fishing shallow

[fil]

fishing the waggler shallow in early summer (may) would you fish mag or caster, fish small/medium skimmers, roach
& a few carp.
cheers fil

[fordysufc]

Start on maggots because you catch quicker on them, if you're only getting smaller fish switch to caster. I prefer to set up the rig full depth and fish on the drop, that way you can fish all the layers at the same time for silvers and if the rig gets to the bottom you catch skimmers.

[spickup79]

Good advice from Fordy. Do people generally find they catch a better stamp of fish on caster though? I know this is the theory, but whenever I fish caster I seem to get plagued by 1/2 oz roach! Also, where I fish the skimmers seem to like to come shallow - none of the fish obey the 'rules'!!

[fil]

Good advice from Fordy. Do people generally find they catch a better stamp of fish on caster though? I know this is the theory, but whenever I fish caster I seem to get plagued by 1/2 oz roach! Also, where I fish the skimmers seem to like to come shallow - none of the fish obey the 'rules'!!

yes I find skimmers come shallow
cheers fil

[fordysufc]

I find only very small skimmers tend to come shallow unless there is quite a high stock of fish in the pond. If the pond is stocked densely enough, the bigger skimmers will come shallow to compete for food. That's just my experience on the waters I fish anyway, but fish behaviour can change a lot from lake to lake.

[fil]

but what is the general opinion in fishing waggler & caster or wag & mag??
cheers fil

[jethro]

I like maggot hook bait and feed casters.

[Warden]

I am sure other venues may fish differently but around the high Green area (Sheffield) two waters have around 60 matches each year virtually all silvers matches with around 20 anglers each match with nearly all won by fishing with Casters in preference to maggots with the stamp of fish being caught given as the reason,
That is my experience as well but the casters have to be fresh and good quality,

[deedaajohn]

try fishing maggot on the hook and spray casters that way if you miss a bite maggot wont burst like a caster and you can go straight back in and by spraying caster they make more noise and should draw the fish in quicker including the carp start off slightly over depth and look for liners and then switch to half depth as the fish come up in the water but by may i would have thought you could fish this method better on the pole good luck

[Frisky Fish]

We catch skimmers shallow on pellet or meat on the pole shallow. Put maggot or caster on and all you get are blades

[fordysufc]

but what is the general opinion in fishing waggler & caster or wag & mag??
cheers fil

It depends on the venue. I fished for silvers on a small pond today and couldn't buy a bite on caster. I could only catch on single or double maggot, but last summer I caught far better on casters on the same venue. There is rarely something that always works better, you just have to experiment and find patterns in the feeding behaviour of the fish on each lake. I often write my results and successful tactics during a session in a sort of angling journal thing, after you've fished a venue a few times during different seasons you often start to see obvious patterns. The journal is something I used for carp fishing to map out lakes and feeding areas/patterns etc, i've had success since applying it to my general coarse and match fishing.