Holding river fish

[Ian.B]

I had a match recently on the Trent (tidal stretch & it was low & running off). I was on the feeder & the four hours sort of went;
1st hour - caught an odd fish or two
2nd hour - very productive
3rd & 4th hour caught a few odd fish again but generally very quiet.

I must've done something right in the first hour building the swim & then the second hour catching but what do you do when they back off ? I was a bit reluctant to unclip & start chucking feed in other areas close to what was my main swim (not that it would have done much damage in hindsight !)

[mark(wilf) williams]

hello mate, my golden rule no1, never ever convince yourself to stick at one thing. we have all done it, wasted time waiting for another 10 mins or so , next thing you know you have had a couple of bites , this keeps you interested and before you know it , an hour has gone and you have blown it. never be afraid to cast around your swim, if im using a groundbait feeder on the river and the bites/fish dry up, i quite often stick on a maggot feeder and have a cast about, giving it 5mins in each place. this does depend on the size of the river, but the tidal trent , no worries there. tidal rivers will often go quiet, not sure why , they just do.
if you can get some pleasure time on the same stretch, see if it happens again. cheers mark

[george rigby]

why not feed two feeder lines and try and catch one fish from one and then cast to the other spot. whitch strech of the trent was you on mate.

[stevelockett]

How often were you casting?
I suspect you could keep casting every 2-3 minutes and still not get enough in to really hold a shoal on a big tidal river. Get hold of some of the biggest Nisa cage feeders and have 15 minutes casting and emptying them at the start before swapping to a more normal-sized feeder.

[Ian.B]

Laneham stretch George.

Steve, I've only fished half a dozen of these matches but I would say 2 or 3 (of about 20) are the men to watch/beat. The matches are being won with just under 20lb in 4 hours, I haven't had half that yet but as always I enjoy trying.
Watching these 'better' lads from a distance their feeder makes less splash than most of the other anglers so I was assuming they were using smaller not bigger feeders ? & I'm trying to copy their casting frequency. I'm using a feeder roughly the diameter of a 2pence & 2 inch long & holding bottom with 2.5 to 2.75 oz of lead.
I did buy a couple of 3oz Korum open ended feeders a couple of weeks ago & in the latter stages of that match, being as it was quiet again, banged in half a dozen feeder fulls & left it for 10-15 mins but no joy.

Wilf, re your comment about giving it another 10 minutes & before you know it an hours been wasted... your bang on mate, then the panic sets in & I start swearing under my breath what a fkin idiot I've been for the last hour then contemplate chucking all my tackle in the river & buying some golf clubs , then get miffed at the weigh-in when I find I only needed a few more ounces to have finished a couple of places higher for valuable extra league points , then drive home pss'd off - get home & get greeted with 'had a good day ?' to which I usually reply 'brilliant, didn't catch much but can't wait until the next match ' !

[jay411]

if your catching bream or skimmers they often back off the feed unclip your feeder and stick a bomb on and chuck past your feed not by to much just a couple of meters you never know

[caster master]

what steve said is bang on. spend 15-20 mins just casting. its a big rivers. big rivers need a fair bit of bait

[paulb]

going back a very long time here but used to fish the tidal a lot at one time, i remember a lot of anglers making the mistake of chucking over their fish as most fish were a lot closer in than where they were casting to, also in those days the recognissed method was put the biggest feeder on you had and repeatedly cast to the same spot as quick as you could to get some snap in then change to a smaller feeder that would just hold bottom i.e casting a little further upstream of your original spot, if you didn't get a bite within two or three minutes, lift the rod just enough to dislodge the feeder so it moved a few feet down stream, do this a couple of times, if no joy reel in and reload, it was a busy method and won probably 90% of matches on the tidal in those days, another trick on a hard day was every few casts go in with an empty feeder and deliberately let the feeder bounce through your swim sometimes this would get a fish when all else failed but that was 15 years ago and i dare say things have changed a bit.

[justin case]

Mix pinkies in with your maggots they will draw fish up out of the next guys peg

Also one thing I found through a few nationals and many practice sessions on the tidal trent is take lead off when it goes quiet, you want that feeder perfectly balanced the slightest touch needs to result in a bite a dropback, bouncing the feeder through is killer for the chub, fishing the feeder correct on the tide is a science in itself, you say it was running off you should have been taking off lead the whoile duration,

another neat little trick is if the main prey is skimmers, roach and the odd bream then use a plain brown crumb ( no water) add enough hemp and caster to allow it to be forced it into a cage feeder, when it hits the deck the crumb absorbs the water forcing out the goodies this resulted in a lot of points fish for us

sadly like the guy above this is old info I havent been up there for ages But apart from a few less fish I wouldnt have thought much has changed

[Avonman]

Often they just want something 'different'- try staying on the same line but switching to a maggot feeder, as often the fie fish are still over the original line but wised up. Alternatively either -come off the feeder and rest it for 15- 30 mins, b4 going back on it, as sometimes the fish may have followed the feed downstream and theis makes them come back up looking for more, or swap the feeder for a straight bomb, and just leave it there for the same amount of time, which has the same effect.
Very often aswell I end up on a longer tail for the last hour to get the last few bites, as not only have the fish started to shy off the feeder by now, but are there usually no bits left in the peg by this stage of the match to trouble you, so you don't suffer from missed bites from them so much.

[Ian.B]

what steve said is bang on. spend 15-20 mins just casting. its a big rivers. big rivers need a fair bit of bait

Thanks for all the advice lads.
With regard to the above comment, I'be been using chopped work & casters in groundbait (on the advice of the winner one particular match). If I'm going to spend 15 minutes feeding the swim would you say keep the freebies to a minimum to start with & mainly feed crumb/ground bait ? or bang plenty of freebies in right from the off ?

[breamboy]

have to agree with avonman about using a longer tail i've used them up to 10ft on the trent and bagged some stonking bream and chub and also give'em plenty of grub

[Ian.B]

10ft , been using a 4ft tail & wondered if I was over doing it, but will try going a bit longer.
Is it prone to tangles ?, what's the rest of your rig like ? is the feeder free running or in a fixed loop - must be a pain to cast even a 4ft tail seems to get caught on anything in the vicinity (twigs, rocks, rod rest......)

[justin case]

Ian the key is to not get stuck in a rut keep changing things untill you find the most productive length long tails may get you an extra biteor two but can cause other issues shredded bait with unseen bites are a couple

[Avonman]

If you think about it, that feeder match you described is a lot like an average match on the float, in that the fish 'come' after a hour or so, have a proper feeding spell , then slow down for whatever reason. This is where matches are won or lost and the key is to finding what they want. On the Wye I've known that often this is where the guys will fish the long tail, and leave it in for up to 40mins at a t time to nick the extra couple of fish, remember those fish fish are likely to be proper'uns at that stage of the match, so missed bites from bits are not likely to be a problem.