Holding fish and skimmer trouble? - Talk Angling fishing chat and tackle advice

Dotteddown · 10th January 2007, 05:45 PM

Been fishing Larfords match lake as of late,been catching ok usually about 45 to 50lb of F1 and small stockies plus those pesky skimmers.
Been feeding dampend 4mm pellet and fishing corn/expander over the top.
But the problem is the fish seem to come in waves and don't hang around the feed enough?
Tried the usual extra sections, fishing of the feed,feedind more/less even dumping and fishing it out rather than kindering every fish,also too much feed attracts skimmers into the peg and once they are there you have shot it!

Is it worth feeding hemp or meat in with the pellets to try and hold the carp better?
Thought about feeding groundbait instead of pellet but i am sure i would get skimmerd to death,or even feeding hard pellet instead of dampend to put the skimmers off?
Any advice welcome,thanks in advance.

carpmagic · 10th January 2007, 05:52 PM

I havent fished larford much at this time of year but how about feeding two maybe three lines, then you can keep alternating them to keep the bites coming. Say two lines at 11 metres, one at 10 o'clock and one at 2 o'clock then a five metre line.

Dotteddown · 10th January 2007, 06:11 PM

Hi Steve,
I will certainly give a two line approach this week,the fish didn't want to come any closer than 12m on the shallow bank no matter how much i tried.
However on the burr bank i recon they could be caught close in as its obviously deeper and there is a fair bit of water on at the moment 5/7ft @10 meters due to the rain we have been having!

Didn't try it before as i was getting a bite a cast on the one line approach,also its very tightly pegged there and you almost feel like your fishing too close to the angler next door at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock.
However nothing ventured nothing gained so its certainly worth a go.
Its just getting the buggers to hold in your peg that i can't get my head round at the moment?

woody1 · 10th January 2007, 06:25 PM

I,ve noticed that when the skimmers go off the boil a bit its usually down to some better fish moving in, in which case a quick change to the corn nomally produces a couple of lumps. I have to tell you that i,m targeting the skimmers as these are going to give me about 4 hours of fishing i.e 40/50lb, the other hour is spent looking for the bonus carp which can and has put another 25lb on the scales. I begin by feeding an initial modest pot of various micros, 3ml expanders and the odd grain of corn. I am having a lot of success by adding a soup spoon of active8 to my micros and give em a good shake up a couple of hours before the match, I also dry my corn out the night before and add a teaspoon of salt per 300gram tin, this may be a confidence thing but its definitley giving me results,. The trick is to keep the feed going in, after the first hour and a half i keep it going in but i reduce the amount. This will pay dividends in the second half of the match when others will be forced to stop feeding and the fish will then be drawn to your feed.

Dotteddown · 10th January 2007, 08:06 PM

Is that on the match lake at Larford Woody?

woody1 · 11th January 2007, 05:51 PM

Sorry mate. the answere,s no but having read steves post perhaps you could give it a go on one of your 11mtr lines. The only time i,ve fished larford was on the specy lake and from what i,d heard they normally switch to the caster and choppy later on in the year because the bream start to feed in ernest, maybe the tactics have spilled over onto the match lake

.