Rudd

[bingo]

I would love to catch a big rudd (don't we all?!). A local canal has a lot of rudd and would love to have a go at catching the larger specimens. I've never seen a big one but this canal holds big fish of all species so I'm convinced they are there.

 

Is it worth sitting it out all day and working my way through the hundreds of small fish or is it best to try and target them differently?

 

If anyone has any experience with them I would love to hear about it. Thanks.

[mark barrett]

I would love to catch a big rudd (don't we all?!). A local canal has a lot of rudd and would love to have a go at catching the larger specimens. I've never seen a big one but this canal holds big fish of all species so I'm convinced they are there.

 

Is it worth sitting it out all day and working my way through the hundreds of small fish or is it best to try and target them differently?

 

If anyone has any experience with them I would love to hear about it. Thanks.

 

look for some cover if you are fishing in the daytime and spray corn. If not then fish in the same area with corn again either feeder fihed or on a float.

[bingo]

look for some cover if you are fishing in the daytime and spray corn. If not then fish in the same area with corn again either feeder fihed or on a float.

 

Do you mean feed corn little and often?

[mark barrett]

Do you mean feed corn little and often?

 

 

absolutely mate, every cast at least.

[RPM]

My local club pond has a huge head of rudd, some big, some not. On a warm summers day (not that we have had many this year) I feed maggots in every cast at a rate of a dozen or so and after a while they fizz like crazy with swirls at every throw. Throw a very light float dotted down and at depths of about 12 inch. OK, so you get load a tiddlers but the sport is great and I have had numerous large roach and rudd this way. Casters work great too and tend to get slight larger quarry. Never tried corn though. Worms didnt have the ame effect.

 

One thing is for sure though, dont relax or put the rod/pole down. Whoever said that fishing was sedentary and had little action ought to come to the pond when they go off like this. Reflexes tested as the bites are lightning quick but fantastic fun all the same.

[dant]

If you ever come over Norfolk way, I could put you onto some estates lakes that hold very large Rudd indeed. I've had fish to an ounce under three pounds on the very simplest of methods.

I think the key to Rudd fishing in a way is to keep it simple. Small Rudd are some of the easiest fish to catch and will have an inquisitve snatch at just about anything that hits the surface of the water but the bigger ones can be very wary.

Dependent on the time of the year Rudd are generally very active in the upper surface layers of water.

So I usually target them with casters or breadflake/crust using a light/soft actioned float rod, a clear waggler with all the shot around the float (or a loaded waggler) or if I'm using crust maybe a no 6 to pull it under the surface film if I want to fish it on the drop, light line an especially light hooklength and a fire wire hook.

If I'm fishing on the drop I prefer to set the depth at almost full depth as I've found that a float set at 8 or 10 inches leaves you prone to the snatching of the little tiny Rudd, who's bites can be almost impossible to hit. Also larger fish can be easily spooked by the sight of the float and shot.

I've also found that larger Rudd tend to hang underneath the teeming hoardes of smaller fish or slightly to edge of the shoal.

A good idea as regards casters can be to get a couple of pints, leave some in water as sinkers, some out in full sun as floaters and leave some more out in the sun for varying lengths of time to give you all sorts of different sinking rates.

If I'm fishing an estate lake or the like I tend to fish directly into the teeth of any wind, especially if it has been blowing in the same direction for a few days.

Or alternatively I'll fish to the left or right of the wind if it's blowing against a bank or a dam wall and trot the float on the surface tow.

Also and especially if the wind is blowing against a dam wall or a structured bank that you may have on your canal, you can get an inverse wave effect, where the particles are blown against the wall and the waves/ripples force them under. This will be a hotspot for Rudd.

If you keep tweaking your set up and fiddling around with different depths and baits, I'm sure you'll get them.

Hope thats of some help.

Dan T

 

I see someones mentioned corn, thats a good idea to pick out the larger fish. Casters are non selective when it comes to Rudd but eventually you'll get through. A small red worm can also work.

Spraying feed out little and often is key too.

Edited July 27, 2007 by dant

[ColinW]

I don't think "sitting it out" is a good way to catch big rudd. You are better off going out on calm evenings, with polaroids on, looking for them. On a canal this might be quite a challenge because of the lack of cover, unless you can get access to the non-towpath bank, which is very rare. If you can't see the fish themselves, maybe because of ripple, then look for them taking flies off the surface.

[Errrm]

My local club pond has a huge head of rudd, some big, some not. On a warm summers day (not that we have had many this year) I feed maggots in every cast at a rate of a dozen or so and after a while they fizz like crazy with swirls at every throw. Throw a very light float dotted down and at depths of about 12 inch. OK, so you get load a tiddlers but the sport is great and I have had numerous large roach and rudd this way. Casters work great too and tend to get slight larger quarry. Never tried corn though. Worms didnt have the ame effect.

 

One thing is for sure though, dont relax or put the rod/pole down. Whoever said that fishing was sedentary and had little action ought to come to the pond when they go off like this. Reflexes tested as the bites are lightning quick but fantastic fun all the same.

 

This sounds familiar to the ponds I fish, although if I'm actually out to catch them I generally cast beyond the shoal and then reel over the top and then make small winds every few seconds and you should be able to hook them without striking so you don't need fast reflexes. Although I think the amount of fish taking stuff on the drop where I fish is silly, the amount of times I have cast out while fishing on the bottom and reeling it in to sink the line and everything goes solid as a fish takes it is crazy.... almost annoying at times.

[dant]

If you want a bit of fun and you got one that is. Get out the fly rod.

[poledark]

Good advice all of them, but I have been getting plenty of 4/5 year old rudd (new lake 5 years ago) on the feeder and with a No6 hook and bunch of maggots Angling never ceases to surprise me

 

Den