Dave Binns take us through his silvers session fished recently on the River Trent and some new groundbait mixes he has been working with
I had a super silver session on the River Trent this time…First off I’ll just touch on groundbaits…I’ve been experimenting with different mixes all season on the river Trent when targeting silver fish and I’ve now settled on one, which I think will be hard to beat. With the amount of barbel anglers fishing the river it would be foolish to overlook fishmeal baits when targeting silver fish as they too feast on the huge amount of pellets that go into the river. With this is mind, I’ve been looking to the Spotted Fin Commercial Groundbaits, but I didn’t want anything too rich in ground pellet or overpowering, just a hint of fishmeal to my mix was all I wanted. I’ve now found the perfect ingredient in the commercial silver groundbait, one which is cereal based with a small amount of added fishmeal
I mix this with GO2 Naturals Dark Lake and the same ranges Naturals Dark Roach. If I expect a lot of roach to feature I will use 50% Dark Roach and 25% each of Dark lake and Commercial Silvers. If I’m expecting a mixed bag, or some bream to show, then I will go the other way using 50% Dark Lake and 25% Dark Roach and Commercial Silvers. This mix can be adjusted very easily to suit different methods.
Mixed dry, it’s perfect for feeder use, and mixed a bit damper it will go quite sticky for balling in. If my swim is deep or fast, then I add 500g of black damp leam to two kilos of groundbait. .
Recently, with the Riverfest final having been held on my club waters on the River Trent, I decided to have a day on the tidal River for a change and see what the silver fish sport was like.I chose a swim with a sandy beach for comfort but with an obvious drop off around three rod lengths out. The tide was just hitting its high point as I was setting up meaning I wouldn’t have to move back during the day, just follow the water out. I once again chose to ball in groundbait and fish a bolo over the top. My mix was a combination of Go2 naturals black lake, black roach and commercial silvers and I introduced six balls laced with hemp and casters to kick start the swim.I had an instant response from tiny dace and bleak but it didn’t take long to draw in some better fish by feeding a good helping of hemp and casters over the rig as I ran it down the 8ft deep swim.
I chose a swim with a sandy beach for comfort but with an obvious drop off around three rod lengths out. The tide was just hitting its high point as I was setting up meaning I wouldn’t have to move back during the day, just follow the water out.I once again chose to ball in groundbait and fish a bolo over the top. My mix was a combination of GO2 naturals Dark lake, Dark roach and Commercial Silvers and I introduced six balls laced with Natural Hemp and casters to kick start the swim. I had an instant response from tiny Dace and Bleak but it didn’t take long to draw in some better fish by feeding a good helping of hemp and casters over the rig as I ran it down the 8ft deep swim. As the water level slowly dropped, the fish backed off to stay in the faster water around two to three rod lengths out. Each time this happened I moved my seatbox further out to stay in the edge of the water as the tide was going out. I then introduced another ball of groundbait to keep the fish around two rod lengths from the bank. In no time I was back into quality Roach and Dace along with the odd bonus Perch all falling to maggot and caster hookbaits and after six hours fishing I ended the session with over 27lbs of silvers.
