We head to Essex’s Southend Farm where Alex Clements tackles commercial skimmers on a cold winters day!
We won’t lie, finding somewhere to get some bites for these features can be tough in the winter, however, we have found ourselves a gem of a venue this time around!
There are some venues out there that produce the goods no matter what, and Essex’s Southend Farm is one of those venues.
With the vast majority of venues fishing way below par over the last few months due to a prolonged cold winter, venues like this one are worth their weight in gold when you’ve endured a run of tough matches.
With Southend Farm hosting the prestigious Fish South Silver Fish final in a few weeks’ time which I have qualified for, it was the ideal opportunity to visit the main lake which will stage the final and get some much-needed practise in.
As the event name suggests, silvers will be the target and this place is absolutely solid with skimmers and roach. That said, it can also prove tough as anywhere can but the potential weights are astounding with lots of 100lb+ catches of skimmers caught every year in the right conditions.
There are four lakes on the venue, the main lake that we’re fishing today, damsel, kingfisher and Dillons all of which are full of silvers and carp alike making this a true mixed venue where great fishing can be found all year round.
Match-wise there are regular open matches held at Southend Farm, and qualifiers for Fish South Silvers and Angling Trust Silverfish are all events that attract anglers from far and wide.
The venue also features a fully stocked tackle shop on site which has all the bait and tackle you may need covered, and at this time of year, the onsite café is always a big attraction for the visiting angler’s pre-match.
Depth Is Key!
One of the main aspects of the main lake which makes it so consistent in the colder months is its depth, with an average of around 8-9ft with a few deeper and shallower areas around the lake it has all the elements of an excellent silver fish water.
With a similar depth on a short 5-6m line as you have at 13m it gives you plenty of options when it comes to rotating lines and feeding them slightly different too.
As you move out past the 13m line, in many areas, the lake starts to shallow up slightly so this is another area which can produce, especially a bit later in the day when the fish move into the shallower water.
A great starting area while you’re waiting for your skimmer lines to settle is right down the edge, tight into any trees or reeds in around 3-4ft of water.
The lake holds loads of roach and perch, which love to find sanctuary around cover, so by loose feeding some maggots or casters here you can get your match off to a start rather than sitting and waiting for some skimmers to arrive on the longer lines.
Bait Choice & Feeding
The bait tray today is fairly typical of what you’d expect to find for a silver fish session!
I’ve bought some casters, maggots and pinkies on the natural bait front and then to try something different I’ve bought some expanders and micros as pellets have been catching their fair share here in recent weeks and it always seems to be that when the weather is colder, pellets are very effective.
Something that you won’t find too shocking is that with skimmers being the main target, I’ve chosen a dark and largely fishmeal dominated groundbait mix today. With the amount of pellets that the fish see, and the better stamp I hope to catch, fishmeal is always my go to on venues like this one.
To kick things off I’ve fed two loose pots of groundbait with a few particles in at 13m, the same at 11m and a small ball of micros bound together with some crushed expander at 16 metres to my right.
As I have already said, many anglers start off short for the roach and perch with an odd skimmer, but with nobody on the lake today I feel those skimmers may come to my bait a bit quicker so I’m going to kick off on the groundbait line at 13 metres.
Rigs
As the depth is pretty uniform here, I’m very pleased that I can get away with just two rigs today – one for anywhere in the deeper water which is around 7.5ft and one at 16m in 7ft of water.
Both rigs are really simple, both are made up on 0.15mm to 0.09mm MAP Optimum Power, I’ve got a 4x14 float set up for the groundbait lines, which I can get away with today as it’s flat calm.
I always feel that if I can fish lighter, I get more bites, this is shotted with a bulk and droppers and a size 18 B911 F1 hook.
The pellet line is pretty similar, but this time I’ve gone with a 4x16 float to help magnify the small dinks you get from skimmers on pellets again a bulk and two droppers set up to a size 16 B911 F1 completes the rig.
Elastic wise I’ve got a solid 6 for maggots and groundbait and a 4-6 MAP TKS Hybrid elastic for fishing pellets, both are mega soft and that’s a key aspect of my set up, when the fishing is hard you really do need to make sure you land all your fish and losing a skimmer in the peg can be disastrous.
Session
It was another typically freezing day on arrival at the venue, and after a chat with the venue owner we decided on sitting on the left hand bank where the cold North Easterly wind would be off our back…
After feeding the peg, I started off carefully with just a single maggot or double pinkie over the groundbait line and I had signs straight away and I was soon catching some small roach which seemed to have come straight to the feed.
I did feel after 20 minutes or so that I could possibly single out any better skimmers by fishing with a slightly larger hook bait so a double red maggot was the next port of call, this worked after about five minutes with a skimmer of around a pound opening my account.
With the number of small roach present I felt they’d annihilate the loose feed I’d put in with the groundbait so I quickly mixed up a stodgy groundbait mix which I’d be able to feed more regularly with a small pole mounted pot to try and get some more bait into the peg to keep those skimmers interested and get them down on the deck.
On deep water venues like Southend Farm the fish can tend to drift off the bottom into the mid-layers regularly, and while your rig can tell you there’s plenty of fish in the peg, getting a bite can be tough so changing your feeding slightly to try and draw them down onto the bottom where you can catch them is a must.
After a few more fish on the groundbait and maggot line, I couldn’t help but have a look on the pellets – and when I dropped in, I immediately knew that feeding that bit of crushed expander with the pellets hadn’t done me any favours as there was signs of small roach there too.
Luckily, I’d only fed a tiny amount so it’d soon be gone, however, it’s a prime example of feeling your way into a match rather than putting all your eggs in one basket is usually the best policy.
With this in mind, and having caught a skimmer quite instantly on this line giving away their presence, I decided that topping up with tiny balls of neat pellets through a kinder pot would be the best option.
What was interesting is that after every run of fish I caught, I’d start losing sight of my float, this was caused by the fish scouring out the bottom as they fed, so it just emphasised the point that replumbing is a must if you are fishing venues where the bottom is soft or your presentation could be compromised.
Over the next few hours I enjoyed some brilliant sport, rotating the two lines but it was clear the bigger skimmers had a taste for pellets on the day with fish to 3lb and an average of well over the pound mark.
Looking back on the day, I believe a pellet approach on several lines long and even a short line would have probably been the way forward and has given me a lot to think about ahead of the final in a few weeks’ time.
With close to 40lb of skimmers in the keepnet and the cold taking its toll, we called it a day and headed for home.
A lot of fisheries across the country have really suffered over the last few months with poor sport recorded on some of the most reliable venues around, but the same couldn’t be said for Southend Farm!
