One Rod Does All!
When visiting commercial venues, do you find yourself setting up loads of tackle? Us too, but according to Matt Pillay, this isn’t necessary!
In today’s modern commercial match scene, it’s quite common to fall into the trap of setting up lots and lots of options on every match you fish, yes on some occasions this will be in your favour, especially on venues dominated by f1s.
When visiting commercial venues, do you find yourself setting up loads of tackle? Us too, but according to Matt Pillay, this isn’t necessary!
In today’s modern commercial match scene, it’s quite common to fall into the trap of setting up lots and lots of options on every match you fish, yes on some occasions this will be in your favour, especially on venues dominated by f1s.
On waters that abound with bigger carp though, going the other way and cutting your options right down can be a huge advantage too, and that’s what we’ve come to Decoy Lakes to prove today.
Since the rise of feeder only matches on venues like Decoy, I’ve come to realise how effective it can be to fish for a bite at a time and that feeding massive quantities of bait can sometimes go against you!
The fish are big, wise and have seen it all before so this different format of match fishing has changed how we fish in other events too.
Now, it wouldn’t be uncommon to see an angler with just one rod, surrounded by other anglers with lots of pole rigs ready to go, such is the effectiveness of a one rod attack and it’s that we’re going to cover today.
So, I guess the question is, “how can you compete?” well the answer to the question is simply in the size of the fish that these fisheries now hold!
Today we’ve set up on Yew Lake at Decoy and this lake has a very high average size of carp of around 7-9lb, of course there are lots of smaller fish too but the bigger carp are what will win you a match and have to be your main target.
With such big fish in numbers, it immediately changes the game in terms of the number of fish you need to catch to win – 20 carp on this lake could go 200lb+ on the scales, so your approach has to reflect this and more importantly you need to land every carp you hook.
Big carp are notorious for being foul hooked on the pole and can be impossible to land sometimes!
By fishing the feeder, you take this issue out of the equation completely and more often than not, when the tip goes round that carp will end up in your landing net, so already you can begin to see the advantages of this approach.
The Set Up
This won’t take long! As with all types of commercial feeder fishing, the simpler your set up the better. The main thing is that the rig is strong enough to cope with the rigors of landing hard fighting carp, which could reach the 20lb mark.
Today I’ve set up one of the new MAP Generation Pro 10ft Feeder rods, these are part of the new range which covers all aspects of commercial feeder fishing and the 10ft version is perfect for the multi-range approach I’m going to be fishing today, with a maximum cast of 25 metres to the platform opposite.
This is teamed up with a DUAL reel loaded with 8lb Optimum reel line, feeder wise, shallow venues that hold lots of big carp like these are the perfect place to fish the method feeder!
I’m using the new MAP Embed Method Feeder in the medium size today; feeder size is an important consideration and depends on many factors including how long you’re going to leave the feeder in each cast and the size of fish.
I won’t be looking to leave the feeder in for more than five minutes today, so I feel the medium gives me the perfect amount of bait to set a trap and have some bait around my hook bait long enough for a carp to find it.
Connected to my in-line feeder connector, I’ve got a 4” hook length of 0.21mm Optimum Power and a size 12 hook with a bayonet fitted.
Bait Matters!
We might only be fishing a method but that doesn’t mean that your bait should be limited to just a tub of micros and some wafters! When fishing various lines, it’s good to have the options available to adapt as the match develops.
Of course, I have some soaked micros for the feeder but I have also mixed up some Dynamite Swim Stim Milled Expander Black and Marine Halibut which will be perfect for the margin lines as well as some corn.
For hook baits I like to keep my options open too, but the base of my attack is done with 5mm pink and yellow Dynamite Wowsers, these give a visual target bait for the carp to home in on and helps me to get a quicker bite.
I also have a few different tubs of hard pellets, in different sizes and colours, and of course I have corn too. I can’t stress enough how important it can be to have the options available to allow you to change regularly if you’re getting signs but no bites, one change really can make all the difference.
Start Short!
Just because we’re fishing a feeder only it doesn’t mean that you have to start your match any different to how you would on the pole! There’s actually a match on the adjacent lake today and most of the guys on there have started short, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do!
To maintain a bit of accuracy in case of a bite I measure the length of line down against the rod handle, and simply swing the feeder onto a 5m line. This way, should I catch I know I’m back on the same line every time.
Starting short is always a good policy, a few resident fish can be caught quickly on a lot of venues but by doing this you aren’t spooking them left and right of your peg which could happen if I chucked across to begin with.
With the corner peg I’m fishing I also have the option of fishing along the bank to my left, this will always a be a natural holding point too, so my intention in a match would always be to start by fishing the area in front and to the pipe to my left before I consider feeding other areas of my peg and work my way out, and quite possibly, back again for a late flurry.
The Session
As I’ve touched on, I have started short today initially down to the pipe in the corner after seeing plenty of fizzing in the area while setting up, so I wasn’t too shocked that when, on the two-minute mark, the rod pulled round and I was into my first fish of the day, not a carp but a lovely barbel of around 3lb.
Another barbel followed soon after and it wasn’t long before I had my first carp of the day in the net – not a monster, around 5lb but a great start and I was only fishing my first spot of the day so if they all produced this amount of bites we’d have a great weight at the end!
All the time I was fishing to the pipe I’d been dropping a small nugget of pellets onto the 5m line and when bites dried up it was simply a case of loading the feeder up and dropping over this.
It wasn’t long before I started to receive indications of fish in the peg, and if I had been fishing the pole there is a great possibility that I may have struck at a few liners or foul hooked a fish, the feeder really does add that calmness to the peg that other tactics can’t offer.
A few carp fell to the yellow wowser hook bait on the 5m line but I was starting to see plenty of signs further out.
I’d not fed anything here yet, so an exploratory cast half way would give me an indication if there was a number of fish in the area, this is the beauty of this tactic, you can move around feeding a relatively tiny amount of bait per-cast without committing to anything, almost like feeding a single kinder pot of bait on a pole line!
If there’s a bite or an indication, it warrants another cast, if there isn’t… I’ll move on, it’s that easy. By searching the peg and catching these runs of big fish you will be shocked at how easy it is to put a big weight together.
After moving out, I caught a few more carp and they were of a bigger stamp in the open water so when the bites died off again, I slipped on the bait up feeder and fed two feeders to the post against the aerator, this looked to be a real banker spot so I didn’t feel that I had to experiment there as you could visibly see the fish activity around the feature.
A few chucks to the platform opposite, which looked amazing, didn’t produce many bites at all which was surprising but I had plenty of other options to go at.
I had been feeding small nuggets of groundbait with some corn in the mix to my right-hand margin which was another option, that short line which I’d kept a bit of bait going in on, gave me a fall back, and the aerator would always produce a bite so you can see this approach is all about moving around and nicking bites off a small trap.
To finish our three-hour session, I had a few more carp to double figures from the aerator line with many of them doing their best to break me off on the scaffold pole, a couple on the five-metre line and three more down the edge to the right.
In total, I’d fished six different areas of my peg, fed less than a kilo of groundbait, two pints of micros and a tin of corn, putting 20 carp plus some barbel and f1s in the net for at least 160lb, with only two fish lost to hook pulls all day.
Could you guarantee this fish hooked to landed ratio if you’d fished the pole all match? I’m not so sure! The one rod approach is very different, but it’s important to remember that on big fish commercial venues, catching hundreds of fish is not a requirement.
By setting these small traps and moving around, searching the peg, without committing to a load of bait you can find that your fishing is not only more effective, but you can land virtually every fish you hook too which in a match, is invaluable!
