Pole fishing at different depths

[RoachLover]

I am very confused by pole fishing. The reason is because I can never understand that when it comes to fishing at large depths with a pole how do you do it?. When I watch pole fisherman break down the pole to land a fish they often break the pole down to the very tip but woudl they have to leave extra sections on if they were fishing very deep water?.

 

So in a simple form how to you fish deep water with a pole?. I would appreciate a very detailed answer if possible please. Thank you.

[Vagabond]

Welcome to AN

 

I'm not too suprised at the lack of reponse, as we do not have very many pole fishers on here.

 

I myself own a pole, but very rarely use it, and when I do, it is to fish swims under bushes on the oppositre bank for chub on my local river.

 

However, lets have a go. The pole can be used in deep water - lets say up to 20 feet (is that deep enough for you?) You do have to use enough weight to get your bait down reasonably quickly, and of course that means using a float big enough to carry that weight.

 

The most difficult part about fishing as deep as that is if you hook a decent fish, what with line and rig length, elastic well out of the tip, you can't unship too many lower sections, so you might have to lift 12 m or so of pole with one hand while you net the fish with the other - definitely not easy.

 

As I say, I am not an expert pole fisherman - and faced with a swim over (say) 10 feet deep would use a rod and reel with a sliding float. or else leger/swim feeder.

 

If that triggers a response from an expert pole fisher, so much the better

Edited August 30, 2011 by Vagabond

[Ken L]

woudl they have to leave extra sections on if they were fishing very deep water?.

 

Yes, generally, the idea is to have only a little line from pole top to float so you maintain optimum tackle control and if you need to leave a couple of extra sections on when swinging the rig to hand, that's what you do.

 

That said, I used to spend quite a bit of time fishing rivers in the 10 - 15 foot range line to hand with an 8m pole. Mainly it was just a case of sacrificing control for speed in matches and it worked just fine for me even if it was a little unconventional.

 

Either way, don't be afraid to use heavier floats so that you can bunch enough shot to get the bait down to the fish and maintain a nice straight line from float to terminal tackle.

 

Not done either for a few years so like Vagabond, I'd be interested to see input from current pole users.

[RoachLover]

They are both fantastic answers and have definitely cleared the mist from my glasses on this subject thanks fellas. I hope to use a pole in the near future thanks for clearing that up for me.

[RUDD]

You can land fish using the number four or even number five section of a pole if you are carefull about it.

Rig wise - the elastic needs to be a few grades stronger then you would normally use or you will not manage to set the hook on the strike. Floats also need to be fairly heavy to register any bites - Mark Wintle has a formula in his pole fishing book but I cannot remember it at the moment - its something like a 1gram float in 8 feet of water then add another half a gram for every foot thereafter (or something like that). You would also use big olivettes to take most of the shotting with a couple of big droppers (no 6's or 4's) to register any bites - much like when fishing slider floats.

The deepest I have pole fished was about 15ft deep for bream on a irrigation pit. I managed to land a rogue 11lb carp on a 16ft rig and a white hydro elastic - I had 11 meters of pole up in the air and it took along time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!