October 2009
Baden Bites Oct 09
Back on the Main Lake this month, and this time I’m fishing with Matt Jackman. 11 year old Matt is a regular at Baden Hall and knows the waters as well as anyone else, so I thought I’d spend the day trying to fish ‘The Method’ to catch some of the carp and bream within the largest pool on the complex.
Matt shows off one of his carp.
Firstly, what exactly is ‘the method’? Basically it’s a way to present the hook bait next to a tight area of feed without being too complicated. By using a ‘method feeder’ and a short hook link, anglers are able to guarantee that the hook bait is with inches of free offerings. If the fish find the attractive freebies, then they are almost certain to pick up the baited hook!
‘The method’ will catch most species of fish, but is commonly used to target carp, bream, barbel or tench. To decide how to fish this technique, it is worth considering several factors. What are you fishing for? Match carp? Specimen carp? Or maybe barbel from the river? What distance do you intend fishing at? Depth and temperature of the water, colour of the bottom, colour of the water, weed, silt, clay, hook baits, groundbaits and feeding patterns all need to be challenged as any one can affect just how good ‘the method’ will be...
Matt hadn’t really fished ‘the method’ before, so I was hoping to be able to fine tune his tackle to enable him to use it more efficiently. Matt’s other rod had a running rig on utilising a 3oz lead and short hook link attached; within 5 minutes of casting out, he was into a fish taken on Mainline Fusion dumbbell boilies. Unfortunately, the carp was lost at the net, but, not dispirited, Matt soon had another fish on which was successfully landed. Earlier in the day, I’d asked Matt where we should fish and why; with the wind blowing into the shallows, I was convinced that slightly deeper water on the back of the wind would be successful, but Matt said not. The wind would push fish into the area in front of us, and the weak sun would warm the water a degree or two and encourage the fish to feed. I’d had a walk before Matt arrived and spoken to numerous other anglers on the pool who told me they had seen fish moving in the deeper water of the ‘neck’ and towards the centre of the main lake, so I was optimistic that we would catch something!
At the beginning of our session, Matt had advised me that only the minimum amount of bait would need to be introduced before we started to fish; he explained that the splash of the bait over the fishes heads would be enough to get them going, not the amount that was lobbed in! With this in mind, only a couple of handfuls of pellets and crushed boilies were introduced.
After the initial excitement, I thought it was about time to tackle up myself. My carp rod set up consisted of 24” of rig tube into a Fox Method feeder and a 3” Merlin braided hook link to a size 10 Korda Kurve shank hook. My method ground bait was made up of Sonubaits ready mix, a couple of pints of Vitalin cereal based dog food, a small tin of hemp and a pint of mini pellets. I’d taken the chance to mix it the night before so it just needed a tiny bit of lake water to get it ready. Moulding the bait around the frame of the feeder, I hair rigged a 10mm ‘Carp Zoom’ amino scopex pellet onto the hook and cast this about 45yards to the base of the gently sloping shelf.
When the tubing, tail rubber and feeder are all fitted together, the mainline passes through the centre to a swivel at the base of the feeder; it is important that the swivel cannot pass back through the feeder . The hook link is then attached to the other side of the swivel to complete the rig. Before any groundbait is moulded to the feeder the swivel must be pushed into the base of the feeder as this provides the ‘bolt effect’ which is what makes this method so effective. The swivel must be matched to the feeder to ensure a snug fit, but not too tight that it jams. The ‘fox’ feeder takes a size 8 rolling swivel which sits just inside the feeder as shown. If the bait is ‘hair rigged’ then the fish will suck the bait in, the hook will turn into the bottom lip, and the fish will ‘bolt’ as it comes up against the weight of the feeder.
Components of ‘the method’.
Within a few minutes of my feeder settling on the bottom and everything being tightened up, the alarm slowly warbled as a fish took line; looking across at Matt, he seemed a bit fed up as I reeled in a bream of a couple of pounds. He hadn’t had more than a knock or two in the hour previously, so wound in to check his baits. Casting back out, he tightened up and sat back down. Just a few seconds later and his alarm screamed off as an angry carp took off across the lake with the hook firmly embedded. A short fight and a lovely looking 5lb carp sat in the folds of his net; it was bigger than my bream and he told me so! My method feeder rod was doing well, three fish in a thirty minute spell had seen me creep ahead of Matt (not being competitive you understand!) but we had now been on the bank for over two hours, had caught four carp between us and I’d had a few bream; no-one else on the lake was even getting a run, never mind landing fish, so I had to suspect that Matt had picked the right pegs to fish from. The combination of a warm breeze pushing directly onto us and a shallow depth was certainly producing action for us.
Matt decided the time was right for him to have a go; a Garbolino ‘Mayhem’ quivertip rod was quickly set up, paired with a Shimano 3000 reel and a small method feeder. Matt was using one of the feeders that is designed to fit into a spring loaded mould and which gives perfect ‘method balls’ every time. By putting his hook bait into the mould first, then covering it with his ground bait mix before pressing the feeder into the bait, then the resulting ‘ball’ had the hook bait sitting right on top in the ideal place for a fish to find it. I advised that a gentle lob would be best to prevent the bait ball breaking up on the cast, and Matt dropped his bait in a few rod lengths out. Putting the rod on the rest and tightening the line to put a small deflection in the quiver tip, we were both astonished to see it wrap around as the bait was instantly taken!
Matt quickly bought the first of his many bream to the net; at around 14ozs, it wasn’t a huge fish by any standards, but by now, other anglers were starting to wander over to see what we were catching with. No-one else on the water had caught anything at all! We even ended up sharing our pellet hook baits with them! The combination of experience, accuracy and watercraft had enabled Matt to put us on the fish and to catch steadily all day. With over 100lbs of fish between us on a tough day, we did very well when others had little or nothing. Included in the catch was a new personal best bream for Matt of around 3lbs and upwards of 20 carp with a biggest of just under 9lbs. Baden Main Lake will fish well over winter as usual, but my day with Matt demonstrated to me the importance of thinking about my location, my bait and my fishing.
Best of the day....
The smile says it
all.....
It was a pleasure to fish with Matt and his dad Steve, so I’d like to thank them both, and if you see Matt on the Main Lake, go and say ‘Hello’, he’s probably catching!!