John Wilson's 1001 Top Angling Tips

Acknowledgements

All angling writers have special people or a particular person to thank. My wife Jo for instance, (who took the barbel cover photo incidentally) puts up with my profession like a trooper, knowing full well that at times I really do not always ‘have’ to go out fishing. I could perhaps draw on experiences past, and old photos to illustrate a particular article. But then she also understands my personal ‘needs’ to keep experiencing my sport. And with a string of good friends, some young, some my age, who are always providing me with reasons enough for leaving a warm bed in the early hours, like Martin Bowler, Dave Lewis, Simon Clarke, Terry Houseago, Nick Beardmore, John (Jinx) Davey, and others, how can I possibly refuse? Frankly, I don’t think I ever want to.

A good, illustrative angling book just doesn’t happen without much design and thought from an accomplished artist and editorial team, which is why I should like to express my appreciation to both designer Kevin Gardner and illustrator Andy Steer for their pains-taking contributions.

Introduction

Writing this mammoth collection of top angling tips has given me a wonderful opportunity of putting down just about everything I’ve learnt in getting on for 60 years of fishing, whilst simultaneously providing some lovely memories, past and present, along the way. And the plain fact is, if I personally have learnt anything from this volume, it is that we really never actually stop learning. Each and every day out or trip abroad, or opportunist, two hour session grabbed after work or at the drop of a hat, maybe just an hour spent in search of a particular monster, provides us all with such invaluable and unique individual experiences and memories. Even those hard lessons learnt of what not to do next time, because we tried in the wrong place, or took the wrong bait along, got the tide wrong, or misread current patterns, are all part and parcel of this fabulous field sport of ours called angling. And it ‘is’ a ‘field sport’ you know.

Surely no other pursuit is so full of contradictions, hearsay, luck, pleasure, indecision and contemplation. I know one thing for sure. No other outlet or ‘calling’ allows a grown man to draw on that boyish enthusiasm for decade after decade which finds him rising at a time when fish are most likely to feed, be it a February morning with a thick frost on the ground and chub are the quarry, to facing the full force of the Atlantic and punching out a lead that the wind promptly throws back at you, when there is a remote chance of a fat codling.

Lastly, I should like to point out that this volume is not in any way designed to be the be all and end all of angling advice, nor any kind of encyclopaedia. It is merely a collection of my own, personal ‘top tips’ covering some 50 subjects within the framework of angling in the UK today. Nothing more, nothing less. But I truly hope that some of you might catch more or larger specimens from reading it.

Good Fishing!

John Wilson

Great Witchingham, 2007

Freshwater Species

Barbel

1. To stop chub from hooking themselves and disturbing the swim when barbel fishing with ‘bolt-rig’ style tactics, use a 12 inch hook length and a long (1-2 inch) hair, in conjunction with a heavy 2-3 ounce ‘running’ flat-bomb. Use a rubber cushioning bead between hook trace swivel and lead. They will then freely move away across the current or turn immediately downstream with the lower of your two 15-18mm boilies, large boilie or halibut pellet pursed in their lips, but usually spit it out at the last second. So only lift into a fish when the rod tip slams round and stays round, indicating a barbel has found the bait. Ignore all other pulls.

2. Have you ever wondered why a ‘sand-papery’ feeling happens to the line when you are touch ledgering for barbel, or the rod tip vibrates momentarily before ‘hooping over’ as a fish runs off with the bait and actually hooks itself? Well, as barbel are equipped with four long sensory barbels (hence their name) an under-slung mouth and a long snout, unlike fish such as chub, roach and tench, they actually lose visual contact with what they are about to swallow before opening their mouth. So they gently move their snout from side to side in an agitated manner, in order to centralize the bait once their mouth is open. And in so doing, their barbels must inevitably do a ‘plink-plunk’ against the line.

3. When baiting up a swim, either loose feeding by hand from a spot several yards upstream to allow for the pace of flow to ensure the food is deposited exactly where you want it on the river bed, or by using bait droppers full of maggots, hempseed or 3-6mm pellets, possibly the three most effective attractor ‘loose feeds’ for barbel, try not to fish immediately afterwards. Action is invariably more hectic and lasts for much longer if you first allow the barbel to move into the swim and over the bait, gaining confidence in their feeding, for at least an hour or so, before your hook rig is presented to them. Try it and see.

4. During the warm summer and autumnal months barbel are far more likely to move across the flow and intercept a moving bait, even one being ‘trotted’ through at current speed, than later on in the year when temperatures start to plummet, and they will only suck up static baits from the bottom. So get to enjoy catching some barbel on the float, using a powerful 13 foot trotting rod and centre pin reel holding 6-8lbs test. Keep a selection of both heavy ‘Avon’ and ‘Chubber’ floats in your waistcoat, and be sure to split their bulk shotting capacity of say 3-5 swan shots, into a line of AAs fixed onto the line 12-16 inches above the hook, with a small shot or two in between. See Grayling Tip 1.

5. To get the most out of your river, especially when exploring those barbel-holding runs beneath willows and lines of alders along the opposite bank (I bet certain, previously unattainable swims immediately spring to mind here) you need to get in with the fish, at least into the centre of the river, in order to trot a bait through steadily and directly downstream. This means splashing out on a pair of lightweight, chest-high, waders. The best are ‘breathable’ and come with hard-wearing neoprene reinforcement at the knees and built-in neoprene socks. You then simply slip on ‘felt-soled’ wading shoes for maximum stability over slippery stones and boulders. Anyone who fly fishes for salmon or sea trout or who long trots for grayling during the winter months, will no doubt be equipped already. Either way, quality chest-high waders are a sound investment for enjoyment, allowing you to also kneel and sit down on the bank anywhere along the river without the need for a stool.

6. When ledgering at close range ‘bolt-rig’ style for barbel (or carp) in really clear water where they can be viewed moving all around the bait to inspect it, even above your ledger rig, it pays to incorporate a ‘back-lead’ positioned on the line two to four foot above the bait. Simply and ‘loosely’ pinch onto the line two 3x swan shots, or sleeve a coffin ledger onto the line and secure with a rubber ‘sliding float stop’ at each end. This ensures that the line above your ledger rig is ironed flat to the river bed, thus alleviating any chance of lines bites and fish spooking through their fins touching the line, It is especially important when having to fish from ‘high-bank’ swims, where the line would otherwise angle down sharply from rod tip to ledger rig.

7. If like me you welcome the rest provided by the statutory closed season for rivers, but after a few weeks start to get itchy to be beside water, why not pay your favourite ‘barbel’ stretches a visit. From around the beginning of May onwards (depending upon water temperatures) barbel congregate upon the gravel shallows in readiness for spawning, and so there is no better time for ‘fish-spotting’, and ascertaining to exactly what size they grow along a particular part of the river. So don’t forget the Polaroid glasses.

8. When clear-water barbel do not play ball and move up into a pre-baited swim, pushing smaller fish species out of the way, as they usually do, then plan to fish for them during the hours of darkness. This reluctance to feed aggressively during daylight hours is common place in stretches of river where the barbel are targeted daily, particularly with small groups of ‘known’ or ‘specimen-sized fish’ that have been repeatedly caught and know all the tricks. So plan to start an hour or so before dusk, expecting no small level of response once the light has totally gone, and be prepared to fish on for some while until they do respond. Those first few hours of darkness are usually best. But don’t forget a trip during that first hour or two before dawn, which can so often produce, especially during the warmer months.

9. For depositing any kind of loose feed straight down to the river bed of close range swims (say up to a rod length and a half out) regardless of current force, bait droppers, which come in all shapes and sizes, are worth their weight in gold. Monster droppers holding half a pint of hempseed, maggots or pellets etc, get the job done in no time at all and minimize disturbance, though you do need a long, stiff rod to swing a large ‘full’ dropper out. And droppers must be ‘swung’ out and not ‘cast’, otherwise bait could get distributed all over the place. And you want it concentrated within a relatively small area over which the barbel will eventually move and start hoovering it up. Beware of the odd pike which appear from nowhere to attack the lid of the dropper when it hangs down and ‘flaps’ in the current as you lift it out.

10. One of the most satisfying and pleasing techniques for catching barbel occurs during the warmer months when donning chest-high waders and getting into clear-flowing, gravel-bottomed rivers allows you to carefully wade out to a position immediately below a shoal of fish, (which can often be seen hugging the bottom in the runs between long beds of flowing weed) and then to cast a chunk of luncheon meat upstream and slightly across, so it rolls back along the bottom directly in line with the shoal. And to do this you must allow an all-important ‘bow’ to form in the line between rod tip and bait.

11. ‘Rolling meat’, as the method has been dubbed, works effectively for one main reason. The free lined bait is brought down to the shoal at current speed, like all loose particles of natural food, so their suspicion is not aroused, and moreover, it comes ‘directly’ down river, tumbling along the gravel, and is not dragged ‘unnaturally’ across the fish’s vision which is what the line would do if you were situated on the bank and not standing in the water immediately downriver.

12. To facilitate easy casting and to counteract the bait’s inherent buoyancy when ‘rolling meat’ so it tumbles along naturally, catching momentarily here and there every so often amongst the clean gravel, just like all other tit bits brought along by the current, a slither of lead wire (roofing lead is exactly the right thickness) is super-glued to the top of the hook shank and firmly whipped over with black fly tying thread. Chamfering each end of the lead with your thumbnail makes for an extremely neat finish. The hook now looking decidedly ‘shrimp-like’ with its ‘curved’ back, will always present the bait with the hook point angled upwards, and is thus less likely to catch upon snags or weed. Generally however, large chunks of meat are used in order that the hook is not actually visible.

13. You can make up several different ‘weights’ of hooks, (to cover all conditions from slow currents to turbulent runs) simply by using different thicknesses of lead wire. I suggest large sizes of ‘wide gape’ eyed hooks from 6 up to 2 will serve you best. And in addition to luncheon meat, tinned ham, sausage in skins, etc, etc, even good old bread flake and protein pastes will all make this method work and come alive.

14. For extra sensitivity when ‘rolling meat’, a braided reel line used in conjunction with a free running centre-pin reel is hard to beat, though you can manage with a fixed spool reel and monofilament. The secret being always to gently recover line as the bait is brought down to you by the current, whilst keeping that ‘bow’ in the line, which could suddenly ‘tighten’ or completely fall ‘slack’ as a fish hoovers up the bait and belts downstream towards you.

15. When ‘bolt-rig’ style ledgering for barbel (and chub) particularly when the river is in full flood and visibility is at an all time low, give your bait added attraction by moulding a large dollop of soft, aromatic paste around your hair-rigged boilie or halibut pellet. As pieces break off or are pecked off by small fish and roll downstream, barbel will follow the scent up to your hook bait.

16. When smaller specimens pick up your ledgered size 10-15mm boilie or pellet hook bait, simply tie on a longer hair to accommodate two size 20mm boilies or a 25mm halibut pellet. The mouth of a double figure barbel can easily hoover them up.

17. If you have your sights set on a really big barbel, remember that a September fish for instance, could weigh as much as 10-15% heavier towards the end of the season in March. So providing the weather stays mild, concentrate your efforts during those ‘precious’ last two weeks of the river season.

18. There’s no doubt about it, barbel love maggots. Trouble is, so does every other cyprinid species, so wherever small, nuisance fish share a particular swim with barbel you must be prepared to ‘feed them off’. And that means having enough maggots to keep loose feeding till all the lesser fish are literally full up, by keeping a steady stream going through the swim, either by throwing in maggots by hand or depositing them straight down to the bottom of really fast runs through continual use of a bait dropper. In small rivers a gallon of maggots is not excessive, while in rivers twice the size, you’ll need twice as many maggots. But eventually, and it may take an hour or two, those barbel will be the only fish still munching maggots. Then you could clean up. And in clear-flowing swims where the fish are plainly visible, even select a particular specimen and watch it hoover in your bunch of maggots.

19. If you’re planning to catch barbel from a deep, even-paced run close into the bank, then why not anchor your bait to the river bed using a mini link-ledger, but have a float to watch on the surface. This devastatingly effective rig is called ‘stret-pegging’ and allows you to watch a float (which must lie flat on the surface) due to the exaggerated subsurface bow in the line between float and link-ledger. You simply set the float, a Chubber, Avon or large Balsa, fixed with silicon tubing at both ends, at least twice the depth of the swim (keep pushing it up the line till the set-up works) and cast directly downstream.

20. The secret of stret-pegging, once the mini ledger (in slow swims a single swan shot is sufficient) has anchored the bait to the bottom, is in allowing a little loose line, for the subsurface ‘bow’ to form and the float to settle ‘lying flat’, before placing the rod in two rests with the tip angled up a little. The float should now be swaying gently from side to side in the current, (literally any speed water may be fished in this way so long as your float is set far enough over depth) and when a fish takes the bait, it will cock and glide positively under all in one. A lovely sight to see, not only when barbel fishing, because any bottom-feeding river fish may be caught stret-pegging. See Carp Tip 13.

21. Though float fishing, the close-in technique of stret-pegging is best executed using a 11-12 foot Avon style rod, rather than a lighter ‘waggler’ rod.

Bream

1. Want to catch bream on the float that are feeding over weed or amongst ‘cabbages’ in still or slow moving water? Then ‘float ledgering’ is often the answer, using a peacock quill waggler float (attached with silicon tubing around the bottom end - not locked with shot) and set a foot or two over depth. But not with a small bomb stopped several inches from the hook by a small shot. This would drag the bait and hook length into the weed and minimize bites. Far better to use a 20-30 inch (depending upon weed density and height) ‘weight link’, joined to the reel line 20-24 inches above the hook using a ‘four-turn water knot’. And simply pinch 2-3 large swan shot onto the end of the link. Don’t worry about the float’s actual shotting capacity.

2. Use buoyant baits when float-ledgering, like bread flake or crust, which will lie on top of the weed, and remember to angle the rod top upwards in a flow, in order to ensure that minimal line is on the surface, which will stop the float tip from pulling under. But when your rig is settled on the bottom, you can tighten up so that only a small part of the tip is showing. Bites are registered by the float tip simply disappearing positively, though occasionally by it rising, if a bream ‘lifts’ the shots from the weed. Works well for tench, and carp too.

3. Rather than wait for ‘difficult to miss’ slammers which rarely materialize when quiver-tip ledgering rivers for winter bream, (summer fish are entirely different), be prepared to strike at any ‘strange’ movement on the tip. Keep the rod angled up high (on two rests) to alleviate excess current pressure against the reel line, and you’ll find that ‘just’ holding bottom (and this is the secret) with a couple or three 3x swan shot, is possible in the strongest flow.

4. ‘ Drop-back’ indications are often the bites to look for when quiver-tipping for bream, where the tip suddenly and seemingly without reason, momentarily ‘eases’ or ‘jerks’ back because the shots have slightly moved due to a bream inhaling the bait. Forward pulls and vibratory pulses of the tip are also worth hitting, but those ‘drop-backs’ will put far more bream in your net. So juggle about with the amount of shots on your ledger link, ensuring that they only ‘just’ hold bottom. Anything more or less, is a bite.

5. The silver bream is in British waters extremely rare, and mainly confined to East Anglia and the Midlands. This decidedly ‘delicate-looking’ fish takes most small baits used for roach and rudd and prefers still and slow moving waters. It lacks the thick covering of mucus associated with common bream, and the scales are quite large and noticeably ‘silvery’, hence its name. It has a small head, large eyes and less of a protrusible mouth than common bream. When erect the silver bream’s dorsal fin is unusually high, and its pectoral, pelvic and anal fins (unlike the common bream) show a tinge of orangey-pink, rather similar to the dace.

6. When ‘slider-float’ fishing for bream in deep, still waters, always use a ‘bodied-waggler’ float carrying more shot than would seem necessary. This is to ensure the reel line passes freely through the float’s eye or ring, quickly taking the bait down to the bottom. Bulk most of the shot (against which the float will rest for casting) 3-4 feet above the bait, with two small shots in between, the lowest positioned 6-10 inches from the hook actually resting on the bottom.

Using several inches of slightly ‘finer’ line, tie a five turn stop knot onto the reel line above the float at the desired depth for bait presentation, leaving both ends 1-1½ inches long, ensuring they ‘fold’ when passing through the rod rings. If the float’s bottom ring or eye allows the stop knot to slip through, use a tiny (2-3mm) bead between it and the knot.

7. Remember always to dip the rod tip immediately after casting when slider-float fishing, and wind like crazy for a few turns, in order to ensure all the line sinks between float and rod tip to counter act any sub-surface draw, and quickly open the reel’s bale arm allowing line to peel freely from the spool and eventually through the float’s bottom ring till the bait touches bottom and the float cocks. Lastly, remember to strike ‘sideways’ in order to pull the line ‘through’ the water and the hook into the bream, as opposed to losing striking power by trying to ‘lift’ the line ‘against’ surface tension; which is next to impossible!

8. When distance ledgering for big, still-water bream, hitting bites is always a problem. Taking a leaf from the carp angler’s book however by incorporating a mini-shock, or ‘bolt rig’ into your end tackle, will result in those bream actually pulling a small hook into themselves. Method feeders with internal elastic are much favoured, (which alleviates snap-offs) to which a short 4-5 inch hook length of 10lbs test soft braid is tied with a size 12 or 10 hook on the business end. As for reel line, due to the long casting of a heavy ball of bait, do not go below 8lbs test.

9. The bait for distance ledgering for bream like a 10mm boilie, pellet, or three grains of corn etc, is then hair-rigged, and immediately prior to casting a ball of ‘method-mix ground bait’ (to which hempseed, corn, casters and chopped worms etc, have been added) is firmly moulded around the feeder, with the hook bait carefully hidden inside.

After casting to the desired spot, (use a marker float cast out using another rod - so all the bait ends up within a relatively small area), the line is tightened up, and a heavy, ‘swinger type’ bite indicator clipped onto the line (on a short drop) in front of the bite alarm, so that should a bream swim towards the rod, the indicator will fall and indicate a drop-back bite.

10. When fishing the ‘waggler’ for bream in still water, one of the most common problems is avoiding the ‘drift’. So here are three tips for beating it. Start by sloshing a finger full of washing up liquid around the line on your reel’s spool, which will quickly sink the line. Second, use a really long, straight peacock waggler with a bulk shot capacity of at least four to five SSG shots so all the locking shots are well beneath the surface and below the ‘top drifting layer’. And lastly, fish over depth with one or two No 6 or 8 shots dragging along the bottom, which acts like a ‘brake’ to help keep the bait in position.

11. Feeder fishing for bream in still waters usually revolves around incorporating a clear plastic open-end or cage-type swim feeder made from wire mesh, into your ledger rig. A ‘fixed paternoster’ tied using a four turn water knot is best for this. And ‘plugging’ as it is often called, is the secret to this method, because you don’t want feed coming out on the cast and baiting up areas you’re not fishing.

Start by pressing one end of your feeder into the ground bait mix (not over-dampened) gently pressing the ground bait inside to block that end. Then put in some loose feed, sweet corn, casters, finely chopped worm etc, but leave enough room at the opposite end for another plug of ground bait. Finally, squeeze tightly at both ends using thumb and forefinger, immediately before casting, and providing you have not ‘over-wetted’ the ground bait, the feeder will explode its contents ONLY when it reaches the lake bottom.

12. When standard ledgering or feeder fishing for bream in both still and running water, regardless of whether you use a swing tip, a quiver tip or a hanging bobbin-type indicator, a ‘running’ ledger