Casting to the bubbles

[Peter M]

john good answers here already i would just add that if you cast to tiny bubbles over feed with a lead you will probably spook the fish, i cast to bubblers using float tackle.

[The Flying Tench]

Thanks for replies, though not very conclusive. The lake I'm particularly thinking of used to be an easy carp lake, but now they've grown big, mostly over 20lb, and they're hard to fool. I'm fairly clear that most of the bubbles on this lake are caused by carp feeding on the bloodworm etc in the silt. Sometimes groundbait etc doesn't seem to attract them, but you see the bubbles all around and I wonder if I woudn't do better ignoring my baited area and moving round the lake casting to the bubbles. From what I've read on this thread it doesn't usually work, but a possible compromise might be throwing some feed near the bubbles and then a bait. I'll have to have a crack!

 

Incidently AYJAY, I don't have the books you refer to. Would it be possible to say briefly what they suggest?

 

Thanks

[A Worm OOE]

I have seen some of the best anglers around stumped by this one. It is quite common for bream and carp in particular to sit in a peg blowing away all day and the only bites to be liners. I ran the bank on a Winter league semi final at west Drayton a few years ago and saw 4 of the best anglers in the South suffer all day from this.

Although there are sure to be many reasons for this phenomina it will often be what I believe is known as gill feeding. Here the fish sift through the mud for food producing bubles as pass the silt from their gills. If you think that carp are youre culprits then one possibitity might be to employ groundbait and a paste made from the groundbait, carp will often home in on the groundbait and take it in as in the same way as when sifting silt. This will often fool these fish but the paste must be very soft and will usually require a pole to present it properly.

[dave e]

I too have tried casting to bubbles, usualy to no effect, one of the bailifs at our lake reckons it is just swan muscles moving about, and disturbing the bottom??

[ayjay]

The Flying Tench:

 

 

 

Incidently AYJAY, I don't have the books you refer to. Would it be possible to say briefly what they suggest?

 

Thanks

I suppose a really brief precis would be "float fished worms", bunches of brandlings or redworms being thought best"

 

There is a whole chapter about bubbling carp in George Sharman's book, it's well worth a read.

[RUDD]

Some people chuck in a handfull of pellets then think the oxgen being released are fish feeding.

Anyone that uses a pellet pump can tell you that alot of air comes out of a pellet!!!!!!!!!!

This air comes in very small bubbles and is consistant as opposed to bursts of bubbles here and there caused by fish.

 

If feeding pellets and you get tiny pin bubbles, chances are the pellets are getting intercepted mid water and the bubbles are the air in the pellets being released via the gills as the pellets aer crushed.

 

I now never bother to cast to a patch of naturally occuring bubbles as it could be gas but probably it is a feeding fish I know it has already found a food source and is tucking in.

These are a good sign that fish are feeding.

 

Myself and various mates etc have on occasion sat on the bank with our float in the middle of a jacuzzi without so much as a sniff. Tried this that and the other without a bite.

 

Its just one of those things, a part of fishing to ponder on and it happens to us all.