Distance Feeder, braid and bumped perch !

[Andy Thatcher]

I really thought I had my feeder fishing stuff sorted. Right down to a t then when I decide to be clever and it all turns nasty !

 

Through some unscrupulous blackmail I found my self at Tring the other day for the first time in 4 years. I wasn't too upset as I plan to go back there next closed season but it has been 4 years and braid has played an increasing part of my fishing since I last visited.

 

Due to this I have spooled up the reels for this trip with 8lb braid instead of my old favourite 6lb GR60.

 

After spodding out a couple of pints of dead maggots to 80 yards the feeders soon followed.

 

To stop this being a article in it's own right suffice to say I landed 5 perch up to 2.5lb.

 

Not a bad result you might think but the fact is I lost another 5 while playing them in ! One in particular felt rather good.

 

The rig incorporated a length of powergum but this still was not enough to prevent the fish from being bumped off. I also changed up hook sizes from 16 to 10 in the end and again bump offs occurred.

 

Has this just happened to me or has anyone else had this happen ?

 

If it has what did you do to get around it as I do prefer the sheer sensitivity of braid but find the lost fish absolutely unforgivable.

 

In the meantime I am going to have to go back but with the good old 6lb line to see what happens !

[Dunk Fairley]

is it possible that the power gum section was too soft? it could have prevented the hook striking home properly. Try a 1m length of 6lb nylon before the braid. it'll give a good shock absorbtion effect, but wont impede the strike.

 

Make sure the lead can pull off the line if it gets snagged though.

[Andy Thatcher]

Whilst being a safe set up it works on the bolt principle so that I have never had to strike even when using 6lb mono mainline.

 

I soon learnt that striking was not needed years ago in fact sometimes it hindered rather than helped so even though it takes a fair bit of mental discipline I never strike while fishing this way.

[Steve Burke]

Yes, I've had it happen too, and tried a number of things. One of the most successful was an increase in hook size, but I see you've already tried that one.

 

Other ideas worth a go are shortening the amount of power gum and/or increasing/decreasing the hooklength.

 

With other species I'd try increasing the hooklength first, but because perch have a soft membrame behind the lips you may find that that's where the hook is ending up and then tearing out. Often a pattern emerges on the day and by varying the hooklength you may find that you can get a hook to hold where you want it most of the time. However, even after you've got it right you may need to make adjustments if the mood of the fish changes.

 

Other possibilities are to change the rig away from a bolt rig in case the perch are wising up to that. I find perch do so faster than any other species, including carp, but thankfully unlike carp they've got shorter memories!

 

It would also be worth experimenting with the rate of feed. I'd try increasing the amount first to get the perch more confident.

 

If you're not doing so I'd suggest you try flavoured maggots. My favourite is Archie Braddock's Perch Magic liquid in combination with his Xotic powder. I suspect you're aleady trying flavours, but it may be worth seeing what others are using and trying something different.

 

If all else fails you may have to just put it down to "one of those days".

 

Or take up golf!

[singy]

Personally I would loose the power gum alltogether, use a mono hooklength and play the fish alot harder. Keep a bend in the rod at all time. The rod is a far better shock absorber than powergum.

 

Forget you're on braid and play the fish as you would using mono. I suspect, because you are using briad you may have played fish a little on the easy side.

 

I made the same mistake when I first went over to braid. Scared me a bit as I could feel everything. Now it's just second nauture and I don't think about it any more. The fish feel the full welly

 

Singy

[coarsefish-torbay]

When fishing with braid for skimmers, I use a shock leader of 5lb maxima so that could be worth a try. Two rod lengths seems to be quite successful.

Steve

[Andy Thatcher]

Thanks for the advice so far.

 

Been flavouring maggots for ages and that was one of the prime reasons for going to Tring to try the Essential Barbel flavour Milkspice on maggots as I had a feeling about it. Rightly so it seems taking into account there was one bloke there who had been biteless for 2 days.

 

I did play around with the hooklength length but that didn't seem to make much difference so I stayed with 2 - 3".

 

Been wondering about the rods, never had a problem before though, and if it might be worth going to 1lb tc instead of the usual 1.25.