Weed Problems

[Geoff johnson]

Does anybody have any tips about coping with weed i have recently been fishing the top pool at capesthorne hall and even at this time of year the canadian pondweed can be a nightmare,what the best way of presenting the bait to avoid the weed as you dont wont to be reeling a ball of weed in the following morning.

Edited November 7, 2005 by Geoff johnson

[Jonathan Peter Levitt]

Try using a helicopter rig with either a pop up or better neutraly balanced. This should keep the rig on top of the weed, well it works for me!

[jimpy0]

or try dissolving foam bait will very slowly sink and usually rest just on top of the weed

[Dante]

Pva bags all the way for me in weedy situations. The lead and hooklink go in it along with pellets etc then that way the bag flattens the weed (hopefully) leaving the bait on top of it, one tip though, dont try to pull back the lead .

 

 

Another way of dealing with weed is to use "The method" with your hook bait in the method ball as theres nothing to get snarled up in the weed (the method ball should flatten the weed)

[Julian]

Hi Geoff,

 

After many years spent on the Top Pool, the best advice I can give is to find the clear spots! Usually the weed is on its way out by now but the prolonged mild weather and lack of frost means it is lingering longer than usual.

 

Whilst PVA bags can give good presentation in weed, on the Top Pool I’d steer well clear. The fish are pretty cute and have learnt to give tight little patches a wide berth. There are clear spots to fish to from every swim bar the Stile/Gate swim at present – it’s just a case of getting up a few trees to find them. There is a climbing tree on the Stile Swim and another between the Rodie Bush and the Middle, and between them you can see virtually all of the bay area (woods now closed till June).

 

The fish in the TP are very lazy and always take the route of least resistance and in addition are not the kind of fish that go burrowing away in the weed for food – they tend to stick clear of the weed preferring areas where they can see exactly what’s beneath them before they go near it. As such, my advice would be not to fish in the weed at all, but find the clear spots.

 

The water is in a bit of a ‘limbo’ period at the moment as the pads have not quite died back and the weed is also still up. What most regulars tend to do is fish the areas vacated by the pads as there is no weed here, but again some of the stalks are still lingering so I’d leave it a week or two before fishing these areas.

 

Hope this helps…