Deep flowing water

[The Flying Tench]

In a recent thread on trotting Budgie said that if the water was deeper than his rod one option he'd consider was rolling ledger. I've heard of this with big baits for barbel, though it didn't work for me the couple of times I tried it. But what about rolling a ledger (or feeder) with maggot for roach? The great thing is you'd have a moving bait with reasonable confidence it was where the feed was (difficult in fast, deep water). But would the bite detection be sensitive enough for roach?

 

My other question is whether it's worth using a bait dropper to get the bait down when you're trotting in deep relatively fast water. I've got to admit the stretch of water I have in mind is only about 8 feet deep, which I realise would be nothing to anglers used to this kind of fishing. But I'm still not at all confident of getting the feed where I want it. Is it a good idea to put some (maggots, say) in with a dropper, or do these just lie on the bottom, which may not be helpful if your hookbait is moving with the flow?

[chavender]

when using a bait dropper some of the bait will be carried off downstream by the current as the baitdropper springs open the rest will spill out in the immediate area and will be swept about by the current at that level and will trickle of downstream a bit.but mostly stay in the vicinity with odd bits floating off downstream.

 

 

how it drops down through the water and against the current will depend on the weight it carries and may fall in a diagonal fashion so this as to be taken into account when casting in so it lands and releases its cargo in the right spot.

[Dick Dastardly]

No it wasnt me John.My river fishing experience for chub,barbell and the likes has mainly been match tactic based.I know very little of rolled ledgers/meat. Even the bigger barbell Ive caught have been taken using match style feeder methods. Ray Walton posts on here and he is definately the man for this sort of thing.

[ayjay]

Some maggots will hang about for a while on the bottom after using a baitdropper but they will eventually trundle off, it all depends on the flow, the composition of the bottom and how good you are with a bait dropper.

 

I always use a bait-dropper if I'm floatfishing somewhere like the H.Avon.

 

Clean maggots will sink about one foot depth (whatever the flow) every seven or eight seconds, so if your swim is eight foot deep and it takes less than 64 seconds for your float to travel through the swim, loose feeding is probably a waste of time.

[chavender]

trudling or bouncing baits along the bottom takes on a few forms,some use a none toxic plastersine as the weight ,and some use a single swan shot or two directly on the line whilst others use lead wire to weight the hook directly,theres two reasons for the weight one is to give casting weight which helps to accurately cast to where its required the oher need for weight is too slow the baits passage downstream with the currents flow as heavier object are carried at a slower pace than light ones,trundling is best on riverbeds with little or no obstructions and a relativly smooth like a gravel bottomed riverbed or silty as the rougther and rockier the bottom the more chances of getting snagged up ,each different type of bottom pressents problems and the different forms of how weight is used gets around the problems ,weight directly used on the line is prone to getting snagged or sinking into really soft silty bottoms but bounces/skims accross gravel nicely,plastersine is great in a snaggy swim as it pull off the line to release it ,wighted hooks tend to be used with larger baits such as luncheon meat as the bait and weight are all in one,basically trundling is freelining with added weight used to add drag to slow it down in the current but not anchor it to the bottom.

 

using a swimfeeder (even unweighted ) would pose a snagging problem as it would be a bulky object and would have to be a inline one which it could easerly get caught on things and stuck fast unless used on a clear gravel bottomed riverbed as even streamer weed would pose a snag problem and soft silt would soon clogg it up.

[fantasticfisherman]

on the subject of bait droppers, what is the furthest recommended distance for throwing one out?

[gozzer]

on the subject of bait droppers, what is the furthest recommended distance for throwing one out?

 

I never threw one out, just swing it past a rod length and let it touch bottom there.

 

I did use to keep an old fibreglass pole just for the bait dropper, if I knew that the venue or conditions might need it, at 6 metres it gave me a bit more scope.

[Leon Roskilly]

The problem with putting live maggots on the bottom is that they burrow straight down into the silt!

 

Throw some into the margin in front of you and watch!

[A Worm OOE]

Surely if we are trying to catch fish by loose feeding then we are not necissarily interested in the bottom of the river. Constant loosed feed is likely to bring the fish off the bottom, assuming that they were their in the fisrt place. For much of my river fishing I would consider any maggot or caster that reached the bottom to be irelevant (for roach dace or chubb) in many situations.

[Fastd]

The main advantage of a bait dropper is the fact it keeps your feed in a very concentrated area in deep flowing water. This means that it is best dropped directly under the rod tip to allow you to fish accurately over the top of the feed. There is no reason why you cant chuck out the dropper but you are wasting its effectiveness and you may as well just go on the feeder.

 

If you fish under your rod tip it allows you to hold back with an overdepth float so that your bait mimics the maggots trundling along the bottom. Fishing up to 3ft overdepth and almost stopping your float is a deadly method. The best way to use this method is on the pole using a lollipop float.

 

With regards to trundling baits along the bottom it can be a killer method but it takes experience to tell the difference between a bite and the normal movement of the bait. When using standard ledger tactics the bait is anchored and this causes the bite effect on the tip that we all hope to see and easily recognise, however when fishing a trundling bait the weight used is far less and to instead of pulling the tip round the bait will just move downstream with hardly any movement of the tip. The answer is to use just the right amount of lead so the bait moves slowly round in an arc. Inevitably it will pause at any obstruction and then continue its journey. If you hold the rod you will feel a slight pluck as the bait is taken and then nothing...strike as the fish is probably moving downstream with your bait in its mouth..if it wasn't a fish you have lost nothing as using this method you are going to have to cast every few minutes. To sum it up cast often, hold your rod and strike any unusual movement or slight plucks, dont wait for the rod to pile over as it probably wont happen. You will soon learn in each swimm where you expect the bait to stop and the chances are that what starts it moving again will be a fish. Recast when the bait leaves the area you are expecting to catch or is directly downstream of you.

 

Attached is a pic of a bag of chub and barbel caught on a freezing cold day in Feb 2 years ago. All were caught using a 1/4 oz feeder when my fishing mates were using 2 1/2 oz feeder "to hold bottom".

 

 

 

Leon,

 

The current in the edge is nothing like that out in the main current, even the slightest flow is enough to keep the maggots tumbling and prevent them from burrowing in, and after all if there wasn't a decent current you would not need the dropper in the first place

 

regards

dave