Given that spring is officially here, it’s time to begin thinking about feeding a little more bait, because fish are beginning to move a lot more and feed for longer.
But while we may have decided which baits we’re going to use, how to actually feed them is a different matter.
For me, that’s a straight choice between a pot or the catapult. We all know that a pot is super-accurate and allows you to regulate how much bait is going into the swim, something that’s essential in mid-winter – but things change a little bit as April arrives.
The catapult becomes more important, allowing you to create noise as your bait hits the water, cover a wider area to draw fish in from, and to feed more regularly, sometimes two or three times a cast when needed.
I’m not talking massive amounts of bait here. Lashing it in is best left for summer, but a little-and-often trickle of four or five pellets or maggots is enough to get fish hunting for food interested and coming to that noise.
How much to use
The amount to feed is down to how many bites you are getting. I’ll start off conservatively with three or four pellets, upping this to six or seven if I’m getting lots of signs of fish.
Make some noise
A catapult is a great way to pull fish into the swim. Loosefeeding a few bits of bait steadily for 10 minutes creates a bit of noise and gets something falling through the water.
Feed over bombs
It’s time to consider loosefeeding over a bomb line – a single hookbait won’t be enough to stop fish in their tracks. Pick an area off to one side to feed and cast the rig to.
Switch to a pot
It’s common for me to begin feeding with a catty to draw fish into the area and get them interested and then change to using a small pot to tighten things up once I begin to get a few bites.
