Faced with deep water on a lake or river, most anglers will reach for a feeder, thinking that it’s much easier to deal with 15ft of water this way then using the pole – but they’d be wrong!
Yes, a feeder will still catch fish, but you’ll be missing out on catching in a way that seems to be coming more and more into play on deep venues, and that’s targeting the fish that are what I call ‘chasers.’
These are fish that spend much of the day sat a few feet off bottom but, when presented with a hookbait falling past them, will follow or chase it down to the deck and then take it.
Here's how I catch them...
Ring the bell!
I throw my opening balls of feed in. This makes a lot of noise to get fish into the area quickly. It also puts cloud into the water near the bottom. Ten balls go in at the start.
Make a cloud
I want fish to chase my hookbait down and stay there, and adding damp leam to groundbait will do this. I use 50 per cent leam to 50 per cent mixed groundbait.
Focus the fish
I’ll put next to no particles in my opening balls so I can create a small area to fish over by introducing two more cupped-in balls of groundbait that are rich in feed.
Make the feed visual
There’s one final ingredient in my feed and that’s a handful of Sensas Pastoncino. These are small yellow and red pieces of biscuit that I think bream and skimmers can home in on.
Start on a light rig
The fish could be at any depth, so using a lighter float is best to begin with. That’s a 1.25g or 1.5g Daiwa Carpa Gloucester, shotted with spread No8 shot down the line.
Be positive!
If the fish are feeding well or there are lots of little fish above the better ones, it’s time for a heavier float. A 2.5g Colmic Jolly is ideal, allowing me to bomb the bait down.
