Duncan Charman – The Thinking Angler.
When PVA, Method
Feeders and boilies first came into the angling world, anglers
including myself grabbed the idea and used them to great effect, yet
moving on a few years, how many of us have actually looked at these
products in depth and realised that they may well, now be costing us
not only fish but also a small fortune. I for one have and if you
were to take a look in my Rucksack, whether my target species was
carp, barbel, bream, even crucian carp, well you wouldn’t find any,
as I have thought long and hard over all these items and taken steps
to almost eradicate these from my armoury.
Don’t get me
wrong, I still use PVA but only when I have too. Two areas that I
have found this product useful is firstly when targeting chub in the
depth of winter using cheese paste. I still watch as anglers walk
down to each swim, roll some pieces in their hands and throw them in
with little consideration to the depth of the swim and how fast the
flow is. Having no control of where these free offerings land they
may well be having an adverse effect on their fishing as if these
pieces get caught up in the current and taken further down stream
than they hope, then the fish may well follow. Pinpointing where my
free offerings of cheese paste are is hugely important to my
confidence levels and the way I get these next to my hookbait is to
place a couple of bits on PVA string or tape which is then attached,
not to my hook, but to whatever weight system I’m using. The reason
I attach the cheese paste to the lead is I want these, if possible to
be above my hookbait, so when a chub senses these and starts to look
for them, mine is the first it finds.
I did experiment
whilst barbel fishing a very difficult stretch of the Loddon last
year for barbel, one that I wrote about in CAT titled ‘Alternative
Barbel Fishing’, yet apart from that brief experiment, that was
relatively successful, I can honestly say I haven’t used PVA for
barbel for around eight years.
Method feeders are
another item of kit that makes angling relatively easy, yet I have a
problem knowing that when my mix breaks down, I’m left with a
veined structure that seems very obvious to the fish. How do I get
around this, easy, I simply prepare my groundbait well in advance so
I can mould it around a gripper style lead, one that is coated and
far less conspicuous to the fish in my swim. Whether this makes any
difference is for you to gauge, yet if it creates confidence in
myself and the way I fish, well I’m half way there. The complex
area that surrounds this style of fishing is the mix I create for
each situation. Obviously a fine sieved mix won’t withstand an
eighty yard cast, but then I can’t see the use of such a mix at
this distance. If I’m casting eighty yards then I will probably be
fishing for bream, so a method type mix, such as Nash Talapia Method
Mix pressed around a two and a half ounce lead is needed. Similarly
if I were targeting crucian carp in the margins, I would be using a
finely sieved groundbait, a very effective one I’m using at the
moment is Old Ghost Green Alga.
It’s also worth
trying to get a knowledge of each species, especially how and when
they feed. Bream are shoal fish, so when one enters you’re swim,
you can bet it isn’t alone. Creating a big bed of bait, well in
advance of their usual feeding time, dusk, is needed and loading the
method mix heavily with loads of particles like corn and pellets will
only prolong the feeding spell. Crucian carp are also shoal fish and
again the best feeding spell is dusk and a few hours into darkness,
yet the last thing I would do is load the finely sieved groundbait
with numerous varied particles. The reason being crucian carp are far
more intelligent than bream and if you load the groundbait with 6mm
pellets then they will readily accept these, yet avoid yours at all
cost, the reason being, yours has a hook attached to it and this
makes the bait act completely different to those around it. How does
an angler solve the problem and outwit the crafty crucian, simple,
the only large item of bait within the cloud of attractive fishmeal
is you’re pellet or piece of corn. How does the angler keep the
crucians coming, simple, keep casting at regular intervals. How do
you cast a lead containing very fine groundbait around, simple you
don’t. All you do is hold the baited lead next to the reel and
swing it out, slowly building the swim just like a match angler.
Another species
that attract the over use of PVA and boilies are carp. If anglers
were to stop rushing, use their eyes, find the fish then place an
effective hooking system over an accurate bed of bait, then their
results would go through the roof. Again, I can’t say I don’t use
boilies, I do, but very occasionally as in most cases I’m matching
my hookbait to the feed around it. Once again, and as it is with
barbel, the most commonly and the highest quantity of loose feed
that’s introduced into a standard, well stocked, club lake is
pellets, so why use a boilie? The carp home in on the pellet and in
some cases will ignore a boilie as it’s different to the loose
feed, so why are more anglers not matching their hookbait with the
feed they are introducing? The reason is that a boilie will last far
longer and can be left in the lake all night, occasionally being
picked up when a carp makes a mistake, however on lakes such as
Godalmings Broadwater, I’d bet that the pellet in a PVA bags has
disappeared within fifteen minutes, if not sooner.
Let’s look at a
prime example that happened to me on Broadwater. I was fishing with a
friend who was happy to do the same as most, cast out a PVA bag,
however unlike those using boilies; he had actually matched his
hookbait to his loose feed. Fishing next to him I had already decided
before arriving to cast every fifteen minutes. First job was to look
around and find the fish, which aren’t always along the rugby bank
and prime the swim! Locating plenty of carp of the road bank, an area
most avoid, I simply compressed some Nash 6mm Sticky Method Pellets
around the inline 1.1oz lead and made six casts to a distance that
felt comfortable to me. Each cast saw the lead and feed fall exactly
in the same spot as I had clipped the line in the reels line clip as
well as marking the line using a length of ESP Marker Gum which was
tied on in the form of a stop-knot. Each time the lead hit the
surface I struck the feed off which created a tight feeding zone.
After six casts I simply attached a short eight-inch hooklink made
from Nash ‘The Missing-Link’ to a Korum Quick-Change-Bead which
held a size 12 barbless hook tied knotless knot style and on the hair
I added a small punched piece of Old Ghost Bloodworm Hookbait Sausage
along with a tiny piece of artificial buoyant corn. This was repeated
on my other rod. It took around thirty minutes and soon after a
recast for one of my rods to rip off resulting in a 12lb common.
Looking out into the swim I could see some bubbling over the baited
area and as soon as the lead covered in pellets hit the water carp
could be seen swirling around. Slowly the swim came alive with runs
coming at regular intervals and after I had caught thirteen carp with
my friend failing to get on the score sheet, he decided to swap
tactics. By the end of the six hour session and after exhausting my
two-kilo bait allowance I had taken around two dozen carp to 15lb
with my friend matching me fish for fish once he had activated his
swim, however with the biggest fish weighing 18lb 2oz I think he
went home more satisfied!
So there you have
it, some serious points to look at, bring into you’re fishing which
will not only save you loads of money, but also catch you lots more
fish. The points I have touched on are using the ‘Pellet-Lead’
for carp and barbel as well as the ‘Groundbait-Lead’ for long
distance bream fishing and close in crucian fishing. Keep an eye open
for parts 2 and 3 of this mini series, coming soon!
If you would like
to witness such a devastating method first hand and try it out for
yourself then why not book me for a days guiding? Simply call me on
07928 617006 or email me duncancharman@me .com
*Please note,
since this article was published within CAT certain products have
been altered due to a change in sponsors and the session with my dad
has been swapped to one more recently with a friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment