Errrm

I did have a preference to use fake corn when I initially decided to switch to hemp and corn with just a few micro pellets but having never used fake corn I'm still not convinced by it... I guess making the initial change is probably the hardest change to make. Errrm

Hi, I was wondering how people change there baits as we progress into the colder months, currently I am favouring hemp and halibut pellets for river fishing. I think I am going to swap the halibut pellets for sweetcorn and possibly some micro halibut pellets for the next month. 2 reasons for this, first the larger pellets I use for baits are not as effective and the fish have more trouble digesting them ( this being the most obvious ) but secondly with hair rigged pellets I had 4 chub pick up the bait but not by enough to get the hook as well ( and after catching a large barbel i fancy one of the submarine like chub I saw :-) ). So I am going to switch to corn directly on the hook. How does everyone elses approach differ on rivers? Do you continue to use hemp, I'm guessing it is still a good attractant and isn't filling enough so that in winter fish will get full just on the hemp plus it will hold the fish as it does as normal. Are these assumptions correct? Errrm

That might explain it, I fish in Staffordshire so we have both the trent and the dove to fish.

Sorry for a slightly offtopic post... Do rivers with a lot of barbel really get that many anglers? The river I fish regually has double figure barbel caught on it with a few around the 15lb+ caught but in the last 3 times I have been down there I have seen only 4 anglers fishing for barbel and 2 for trout on a stretch that is about 2-2.5 miles long in total there is about 8 miles of the river which the club controls but I hardly ever see anyone fishing there, do some rivers get really bad if big barbel are caught? Errrm

Hi, It is quite possible that the water temperature has dropped enough to make the halibut pellets worse because they break down much slower in colder water. If you want to carry on with halibut pellets I would guess that very small ones might break down still ( i.e. 3mm ). Hemp is a good attractant but I've found it doesn't work well on a silt bottom. Try smaller baits and perhaps less loose feed as the weather gets colder. Are other people still catching on the venue? If so I'd be tempted to fish within eye sight of other anglers next time and see what they do differently and possibly have a chat to them. Hope this helps, and someone who knows more than me can help you a bit more. Errrm

Yeah I forgot about the arguments this might cause when I posted it and regreted it a bit after a while but it seems to be ok at the moment :-). The only reason I would do it for trout/grayling is because apparently fresh fish is nice and I assumed that the club felt that there was enough fish in the area to sustain it.

There are none stocked Rainbows in there and I think the brown trout are stocked every closed season. There are quite a lot of graylings in the stretch. How do you tell the diference between a stocked trout and a wild? I vaguely remember something about the fins, maybe stock trouts have a staunted fin perhaps? Thanks for the advice everyone, I still haven't made up my mind but I'm atleast getting more of an idea about it. Errrm

I heard a Pope is no good because it damages the fish and make it more the head all hole..y.... :-)

Hi, Once of the clubs I'm a member of allows me to take 2 grayling and 2 trout from the river each day, what do people think about this? Should I embrace it and kill fish to eat? If so how is is best to kill them, is there a lower/upper limit for the size of fish you would take? Errrm

Sorry I forgot to add another reply... Try varying feed i.e. if you are getting no line bites than try more loose feed if, you are getting line bites try less loose feed. Try fishing close to features i.e. lillies, trees. Honestly though your best bet is to talk to other people on the venue and watch how they are fishing. Errrm Edit - I agree with the post above, are you using a shot between 6in - 12in from the hook? If the fish are taking the bait on the drop then the float won't settle because this shot will be held up in the water and so you should strike. Also if you are trying to avoid the fish taking the bait on the surface then perhaps try a bigger bait like a single piece of sweetcorn on a size 18 hook fished on the bottom.

Although not really being that interested in carp fishing, for some reason though I still want this to be true. Maybe it's because it's a carp fishery which doesn't have 1 person every 5 meters down the bank and many other things. Last I heard they were removing smaller fish under 10lbs to a seperate pool so I can definatly believe that the bigger fish would start putting on more weight and getting close to the size of wichard walkers fish in the future.

I just wasted 5 minuted reading that and I didn't find out why he wanted a green ping pong ball, and I'm never going to get that time back again :-(! Very funny but very annoying at the same time! :-)

The people who will know the water the best are the bailifs and the other people fishing there. Next time you go watch how other people are fishing, what they are fishing with, how much loose feed etc. Then have a chat to them if they are doing well, or even if they aren't just so you know not to try that. Apart from that then as the above post says, if you could give some more information then it would help.

That's generally what I thought, do you worry about loose feed or do you just move around find the fish then don't feed anything loose? Thanks for the help.

Hi, Last friday I was fishing on the Dove and managed to catch some grayling and a dace for the hour or so I was fishing but eventually it got to a point where I couldn't catch any more because minows would always grab the bait. I could see fish rising so I was trotting the float down to them and then hold it back as the bait approached the area to allow it to flutter in the current and then drop back down and I think by this point the bait was being surounded by minows which evetually would take the bait. The minows starting getting to the bait after I had been feeding loose maggots for 10 minutes so i moved down stream and stopped feeding and started catching Grayling again. Does anyone have any ideas of how to to be able to feed but avoid the minows? I thought about feeding maggots but trotting with a worm piece on the hook which will be to big for them, how does this sound, or is there an easier/better way? Will grayling take sweetcorn, if so this might be another possible way of avoid minows. Errrm

It's the Burton Mutual stretch of the river dove below Tutbury, the main problem with it is keeping an eye on the quiver tip and not looking at the view and wildlife :-(. A bait dropper sounds like possibly a good idea although it would provide the grouped bait around the hook bait that PVA would but it would get more bait into the area. Do tackle shops stock bait droppers? I've never seen them but I haven't really looked either.

What type of fishing are you doing, float or ledgering? For float fishing I always use a 12ft match rod it didn't cost a fortune about £50 12 years ago and it has a light enough tip to not pull a hook from the mouth of a small fish but enough power in it to land carp up to 20lb ( if you're careful and there isn't many snags ). Another option might be a Avon rod, these have a 1.5lb tc and come with a selection of tips ( the john wilson one has 3 quiver tips and a match tip ) so this could be used for river float fishing or, ledgering with a quiver tip. But if you can give some more details regarding the type of fishing you do that would help I think. Errrm Edit - Ahh ok just re-read your post, and read that you are ledgering. Are you using an alarm or do you need a quiver tip on the rod?

Atleast it's not just me struggling to catch my first Barbel! I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, I'm legering with a inline 2oz lead with hair rigged halibut pellets, I think one problem was not getting the bait around the hook so I'm going to try a small PVA mesh of pellets next time I think ( is this likely to be a good idea? ) Although I have been told that you can expect to blank there i.e. not lots of barbel but they are 15lb+ there. Also how do you get around weed gathering around the lead and pulling it down stream? Errrm

Hi, I had trouble today keeping drilled halibut pellets on my hair rig so I going to swap over to super glueing 2 either side of a hair rig. The only times I have seen this doine is always with a braid hook length, does this glue better or can you use mono? Also if I used braid would I also need to invest in some new fancy scissors to cut it or can you do it with a knife/nail clippers type product? Errrm

Apparently you can submerge the tip below the water and 'strike' upwards with it so the tip stops just before the surface, I've not had much success trying this though... can anyone else explain better how this works.... or if I've made it up? :-) Edit - ahhh twitching it down, that might explain why it never worked for me :-)

Ok this perhaps does seem to be a better way, using an open ended feeder the groundbait will not have much effect because of all the minows. Does anyone have any idea how much weight I'd need to hold bottom? And what sort of lead? An inline pear lead would make it easy/safe as a bolt rig, but would a gripper lead hold bottom better? Errrm

Thanks Lyn. How long to you leave it in each spot?

Hi, I'm planning on fishing the Dove using pellets for barbel and chub, I'm using pellets because there are millions of minows thet will peck away at anything else. What size feeder is normally used? There are apparently quite a few barbel there, I'm guessing that I should use a smaller feeder during the winter months? What about at the moment, I'm guessing they are feeding up for winter so I can afford to use a larger feeder to start off with. Any advice would be great. Errrm

Thanks for the advice, luckly you can see the bottom on the section of the dove I fished and it is all gravel. I managed 4 grayling to about 2lbs and dace, chub and about a million minows. I was using maggots so the minows were hard to avoid. I think I'm possibly going to have to think about pellets to avoid them.

Hi, I'm finally planning on heading down the Dove this weekend and I'm hoping to catch some fish trotting so I've read all the threads about river fishing I could find, my problem is I have bought a selection of various river style floats i.e. requiring float rings. There are different types of floats what are they each used for? I have some thin wired ones with thicker bodies and some with a thicker bottom part i.e. not wire, some small stumpy floats and some straight floats... What are they each used for i.e. are some designed for fast/slow water or deep/shallow? Thanks for any help... Errrm