trigger. Apparently the deer can sense the hunters presence, become restless and often move out of shot.

If these two examples are true then why should fish not have this extra sense and be aware of the anglers presence in the same way, abstaining from feeding through fear until the anglers attention wanders.

Consider this if you will, the next time you are sitting there having missed the only bite of the day, as the hot tea you were about to drink soaks slowly into your groin.

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It’s fascinating to occasionally look over the stats for this site and see where people are coming from, both geographically (from Australia to the USA) and what led them here. Sometimes it’s a mention on Steve’s All Things Piscatorial forum, other times it’s an interesting search engine quest. So I thought I’d sit down today and answer some of the questions posed by those arriving here by search engine.

1. Bored kids
I can’t help this particular visitor because he or she came from Plano in Texas but if your kids are bored this summer holidays, what better way to fill their days and give them some experience of their place in the environment than to encourage them to take up fishing.

2. How to hold a fishing reel.

There are three types of fishing reel that I use in coarse fishing and I will explain how to hold each of them. Firstly, the most common type of reel is the fixed spool, spinning or threadline reel. This reel should be held with two fingers wrapped around the rod butt each side of the reel foot. Note the thumb is on top of the rod to help lock the lower part of the butt under the forearm.

This allows the forefinger of the hand to be extended to control the line comming of the spool during casting (as shown below).

The second type of reel and by far my favourite is the centrepin reel. This reel is held extending the forefinger down the back of the reel for stability and by wrapping the remaining three fingers around the rod butt below the reel. The thumb is pressed to the butt just above the foot of the reel and can be lowered to control the speed of revolution of the reel by applying pressure to the rim.

I wind about forty yards of line onto my reels but I wind it on backwards. By this I mean that I reel clockwise to gain line (I’m right handed and reel with my left hand) and the line comes off the top of the spool instead of the bottom. There are two reasons for this, firstly the thumb of the hand holding the rod has immediate control of any loops of line that might be blown off the spool by a cross wind. If the line came off the bottom then any such loop would have caught round a handle before you noticed, with disastrous results if you hooked a fish. Secondly when a fish is taking line under pressure applied by the same thumb to the rim of the spool, then the movement of a clockwise rotating spool will push the thumb up and away from the spool, losing control. In my case a running fish will cause the spool to rotate anti-clockwise and an even pressure can be maintained with the thumb.

More of my thoughts on centrepin use can be seen here at Paul Whiteing’s site.

The fourth type of reel is the multiplier which I use primarily for lure fishing. This reel because of its design is fished on top of the rod to allow the thumb to control the spool during casting. All four fingers are wrapped around the butt below the reel. I prefer to wind with my left hand leaving my right arm, my strongest as I am right handed, for casting. This restricts the number of multipliers available to me as most are made for the US market and they prefer to reel with their right hand, holding the rod with their left hand. They still cast with the rod in the right hand and switch over before reeling in. What’s that all about? Is it anything to do with driving on the wrong side of the road too?

3. Best tench in 2006.

I have written much on this site about tench fishing as they are my favourite still water species. Here are five of the posts I have written about them in reverse chronological order:

• Season’s best tench
• First tench of 2006
• Using the lift method for tench
• June update
• Start of my tench season

4. Kennet syndicate.

What can I say about what is probably my favourite place on this planet? Take a look at their website and read these posts:

• First barbel of the new season
• Silver fish from the Kennet

5. Pike rigs how to.

What rigs to use for pike and how to make the traces etc. will be the subject of a future post, if not two or three posts.

Any more questions?

Finally, I get questions from anglers, both new and experienced on a regular basis. If you have a fishing related question, why not leave a comment and I’ll do my best to give you an answer.

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I had bought a new brand of soft hookable pellets to try out with a view to using them for float fishing for barbel but every time I tried to put a hook through them they fell apart. I tried several different sizes and patterns of hook, all to no avail. These pellets are 8mm in size and look and smell great. I wanted to use them on my coaching session on Friday but the problem persisted.

I then remembered a book on tench fishing by Len Arbery called Catching Big Tench that I had read some years ago (it was published in 1989). In this book he describes a way of mounting a boilie on a brush bristle tied to a “hair” coming of the shank of a hook.

I left my student for a minute and returned to my car where I keep a stiff brush to clean mud off my boots and to sweep out the back of my car. I snipped a few bristles off the brush and returned to the swim. Using a Drennan Hook Tyer I whipped a bristle onto a length of 6.6lb bs line, having flattened the end of the bristle to make a spade end.

The hook is then tied on using the knotless knot and the tip of the bristle is cut at an angle to aid penetration of the pellet.

The pellet can then be mounted on the bristle without splitting and the hook is free of the pellet to enhance hooking. It worked for my student but whether it will work on fast flowing water, despite the attentions of little fish, remains to be seen.

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Yesterday I had my first day this year on Taywood Chertsey South lake still looking for some more big tench. I didn’t start until about two thirty in the afternoon and spent a little time at the water in reconnaissance I decided to fish one of my favourite swims on the motorway bank. I set up my two Sportex 1 1/4 lb test curve legering rods, one with a maggot feeder, the other with a semi fixed lead and hair rigged paste. Both rods were fished on buzzers with drop off indicators whilst I used a plummet on a twenty foot float rod to explore the margins. On this motorway bank the marginal shelf common to most gravel pits is about twenty feet out and drops into fifteen feet of water in some places.

My first bite came on the maggot feeder shortly after I had made about six or eight casts without a hook length to put a carpet of bait on the bottom of the drop off on the left hand side of the swim. The indicator lifted in a series of hesitant jerks but the strike met with no resistance, it was probably a line bite.

Over the next couple of hours I remained biteless so I reeled in the the paste rig rod and set up the long float rod with a sensitive waggler. Whilst I was doing this the buzzer on the maggot feeder rod went off in a long bleep as the indicator was lifted steadilly to the rod ring, again the strike was met with no resistance?

The long float rod proved to be a problem to fish with as the surrounding bushes had grown quite a lot since the last time I fished this swim. It was almost impossible to get room for a back cast and my right wrist was not yet strong enough after the sprain to flex the action of the rod for an under arm flick. I finally managed to get the float where I wanted it and fed maggots and hemp on a little and often basis.

I had already had two bites - not a bad result for this area of what is a very hard fishery and I was not expecting to see the float slide away so confidently. The result was not a big tench nor even a big bream but an eel about a pound and a half that seemed to be hooked right down it’s throat, as they always are, about four inches from its bum.

I packed up after that and went home to work on a sliding float rig that will allow me to use a managable sized rod, I may have to put a larger bore tip ring on one of my stepped up Harrisons. The reason for this is that a sliding float does just that and is stopped at the correct depth by a stop knot, tied in a separate piece of line, around the main line. Because of the depth the stop knot would be somewhere near the reel on the cast and would have to travel through most of the rod rings, the tip ring is always the one that causes the problems being the smallest. This is particulary exacerbated by the use of the heavier than usual six pound main line required for the large fish in this lake.

I will report on my progress.

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Once again, this article first appeared on the TryAngling website but we’re in the process of redesigning that site and part of the plan is to move tackle reviews, catch reports and so on to this blog for instant publishing.

It being mid April I should be able to say “file this away until next November or so” but having just seen the UK weather forecast for the next week (snow!), perhaps it’s a good idea to read this right now.

Winter is nearly on us again and Gordon and I will continue to fish through all but the most severe weather but in order to fish effectively it is important to be as comfortable as possible.

To achieve this the most important thing is to keep dry - not easy in our climate, especially if you do your winter fishing on the move. I find it very difficult to fish from underneath an umbrella and usually use mine to keep the tackle bag and bait dry.

Firstly you will need a waterproof outer layer. If you can afford it something made of one of the modern man-made fibres such as ‘Gore-tex’ is favorite as the fabric will ‘breathe’ and allow the circulation of air around the body to prevent perspiration wetting the inside of the garment whilst keeping the rain out. These are not cheap but I feel they are worth the investment unless you intend to remain immobile inside a bivvy.

I prefer to use a two piece outer layer, i.e. jacket and trousers rather than a one piece suit because in the later if you need to ‘empty your bowels’ you have to do so practically naked (not a pretty sight for passers by).

Underneath this it is often necessary to wear two or more further layers. These layers should be natural fibres where possible, i.e. wool or cotton particularly those next to the skin. Man-made fibres such as nylon or polyester will cause you to sweat as they inhibit the circulation of air. Modern fleeces can add a very good insulating layer when worn just under the top layer and can be used on their own when the weather is dry.

In the really cold conditions usually associated with Grayling, Pike and Chub fishing I will wear the following: a cotton long sleeved vest and ‘longjohns’ as the layer nearest my skin. On top of this a cotton shirt with long sleeves and a pair of cotton trousers, jeans or cords will do. The next layer is a pair of fleece material jogging bottoms and a fleece jacket. I find the fleece material particularly good as it keeps the warmth in but the furry inner part draws out the moisture away from the body and keeps it dry. An outer layer of ‘Gore-tex’ jacket and overtrousers completes the ensemble but all layers need to be fairly loose fitting as tight clothing eliminates the layers of air that gives insulation and can make free movement of the limbs difficult.

I prefer any garment that is liable to be worn on the outside to be dark in colour, ideally olive drab green for camouflage, so some of the more brightly coloured garments designed for ski-ing should be avoided.

Always wear a hat or wear a jacket with a good hood as 80% of heat loss occurs from the top of the head, especially if your hair is getting thin like mine. A wide brim on the hat will act as a small umbrella and keep the rain away from the neck of the jacket.

Feet are always a problem in cold wet weather and ordinary wellington boots are useless for keeping the feet warm. Unfortunately the moon boot type of insulated rubber boot, whilst warm and dry, are difficult to walk any distance in. There are some new field boots on the market which combine the characteristics of a moon boot and a walking boot and these are good in all but the deepest mud or extreme cold.

A good pair of neophrene gloves with fold back fingers and thumbs will keep your hands warm and dry without taking away the ability to use your fingers.

So just because the summer is gone don’t stop fishing - some really good sport can be had in all but the most Siberian conditions but remember anyone can be uncomfortable- we are supposed to be doing this for fun. Don’t be like one famous angler who was heard to remark in particularly bad conditions “I’ll be glad when I’ve had enough of this”.

Finally, as the comedian Billy Connolly once said: “There is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing”.

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The river season has ended and with it the longest seeming winter in my memory. This was probably an illusion caused by my lack of fishing opportunities due to my wrist injuries but other anglers of my aquaintance have said the same. There was nothing memorable about the winter other than the lack of rain and being a little colder than we have become used to but it just seemed to drag on and on.

I missed my days out to the Itchen, a river now a shadow of its former self and I wasn’t able to give the Kennet the attention I had intended. The only saving grace has been the Pike Handling courses, although they caused me a lot of physical problems.

We now find ourselves at a strange time of year for coarse angling. The rivers are closed and the still waters have yet to warm up enough to get the fish feeding. It is time to prepare your tackle for the spring and summer, to repair the wear and tear the winter has wrought and to replace damaged or missing items before you miss them on your first good day out. Let me explain what I will be doing over the next few weeks.

The most important consideration for me is line. Many of my reels had a lot of use in the late summer and autumn and although they were cleaned before being put away, the line on them has spent a lot of time exposed to sunlight. This is the worst enemy of most monofilament fishing lines as all types except flourocarbon deteriorate due to sunlight to a greater or lesser degree. This deterioration does not seem to be gradual but can often appear to occur overnight and your six pound breaking strain line suddenly parts under two pounds of pull.

The only solution is to replace it every so often and to store your reels in total darkness. I am even careful where I buy my new line as it is difficult to know how the line you are buying from your tackle dealer has been stored. I tend to buy an unopenned box of line in the breaking strains I most commonly use and store that which I don’t use straight away in a black box with a tight fitting lid in a dark corner of the garage. The same attention should be paid to any spools of line that you keep in your tackle bag for tying up hook lengths. Braid, fortunately, does not suffer in this way so is worth the extra it costs to buy.

While we are talking about reels (and here I mean fixed spool reels) - before you put them away after renewing the line, slacken off the slipping clutch or drag as some call it. This will prevent the spring from weakening and prolong the life of your reel.

Another cause of damage to line are cracks in the ceramic linings of rod rings or guides, these can be difficult to detect but if you gently run the cutting edge of a sharp pointed scalpel or craft knife around the inside of them you will feel any crack easily and will be able to take steps to have the offending ring or guide replaced.

I will also be checking all my hooks, weights and feeders to make sure that I am not short of any sizes or patterns and inspecting my floats for the same reasons and for damage. Floats are easily damaged but can be repaired with a little effort much more cheaply than they can be replaced. I would like to say that I also sort through my tackle bag and discard anything that I have carried for a couple of years and not used but I have tried to do this and don’t seem to have the self discipline. It all ends up back in the bag labelled “just in case”.

Expeience has also taught me to check my boots and waders, as being made of rubber they are liable to perish. What ended the autumn as a servicable pair of chest waders can be a bl**dy embarrassment on the first day of the river season.

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At last my wrists have healed enough to allow me to have a day’s fishing for myself, the first since October. I chose to visit the Lower Itchen Fishery on the river Itchen near Southampton. I paid over £100 for the right to fish this stretch from October to February and due to my injuries this would be only my second visit this season. As on my first visit, the river was low and discoloured and I could see very little fish movement during my drive along the stretch to the car park.

I had heard rumours of a massive fish kill in the summer due to low oxygen levels during a period of low flows and high temperatures and this was confirmed by the bailiff later in the day. I decided to fish the sidestream at the top of the coarse fishing stretch and this decision was reinforced when I noticed the wind direction. The sidestream flows approxiamately north-south and the gentle breeze was blowing from the south west, this was perfect for my favourite method,float fishing with a stick float.

This was the method I had hoped to be able to employ on my first day back on a river for so long, it involves the ultimate in finesse as far as float and bait presentation are involved and can only be practiced perfectly in ideal wind conditions. Let me explain what I mean. A stick float is ideally fished attached top and bottom with a strung out (or shirt button) shotting pattern which allows a natural rise and fall of the bait when the float is slowed or allowed to run with the current. The angler needs a lot of control of the float to make this happen and to prevent the faster moving surface current from making the float preceed the bait on it’s way down the swim. If the float is in front of the bait then its shadow may spook the fish or make the bait travel unnaturally fast, or cause serious bite indication problems, sometimes all three.

This is prevented by the skilful angler slowing the float down slightly by giving out line at a slower pace than the float is trying to travel. To achieve this the line below the rod tip must be kept behind the float and floating on the surface, the angler does this by constantly gently “mending” the line - that is, lifting the line off the water and laying it back behind the float. This requires a very deft touch if the float is to trot down the swim smoothly and in my experience more often than not the wind will make this more difficult. In fact in a strong down steam wind it is virtually impossible.

The reason I was so pleased with the conditions was that when fishing the west bank of the north-south flowing sidestream, the south west breeze would blow my line back behing the float, on its own, every time I lifted the line off the surface. This meant that I could trot my chosen path down the river without the float being pulled in to my bank by the force needed to mend the line and I was even able to slow the pace of the float considerably if I chose to do so. The bow in the line between rod tip and float created by the wind also caused the float to tend to move toward the far bank slightly to counteract any opposite pressure applied by my braking the progress of the float.

The result was perfect float and bait presentation and I would have been satisfied to fish like that without catching fish, it is so rare to be able to do this on the rivers (west to east flowing) that I normally fish.

The only disavantage was that the sidestream was quite clear and I would have to fish with light tackle to fool those wary chub so I set up my drennan stick float rod with a light weight, free running, centrepin reel loaded with two and a half pound line. I tied on a two pound hook length and a size 18 carbon chub hook. Single red maggot was the bait and I intended to feed a little hemp and a few maggots every cast. I moved quietly into the first swim and introduced some hemp and maggot with a very small baitdropper which also allowed me to plumb the depth at the same time. It was about three feet deep and there was only slight turbulence, this meant that my choice of a 4 no.4 wire stemmed stick would be about right, the current and the turbulence it caused ruled out a cane stemmed stick which I would have prefered.

I sat quietly for about ten minutes and fed the swim constantly by hand while I had a smoke and then put on a single red maggot. First trot down the float hesitated and disappeared about three quarters of the way down the swim and on the strike I thought I had hooked the bottom at first. The fish then realised it was hooked and bolted down steam towards some tree roots on the far bank. It took five yards of line before I could stop it which I managed to do just before it reached it’s sanctuary despite the fine hook length.

The sidestream is only four yards wide at this point so as the fish hung in the current just short of the roots, as if it was thinking what to do next, I started to bring it gently upsteam back towards me. This sort of situation is the reason I prefer to use a centrepin, reeling in allowed me to apply a constant relentless but gentle pressure on the fish that brought it round to my way of thinking without startling it by varied pulls and jerks. It was soon out in front of me and well away from the snags and although my injured right wrist was aching quite badly I soon had it in the net. It was the fish I was hoping for a four and a half pound chub although one a pound bigger would have been even better.

I caught three more slightly smaller chub that day but only a couple of grayling, the biggest of which was a little under two pounds.

The fish kill in the summer must have been very serious indeed because normally one can expect anything up to fifty grayling from this river in a day. Nature will recover from this and probably quicker than we think but I ‘m afraid this is probably the end of an exceptional fishery for a couple of years.

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After last week’s strenuous coaching I decided to combine some more pole practice with a day’s pike fishing. My choice of venue was lake three at Twynersh which I know has a good head of pike and silver fish. This lake is usually quiet this time of year and it turned out I was sharing it with one other angler.

Where I chose to fish had a depth of between twelve and fourteen feet and I chose to fish on the drop off about nine metres from the bank. My intention was to start with the pole and try and catch some small roach for livebait but all I could catch was perch, skimmer bream and hybrids the latter two being too large for bait.

After a while I set up the pike rod and used a small perch as bait. Let me at this point explain the pike rig I use when fishing the pike rod as a secondary rod. I use a float paternoster to stop the bait towing the float around the swim, this means a sliding float on the surface with a lead of at least an ounce and a half on the bottom of the lake. In between is what the carp boys would call a helicopter rig revolving around a forty pound nylon covered wire as a back trace, in case the bait gets tangled around the main line as it is taken by the pike causing the pike to bite through the line. The snap tackle is attached to this revolving swivel which allows the livebait to swim around the main line without causing tangles.

This is cast into the periphery of my vision whilst watching the pole float and is designed to stay there, this way even when concentrating on the pole float I will still notice any movement of the pike float. The last thing I want is a deep hooked pike and this system seems to work well and resulted in one pike about six pounds. Later that afternoon I suffered a couple of dropped runs and as I was catching a succession of perch on the pole I suspected that big perch may be the culprit. Unlike pike, big perch will not tolerate any resistance when taking livebait and so the float paternoster rig was causing them to drop the bait.

I changed the pike rod to a small float with a single treble hook to ten pound wire on a free roving rig and the result was a bristling two and a half pound perch which fought extremely well despite the heavy pike rod.

A satisfying day’s fishing which left me with a sore wrist from handling the pole, this really is an effective method for fishing very deep water.

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I do not consider myself an expert pole angler but over the last year or so I have been learning how to pole fish in order to broaden my skills base and be able to teach others. After my recent successes at Marsh Farm I decided to take my pole there and practice on the tench and crucians. I have a Shimano Technium Competition 1250 and I am told it is a good pole at a reasonable price and as I have no intention of fishing matches, £200 is enough to spend.

On Thursday 21st July I arrived at Marsh Farm and trundled my trolley around the back of Richardson’s Lake to the swim I had fished last time, as I knew it was ideal for the pole. I caught a few small tench and crucians but pulled the hook out of some big fish after playing them for five or more seconds and I went home puzzled and disapointed. I asked several of my friends what I was doing wrong and received many differing answers, none of which seemed to be quite right. I knew it wasn’t the hook as I have every confidence in the Kamasan 611 and had even changed up to a size 14 and the elastic wasn’t too tight as this was the first thing I checked.

I mentioned the problem to Stuart at Davies Angling in Staines who is an excellent pole angler and he asked me what pole I was using. When I told him, he explained exactly what was wrong. The Shimano Technium is supplied with top two sections not top three like many other poles and this means that the elastic on my pole only went through two sections. Stuart demonstrated how with a bigger fish the short elastic soon loses it’s stretch under pressure and stiffens up enough to cause the hook to pull out.

I have ordered three number three sections from Dave Higham at Oham Lakes and I will run all my elastic through three sections and hopefully will have solved that particular problem. That is the wonder of this sport - it is so varied that there is always something new to learn and someone more experienced than you who can help you. That is what the PAA should really be for, not just training coaches.

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On Saturday I was out on my travels locally and I spotted a new sign saying The Bait Warehouse in a local garden centre. It was late afternoon and the shop was shut, so I was unable to visit until this morning. It is situated in the Bugle Nurseries, Upper Halliford Road, Near Sunbury, Middlesex. YW17 8SN and has only opened this week. They sell boilies, pellets, particles, groundbait mixes and additives and will be of particular interest to any local carp or barbel fishermen.

The prices seem reasonable, certainly cheaper than the local tackle shops and they soon hope to be selling maggots and terminal tackle such as hooks, rigs and leads. It will also be possible to sell your unwanted tackle here, with them acting as agents for you rather than buying the stuff from you. I will definately be back for some pellets.

Typical prices are £80 for 10kg of Mainline boilies and £39 for 25kg of 4-8mm halibut pellets with betaine. Dried hemp comes in 20 kg bags and costs £18.30 or £23.50 ready prepared. Their telphone number is 01932 788478.

I also visited The Tackle Exchange in Walton, a place to which I have contributed more than my share of their profits and spoke to the owner, another Martin. He told me about some deals he was offering on some end of line Fox barbel rods but I managed to resist this time as I am not in the market for any more barbel rods. Should you want a Fox Barbel twin tip that normally retails at £100 he is selling the last few at £59.99 or two for £100 or for the same price you can have the Barbel Float rod or two.

He also has some Shakeapeare Odessa Avon twin tips which should be £66 for £28.99 and some Valour match rods-which I use for coaching, excellent rods- for £29.99. All seem very good deals if you haven’t got to have the very latest , this years models. His telephone number is 01932 242377, he also has an excellent selection of centrepin reels and as usual tried to sell me another one. Not his time Martin, anyone would think I’m a “tackle tart”!

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I am writing this post in answer to a comment kindly left by Nigel Punter and I will need more space than is available on the comments page. Nigel asked about fishing for tench using the lift method. Firstly I will explain why the method was developed, then how to implement the method and how it solves the problem.

Often when float fishing for tench you will experience lots of little lifts and dips of the float and sometimes the float will move sideways without either dipping or even tilting. It would be a mistake to try and strike at these small indications and to do so would be likely to frighten any fish in your swim. Often these ditherings of the float are accompanied by strings of tench bubbles and are therefore unlikely to be caused by small fish mouthing the bait.

Many anglers assume that the tench are being finicky and are playing with the bait, perhaps frightened by the weight of the tell-tale shot. So they reduce the size of the tell-tale shot or use a smaller hook and bait and the problem gets worse. The reason for this is that the tench are not being finicky or playing with the bait, but are in fact feeding confidently. To understand what is happening we must look at how the tench feeds. Its mouth is not totally underslung like so many bottom feeding fish and to take food off the bottom the tench must tilt its body into a head down position. To do this the fish fans its pectoral fins to hold it in position and the wash from these fins can blow the baited hook away from the tench’s mouth. The fish will sometimes follow the bait in an attempt to take it and cause the float to move across the surface without tilting or dipping. Eventually if it fails to catch it, the fish will go and find something else to eat.

As you will probably have worked out for yourself by now the solution is not to reduce the weight near the hook but to increase it, to anchor the bait so the fish can catch it. This is what the lift method is designed to do and the way it achieves this will seem a little brutal to some people.

The float I use is a short piece of peacock quill and for those of you learning the method it is best to use an unpainted piece. Attach it to the line by means of a single shot length of silicone tube slipped over the bottom of the quill only so it is fixed waggler fashion. Next, pinch on a swan shot or an AAA shot about three inches from the hook (told you it was brutal didn’t I?) Now, using scissors, trim the top of the quill until it is just sunk by the shot. Then adjust the float so that it is about twenty percent over depth. In five feet it would be set at six feet deep.

Put on your required bait –big baits work best at this time of year– and cast beyond where you want to fish. Put the rod into two rod rests, so that the butt is close to your chair and can be easily reached when you are sitting down. With the tip of the rod just under water, the float should now be laying flat beyond the baited area. Now you gently wind in the line until the float cocks over the area you want to fish and the tip can just be seen.

If the fish is feeding really confidently, it will pick up the bait and tilt its body back to the horizontal to eat it. The fish will not feel very much of the weight of that great big swan shot as most of it is being supported by the buoyancy of the peacock quill but it will cause the quill to rise and often lay flat.Some times the float will just sail away Either indication should be met with a firm strike.

Note that those sail away bites are not caused by a confidently feeding fish but by one in a panic. The confident fish just picks up the bait and eats it, causing very little movement of the float in many cases.

To test this theory, throw some breadcrumbs on your lawn and sit back and watch the birds. The first sparrow will arrive and after making sure it is safe to do so, will fly down and grab a piece of bread and fly away immediately with it. When it has returned a couple of times and done the same thing, it will decide it is safe and will sit on the lawn to eat the bread where it finds it.

The big shot near the hook will have the effect of amplifying the small movements but if you have the float set properly then the fish will never have to lift the full weight of it.

I hope that this is clear, don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you have any questions.

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The river Kennet is fishing well this month, I still haven’t caught any barbel other than by float fishing. I so love this method and never use anything else. Many people have caught bigger fish than I have by legering with halibut pellets. Les Weller had a huge seventeen pound fish from a local river using them but I seem to have lost the desire to catch one big fish after waiting biteless for hours. I much prefer to stand in the water and trot a float, totally engrossed in my presentation and feeding and catching other fish as well as barbel. I have had several days this month when besides a few barbel I have caught twenty or thirty pounds of roach and dace too. Some of the dace have weighed ten ounces and that’s on six or eight pound hook length. What size could I catch if I scaled down to size twenty hook and a pound hook length?

Let me explain my barbel float fishing tackle. [Note: some of the following information has been published in two articles I wrote for last year.]

Barbel are a hard fighting fish and live in fast flowing water, they will test your tackle to its limits and there is no credit in playing them to a standstill in warm water with little oxygen or getting broken off and leaving hooks in an exhausted fish. The fish is the most important item in this equation, when barbel fight they give everything and they build up a lot of lactic acid in their muscles. Even on sensible tackle you will have to nurse the fish before release,so if you aren’t prepared to use strong enough tackle to land the fish quickly then leave them alone!

You will need a powerful rod that is flexible enough to delicately control float tackle when trotting, some carp waggler rods will do at a push but I have found them too stiff in the tip for fighting a fish a close range with small hooks. I prefer two rods made by Harrison - one is the three piece interceptor float rod at twelve feet nine inches and the second is a more powerful rod by the same manufacturer, again three piece and called the stepped up, stepped up float rod. No that’s not a typo, there really are two”stepped ups” in the name. The former I use with a hook length of six and a half pounds, the latter with hook lengths up to ten pounds.

These breaking strains may seem excessive but barbel in the Kennet have got bigger and now average six or seven pounds. Add to this the fact that since the disappearance of the streamer weed they now inhabit the snags much more, and whilst careful loose feeding may lure them twenty or thirty feet from their lairs, when hooked you know where they are going. An eight pound fighting fit barbel going down stream in a fast current takes some stopping in twenty feet, four pound line and a match rod won’t do it, trust me (and I used to be a policeman).

I will talk about lines and reels next month.

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