As anglers, we all have a comfort zone, the sort of venues you can turn up to and no matter where they are in the country, the styles of fishing are pretty much the same. But certain venues like to throw a spanner in the works, often blowing peoples minds before they have even got their gear out the car. A perfect example of this is Barston Lakes, an unexpected oasis in the urban jungle that is Birmingham.

But what is it about this venue which strikes fear into so many anglers, is it the slightly awkward walk past the well dressed golfers as they get ready for a morning tee off, whilst wearing a bib and brace which smells like someone died in it? More likely it’s the daunting twenty-five acre expanse of water that is in front of you, packed full of big carp that are determined to smash you up.

This is the common theme for most match anglers who get comfortable fishing the smaller commercial venues up and down the UK, where you can sit and fish anywhere in the peg with a pole, when faced with a venue the size of Barston it’s a case of either, “I’m sure I was washing my hair that weekend” or digging out that 14ft Super Mega Power Feeder Rod they paid £400 for an used once!

But thankfully there is another way, catching shallow on the pole! On big venues like this, everyone feels inclined to grab the waggler rod and chuck as far as they can but with a few small tweaks to your normal shallow set up, you can be bagging up in pole range.

We’ve decided to make things a little bit trickier today by picking one of the windiest days I’ve ever seen! The lake resembles the North Sea with whitecap waves rolling past so holding a pole is going to be interesting. So the first thing to do after setting up the pole was to work out where we can fish given the conditions. I don’t want to go further than 14.5m but if I angle myself slightly to the left so the wind is coming straight down the line of my pole it makes life a bit easier. So long as the direction of the wind direction is relatively consistent then it’s always worth setting up like this to give yourself the best presentation and hopefully avoid any crunching carbon!

Next thing to think about is bait, now pinging half a dozen little 4mm pellets every few minuets isn’t really going to cut it! Big water, Big Fish… BIG BAITS!

There are a few reasons for this, first up as mentioned earlier, Barston see’s a lot of pellet waggler or bomb fishing, both of which will see rafts of 8mm pellets rafted into the lake. It’s what the fish are used to eating, like presenting a fat kid with two slices of cake, he’s always going to go for the bigger one given the choice! Next up is the noise aspect, which is like ringing the dinner bell to these big hungry carp and monster F1s. Finally as an added bonus today they are far easier to be accurate with in the wind.

My pellet of choice as always are the Spotted Fin Catalyst version, for those of you who haven’t tried them, the Catalyst is a flavour used within one of the boilies from the carp range. A lovely sweet caramel sort of smell, which is absorbed all the way through the pellets rather than just a coating, which washes off straight away. On any venue that see’s a lot of boilies going in, they just seem to massively out fish your standard plain pellets. To further boost the attraction I give them a quick squirt of the matching booster spray, your hands end up smelling lovely and it seems to help to mask the smell of that bib and brace!

On smaller waters, you could almost guarantee that fish will be in front of you from the off, but on bigger waters the fish have the space to travel around so priming a shallow line is of upmost importance. This is where that noise really comes into play, so by regularly pinging a few 8mm pellets in the area, you can slowly get a few fish interested.

In a match situation you would want to be starting off on a rod, a little method or pva bag to try and get a few early bites whilst you prime your shallow line, this could be for a couple of hours before they really turn up. But seeing as today wasn’t a match, I’ve been a little bit lazy and just set up my two shallow rigs to avoid too much kit getting blown down the bank. But it really did serve to demonstrate how a peg can develop.

Starting out, I’ve not even fed anything and just shipped out and started slapping my rig over, if fish are in the area this can be a great way of nicking a quick bite, I was almost proved right as the float buried and a decent carp was hooked, unfortunately it decided to ping off and that was about all my action for nearly two hours.

If you’ve never done it, that’s an awful long time to be sat pinging pellets and slapping a rig over with not so much of an indication! I was beginning to get more than a little despondent, my cameraman was clearly bored and I was beginning to think we might have made a bit of a mistake. With these thoughts running through my head and the lovely bar beginning to sound more appealing,  the float suddenly buried again! Carefully playing in a decent F1, I breathed a sigh of relief as it slid over the net. I pinged another couple of pellets out before shipping out, a couple of slaps and bang! Another decent F1… They had arrived!

This pattern continued for the rest of the day, but just to reiterate… Don’t sit there for two hours without catching anything, but it was the perfect example of how your swim can suddenly switch on. It’s a case of keeping the faith, having a quick go ever so often, then once they turn up you can really do some damage and put a big weight together.

Gear wise, as always I never like to go over the top, a nice soft yellow Garbo Fighter Elastic which is a 10-12 rating. As Barston is relatively shallow the first run from carp can be a bit wild, this gives them plenty of stretch to tire themselves up whilst slowly powering up. If you start going up to elastics which are in the 20+ rating which many seem to like to do on big fish venues, all you end up with is a load of unwanted disturbance in your peg and often rigs blowing up. So the key with the softer elastic is just let them leave the swim nice and calmly, re feed to settle any other fish down again and start shipping back. Keep the pole tip as low to the water as possible and nine times out of ten they will just follow you in like a dog on a lead. Tension up the elastic using the puller and once they are close enough, lift the kit and net them first time!

You do get the odd one that doesn’t read the rules, but once you get used to it, you can easily land some massive great carp with very little hassle on light gear.

Rig wise was a slightly modified 0.2g Garbo DC C41, by cutting it down it makes the perfect shallow float and I use it for all my mugging too! 0.18mm hook length and a nice strong size 14 hook to match the 8mm pellet and you are good to go. I do pinch on a single shot just below the float to cock it slightly, but other than that I don’t have any other shot down the rig, I find you get far more fish with the slowest fall possible. Don’t forget to account for the extra weight of the 8mm pellet too, if your rig is perfectly dotted down before you put your bait on you might find you are getting a lot of bites just at the pellet reaches full depth!

So it really is as simple as that, grabbing a couple of bags of big 8mm pellets, then using the same sort of gear you would use on any other commercial, you are ready to have an awesome last couple of hours of your match at these big carp waters. Just remember to keep priming that shallow line whilst you fish elsewhere, keep having a quick look every half hour or so and get ready once they do arrive!

Dan White uses…

Catching a big weight of commercial silver fish is all about getting your timing correct. There are often two groups of commercial silver fish and they are those that are quick to snaffle up any bait that is introduced into the lake, and those that bide their time before making their move.

Unfortunately for us, the first group are generally the smaller, more aggressively feeding roach that many commercial venues house, and the second group are species such as skimmers, bream and tench.

Now, I say unfortunately… in reality I don’t actually mean that as these smaller fish are just as important to this approach as the big ones, and will actually take up more of your time. That is because to do a weight of smaller roach is an out-and-out numbers game that requires you to work hard and adjust things to speed up your catch rate. Alternatively, to do a similar weight of skimmers and bream, far fewer fish are needed.

Why not just sit it out for the skimmers and bream you ask? Well, doing so will simply reduce your chance of catching too many of them, that’s why. Bream are relatively shy feeders at the best of times that need all sorts of encouragement to hang around. Feed some bait and they will come, but if they sense any sort of danger they’ll be out of there quicker than you can imagine.

You have to bide your time, and what better way of doing that is there than filling your net with the species that is willing to feed… roach.

Cane-Tipped Floats

When targeting silver fish on commercial venues with baits such as maggots and casters then a cane bristled float is my choice every time. Cane tips offer the ultimate in sensitivity and when dotted down present little to no resistance when the fish picks up your bait, which can be a massive advantage over buoyant hollow bristle alternatives.

Whether used in conjunction with a full depth rig and a strung-out shotting pattern or when deploying up in the water tactics as I am today, cane bristles are my preference.

I’ve opted for a 0.3g Dot ’Em Down Carbon Cane for the deeper of my shallow rigs, set at three feet, and a 0.2g version of the same pattern for half that, at a depth of 18 inches. To keep things comfortable and allow me to feed this by hand this line is located at a 5m distance.

The 3ft rig features strung No10 Ballabeni shot down from the 6in hooklength up and comprises a size 20 Gamakatsu LS-2260BB hook tied to 0.10mm diameter Milo Krepton Fluorocarbon. I can lay this rig in and hold tight to the float as it settles in order to spot any indications on the drop; if I’m having my bait intercepted a lot then that’s when I’ll look to pick up the shallower of the two rigs.

The lighter rig is set at 18 inches deep and features a bulk of shot set at half depth that I may choose to move around throughout the day to alter the fall of my hook bait; all other components remain the same with all my rigs tied up on 0.16mm Milo Mainline.

Hollow Bristles

While cane bristles are incredibly sensitive, they do have their negatives. The first is directly linked to one of their greatest attributes. Being so sensitive a cane bristle is suited to fishing with light baits that have little effect on the float in regards to shotting. However, when using larger hook baits or dealing with any tow that could encourage the float to get dragged under, a hollow bristle is a much better option. The hollow bristle offers its own buoyancy, which helps it stay suspended even when supporting larger baits like corn or worms. They are also much more visible, which can be another negative of cane.

For this reason on a longer pole line (13 metres) where I am looking to be more positive in my approach, targeting larger fish with bigger hook baits over a bed of sweet fishmeal groundbait, I will use a more stable pattern with a thick hollow bristle. A 0.6g Dot ’Em Down Tear is my choice and while main line and hooklength diameter remain the same, a slightly stronger size 18 Guru SLWG is preferred, while shotting is a bulk and two droppers.

I also opt for a hollow 5-8 rated elastic rather than the solid N05 used short. It’s around seven feet deep here so something to set the hook properly is important.

Bide Your Time

As I have mentioned, it is important to try and let the bonus fish line settle before dropping on it and potentially risk spooking the fish that are there. There’s no way better way to occupy some hungry skimmers than giving them a nice big bed of bait to graze over, and that means groundbait.

My choice is a 50/50 mix of Spotted Fin Dark Super Blend and Sweet Super Blend. The Super Blend groundbaits use the highest possible quality of ingredients and these two together create a lovely fluffy combination that skimmers and bream love. The Sweet Super Blend is a lovely sweet fishmeal groundbait that offers a lot of attraction while the Dark Super Blend darkens the mix off to my desired shade. I’m a big fan of darker mixes for silver fish even during the warmer months, and whether that is on a natural or commercial venue that doesn’t change.

Once mixed to a fairly damp consistency I like to add a good helping of dead maggots and casters, along with a few grains of corn. I want both the mix and the bait I introduce to be inert on the bottom rather than popping off all over the place or digging into the silt should I have introduced live maggots. Skimmers and bream have a tendency to tear up the lake bed at the best of times so I’ll do everything in my power to help prevent encouraging that!

Four balls are softly squeezed before cupping in – I want them to break down quickly and create a carpet of bait and will be left to settle for 40 minutes plus.

In the meantime I have been loose feeding casters regularly by hand. I have not set up a deck rig short as I simply don’t believe I could catch quickly enough for my liking doing so, and in these warm conditions the roach will  compete for bait in the upper layers almost instantly. I’m right to think this would be the case as I’m soon catching a dumpy roach every single drop in on the 3ft rig. It’s a case of constantly laying the rig back in as hanging it mid-water simply isn’t producing.

After half an hour of quality sport short I start to see a few pimples coming up on the long line, which indicates that I should probably start thinking about having a look. There are clearly plenty of fish there but that fizzing is usually a sign of the fish searching beneath the groundbait and rummaging into the silt below. Dropping another little ball of groundbait packed with dead maggots and casters is usually just enough to concentrate them on picking out the bait within rather than sifting through the silt, and following it straight in produces the goods. A 12oz skimmer on my first visit is a great sign and is then followed by a better fish of 2lb. I manage another two fish before I begin to suffer a few strange indications and the peg begins to show signs of fizzing again. This is where having the two lines really begins to pay dividends.

Chop and Change

Dropping another feed-packed ball of groundbait into the peg and returning back short sees me top the net up with another couple of pounds of roach in the next 20 minutes before looking back long. I manage another quick run of three fish before I begin to experience similar signs and the process is repeated, each time putting a few roach in the net before going back out long, where I even manage to hook and land a carp among some skimmers and bream later in the session.

At the end of the session I have upwards of 35lb in my net, with the two contrasting approaches working hand-in-hand. Approaching the peg in either of the two ways would undoubtedly have seen me catch a few fish, but by giving myself the best of both worlds I have been able to be patient on the long pole line where bonus skimmers have been the target, while filling in the gaps with a quantity of smaller fish at short range. This has allowed me to maximise my peg’s potential by reducing any periods that I wasn’t putting a fish in the net. 

Better still, all it has required is a couple of pints of maggots and casters and two half bags of groundbait!

Matty Uses…

“Roach for show, bream for dough,” so the saying goes, and those words certainly ring true on the Grand Union Canal. When you check the match results on most canals across the south of England you cannot fail to notice that the frame places are dominated by bream and skimmer weights; approaches must be focused towards the bronze beauties if you’ve any hope of producing the goods, with roach tactics very much a back-up on those particularly tough days.

I have brought the Spotted Fin cameras to the Ivinghoe length of the Grand Union, not far from Leighton Buzzard, to hopefully put a few fish in front of the camera and demonstrate the tactics needed to compete here. This length is used throughout the year for several leagues and club matches and I rate it as one of the best venues on the cut.

As well as being invited down for the purpose of today’s feature, today’s mid-week session also doubles as a sneaky practice for myself ahead of the weekend’s final round of the Sensas Individual Canal League here, so I am keen to target the bream and skimmers and try out some different ways of feeding to see what’s best. I haven’t caught many for a while on the canal and it will be nice to brush up to see what’s working well and get a feel for the venue – maybe even discover a little edge heading into the weekend’s event.

Avoid The Traffic!

Before going into feeding and tackle, the most important thing to decide is where to fish in the peg for these fish, and when. Due to the heavy boat traffic the skimmers and bream are usually caught on the far bank, sometimes literally touching the overhanging brambles or even the bare bank if it is exposed. Today I have about 17 metres to go at and have decided to fish at 14.5. It’s two and a half feet deep here and quite flat, so looks ideal.

Importantly it is far enough over to keep me away from the main boat channel down the middle of the canal. I can always push over to 16 metres and follow the fish later into the day too, which can work well.

Regarding when to fish for skimmers there is no messing about, or even priming the lines, you need to go straight on them. No wasting time, these fish usually show in the first phase of the match or session and if you haven’t had any in the first hour you could have an uphill struggle to put a good weight together.

Although there are fliers on any length, generally with fish-holding features you have to give yourself a chance wherever you draw and if you are lucky enough to nail a few quick lids you could be well on your way to a brown envelope – where there’s one there are very often many!

Current Trends…

Word has it that fishmeal groundbait has been producing the goods at Ivinghoe, so I am definitely going to feed that on one line; it is important to do some research as it quickly steers you in the right direction. Even if you have your own ideas, those of other anglers can always help to hone your approach.

My chosen mix is Spotted Fin Sweet Superblend and Milled Expanders mixed 50/50, fed in conjunction with dead maggots and pinkies plus some micro pellets. Fish are well used to fishmeal here as both coarse and carp anglers have been using it here in abundance in recent years. This will be fed at 14.5 metres to my right with the natural draw of the canal flowing that way. To my left at the same distance and depth I am going to feed chopped worms and casters with a few dead reds and pinkies mixed in, a bit more of a standard canal bonus-fish approach.

Tackle-wise I have opted to set up a solid No6 elastic through the long No1 section of my Rive R16 match kit, this is set soft but gives me some power in reserve if I need to apply some pressure. A 0.3g Rive float with a hollow tip on 0.14mm main line with a strung-out shotting pattern is combined with a 0.10mm hooklength, which is 20 centimetres long and paired with a wickedly sharp Guru Feeder special hook. I feel this gives me a balanced setup and with no snags around this should deal with the skimmers and bream.

I have also set up a carp rig with a small dibber float on 0.20mm direct to a size 12 Kamasan Animal hook. Heavy elastic completes the setup and to be fair this rig has done me proud over the years as much for bream as carp!

Making Changes

To kick the swim off I am not going to pile bait in, I am looking for a quick response and will be topping my two lines up early in the session. Half a pot of chopped worms, casters and a few maggots and pinkies go in to my left-hand 14.5m line. I don’t mince the worms as there is always some movement on the water and I don’t want the bait to disperse and spread too much.

The right-hand groundbait line gets two balls of overwetted mix but no worms, just the micros and dead maggots and pinkies. I haven’t fed a roach line today and just want to fish for skimmers and learn as much as I can for the weekend’s match.

Baiting up with a dead maggot and pinkie combo I ship out and drop in on my worm line; nothing happens for 10 minutes but then after a quick dink of the bristle I am rewarded with a 3lb bream, a great start! Two more nice skimmers follow suit but then a small perch and gudgeon signal that the better fish have backed off in the shallow water and a top-up is needed.

A third of a pot of the chopped worm mix goes in, a nice positive feed with the coarsely chopped worm sinking straight down. It’s important to avoid feeding this mix when the canal is moving as all of that attraction and scent you have introduced will simply be taken down-tow and as a result take the fish with it!

Moving over to the groundbait line nothing much happens, which surprises me so I top it up but this time introduce some worms to the mix. Back on to the neat worm line a nice run of good skimmers show up but once again they back off and the small fish move in, another top-up is called for.

This time when I switch to my groundbait line there are some fish there; I catch three quick bream off this line along with a couple of skimmers then the by now familiar pattern of small fish appearing means more feed is needed. Interestingly with each top-up of groundbait I manage to catch more fish than I am able to on the neat worm line, with the combination of groundbait and worms seemingly holding the fish a little better than the worms alone. Switching between the two lines has proved important and doing so has ensured I have been able to keep fish coming and is the pattern for the rest of the session.

A lovely four hours later I have caught about 35lb. Introducing worms on the second groundbait line certainly had a positive effect and I have caught on both lines really well. Interestingly it has been almost solely better bream on the neat worm line before fading, whereas the groundbait line would produce some better fish followed by some smaller skimmers.

My setup has worked perfectly, with only one fish coming off. The only slight tinkering I have done is to add two No11 Stotz as back shot above my float – one level with the bristle and one bang next to the eye on the float. This has improved presentation when the wind has got up and put a skim on the surface, allowing me to keep my rig dead still.

Practice Makes Perfect!

All in all it’s been a fantastic day’s fishing in great surroundings and the best day’s skimmer fishing on the canal I have had for a long time. More importantly, I feel I have formulated a good plan for the upcoming weekend, which is where I thought I would conclude the article… although I had caught 35lb and had learnt loads I was under no illusion that the weekend would be that easy – increased angling pressure in the match and more boat traffic would knock back the weights.

I actually drew about 10 yards from where I had fished midweek, which was great and set up in a similar manner to the practice session. The only difference being that I put the worm line further over at 16 metres due to loads of boats coming through before the match started. I also fed a squatt line at 11.5 metres; this was my back-up ‘catch everything’ line, which was not necessary for the feature itself.

I had a great start taking a 2-pounder from the neat worm line before the small fish moved in and I topped it up. Two smaller skimmers from the groundbait line followed; I had again fed with the same mix as in practice but including worms from the start. These fish were a worthwhile addition before I moved back to the worm line.

A foul-hooked fish came off midway back then I nailed a 2lb-plus hybrid, so with close to 6lb in the net after 40 minutes I was certainly sitting pretty, especially as not much had been caught elsewhere. Another half hour fishing for skimmers was fruitless, the golden spell was finished but I felt I had made the most of it, albeit I had lost that foul-hooker.

By switching to my squatt line for the rest of the match I ended up with 15lb 3oz, which was good enough for maximum section points and second overall on the day, the match being won on Peg A1 with 17lb and 12lb was third.

So, lessons learnt in practice proved their worth, the correct setup and feeding plus feeling confident produced a good result and a nice end to the league.

Simon Uses…

Margin fishing can become a bit predictable at times, hoofing in half a dozen cups of groundbait half way through the match with a nice standout hookbait over the top. Fish are so used seeing this every single day it’s hardly surprising that it is no where near as effective as it used to be! Often you will end up with a peg full of fish, but this is where groundbait has it’s issues, the fish can become preoccupied, the float is dancing all over the place, tales wafting around but no proper bites and those which you do hook are often not in the mouth! The result is a frustrating last hour of the match with not a lot of weight being added to the net.

It was with this in mind that Dan White invited the Spotted Fin cameras down to the awesome Viaduct fishery, home of some rather large carp, to show off a tactic that he had christened ‘mushy pellets’…

“I’ll be honest here and say that I discovered this method by accident, I had been fishing in torrential rain all day and my tub of 6mm pellets had turned into a bit of a mush! Being that I hadn’t brought any more with me it was a case of making do, so on my first go down the edge, I cupped in a bit of this mush and lowered my rig over the top. A couple of small indications and then the float buried, before long a decent carp was in the net. This carried on for the rest of the match and a good last hour put me well in the money. I chatted to a few other anglers after the match and as usual most people had a fair share of foul hookers down the edge, but other than one fish, which I had got a bit excited on the strike, every other fish was hooked perfectly.

This led me to having a bit more of a play with the ‘mushy pellets’ and after a bit of trial and error, I believe in most situations, this will be far more effective than the traditional methods of big potting groundbait!

Preparing the mushy pellets is as simple as opening a bag of 6mm Catalyst pellets and covering them in water, just as you would do with micros, then set them to one side. After half an hour or so, they will have soaked in all of that water and the mushy mess you are left with will be perfect!

The soft outer will kick off a cloud of attraction the moment it hits the water, but the majority of the mix is still larger food items to prevent the fish getting preoccupied like they would with groundbait or micros.

How you feed the line is quite important, I use a combination of potting in the mush and pinging hard pellets over the top, we all know how important noise is in attracting fish so you can use this to your advantage to get fish into the peg.

I like to kick-start the peg about half way through the match with a big pot of the pellet mush, more often than not this will be the only time I get the big pot out. I will then ping half a dozen hard pellets every 10 minuets whilst fishing another line to keep drawing fish into the peg.

Once you have done that for an hour or so, if you are going to do a decent weight, then your peg should have plenty of fish in, so now is the point to become a lot more regimented in your feeding.

Start off by pinging half a dozen hard pellets in twice, this is to ring the dinner bell so to speak. Then you can load your tosspot, I like to put in three or four hard pellets first, followed by a small dollop of the mush, the hard pellets just prevent it all from sticking in the pot. Ship out, drop in the mush and lower in your rig, you want it to fall to the deck in a clump with the fish following it down and hopefully before long you will be getting a nice clean bite.

Once you hook the fish, I like to leave the peg to settle down whilst I focus on landing the fish and as soon as I get him in the landing net, I ping the same amount of pellets to draw the fish back in. Top your pot up with mush and repeat the process.

This process of catching a fish, resting the line, pinging to draw the fish back in with noise and feeding the slop to draw them down works perfectly, especially for those big carp which have seen it all before. It is all a lot more controlled than having a peg full of 10lbers, hooking them in the tail and trashing a load of rigs!

The gear you use is also important, I don’t like to go too heavy even with big fish. For the feature I’ve used 0.20mm mainline to a 0.16mm hook length and most importantly a nice soft elastic in the shape of the Garbo Fighter Elastic in a 10-12 rating. You can gently guide the fish out the peg in a controlled fashion which helps to prevent spooking any other carp in the area.”

Dan put his theory into practice during the session at Viaduct, after building up the edge for a couple of hours, he put his regimented feeding pattern into practice and was steadily catching decent fish for the remainder of the day. Certainly food for thought next time you draw a decent margin peg!

Dan White Uses…

We travelled up to the lovely Old Hough Fishery, deep in the Cheshire countryside, on what was supposed to be a lovely warm day. The ever-unpredictable British weather had other ideas though, throwing a deluge of rain and gale force winds, making the two acre lake known as ‘Big Max’ resemble the North Sea with white cap waves lapping the bank!

Not to be deterred, we met up with Spotted Fin’s Gareth Gibbons, who has been gaining a bit of a reputation, as a paste expert in recent years, so we thought it was time to catch up with him and find out exactly how he does it.

“We all know how much fish love groundbait” began Gareth, “normally this will be down the edge or around a feeder, paste fishing is just an extension of this meaning you have the same awesome attraction but in a form that you can use on the hook in open water!”

“After saying that, it’s not a method you can use all the time, the venue and time of year has to be right. Ultimately it’s a method for targeting the big fish so carp, large F1’s and even the odd bream should make an appearance today. But anywhere with a decent head of bigger fish, where allowed, paste can be a devastating method. The time of year is also vital, my general rule is once the temperatures start hitting a steady 15oC during the day then I will start giving it a go.”

With that Gareth unzips his bait bag and starts rummaging around, it’s time to get messy and mix up some paste…

“Preparing paste couldn’t be anymore simple, the key point is getting the right groundbait to begin with as they are not all suitable. My choice for today is the GO2 100% Milled Betaine, which as the name suggests, is made from just crushed pellets, no nasty fillers! This means it is packed full of attractors and oils, perfect for holding those big old carp. It has been milled into a nice fine mix with no lumps meaning that the finished paste is lovely and smooth, just how it needs to be.

All you need to do it take equal parts water and Milled Betaine, a pint bait box of each, then mix them together and you will end up with what looks like a thick pea soup. At this point you may be thinking that it is ruined, but give it a good mix and set it aside for 20 minutes whilst you set up the rest of your gear. In that time all that crushed pellet will have taken on the water and you are left with the perfect paste ready to be fed to those hungry carp.”

“With the bait ready it’s time to look at rigs, they are a bit different to any other pole rigs you are likely to use, but it although it might seem like a bit of a crude method, each element needs to be thought about to get the most out of it. If you get it wrong then you will have a frustrating day of missed bites and not many fish in the net.”

“As with all my fishing, I like to fish as light as possible and even though we are fishing for some big carp today, well into double figures, I will still keep it all relatively delicate. No spools of 0.25mm line here! There are lots of factors to take into consideration including the depth, tow and visibility when deciding exactly what to use but here is what I’ve settled on for todays session.”

“Starting with the float, I’m a fan of a round or pear shaped body as it’s a lot more stable, so I’ve opted for the ‘Peaty Pastes’ which are from the Warren Peaty Range, in my mind these are perfect. They feature a long tip which is essential when fishing paste, we’ll go into that in a bit more detail later but the last thing you want to be doing is striking at tiny little dinks and having to re bait all the time. They are also without doubt the strongest floats I have ever used, which is always a bonus as these rigs will take some stick if you start bagging a 10lber every put in!

As we’ve got quite a bit of a crosswind today I’ve gone for a 4 x 14 just to aid with the presentation, if it was flat calm I’d have no issue in going lighter. This is on a 0.17mm mainline down to an 0.13mm hooklength, nice and balanced and in an open water situation like today, there isn’t a fish swimming which you wouldn’t be able to land with a bit of patience. The rig is finished with a nice big hook, a Preston XSH-B in a size 12. These are nice and strong, specifically designed for big fish, hook size is important as l use a large piece of paste and need the hook to be able to penetrate the paste and hook the fish”

Looking at these rigs, it’s clear that although they don’t have loads of components and fancy shotting patterns, every piece is there for a reason. One thing, conspicuous in there absence, are shot, not a single one anywhere on the rig. Gareth explains…

“I’ve seen all sorts of paste rigs over the years, some use a couple of shot to half cock the float but personally I don’t see any reason to. You use the weight of the paste to cock the float so a bite will be one of two things, the float flying under or lifting up out the water like a missile if the paste has been dislodged. The shot doesn’t add any benefit so I’ll fish without them.”

With the rigs covered, the Milled Betaine has magically turned from a soup into the perfect paste it’s time to get down to the important task of catching some fish!

“Plumbing up is the single most important factor in my opinion whilst paste fishing, you want to be using a large 30g plummet and plumb your float to how you would like it to look when you have paste on the hook, I tend to have around 3cm of bristle showing.

To kick-start my peg I feed 250ml of 6mm Catalyst pellets, these are an excellent holding bait and complement the Betaine paste perfectly. Wherever possible I like to let my paste line develop by feeding it two or three times to let the fish build their confidence, during this period l would fish either a different line on the pole or chucking a feeder.

Big fish are quite good at giving themselves away when feeding on the bottom so when l see some form of sign be it colouring up of the water or bubbles caused by disturbance on the bottom I would then look to start fishing this line.”

“I’m not shy when using paste l like to use a piece the size of a 50p, the paste should be flattened with your thumb on the palm of your hand and hook placed in the middle then mould the paste round the hook. The paste then is placed in a pole mounted pot, when shipping out make sure the rig is shipped smoothly to avoid any unnecessary tangles, when tipping your paste out you must tip it to the side the rig is hanging or you will end up tangled!

When the rig first enters the water the float will dive under, give it a few seconds and once the slack line has pulled tight the float will sit in the position you’ve plumbed up to. Then it is a case of waiting for those positive indications; ignore any small movements, inevitably if you have a number of fish about you will get liners as they attack the paste, but sit on your hands and wait until it flies under at a rate of knots!”

Before long Gareth is striking into the first proper carp of the day, at around 8lb it is soon tamed on his balanced gear. A couple more follow with no more bait being introduced to the peg, the next fish powers off at high speed before the hook pulls, obviously foul hooked so it was time to look at re-feeding.

“You need to judge this as your session progresses, I will feed straight pellets on the initial feeds to kick start the swim, then in an ideal world the only feed going in after that will be the paste on my hook. Remember that every time you ship out a new piece of paste, you are adding a bit of bait to the peg. So you will always have some attraction in the area.

If you do start getting foul hookers, my first thought it always to check the depth, if you are fishing on a silty bottom then often the carp will have scoured it out, so a quick check of the depth and raising the float an inch or two can often solve it. If not then re-feeding with pellets to pin them back down to the bottom will be the next thing to try”

He follows this routine to the letter, catching two or three fish, a selection of large carp and F1s, off each feed before having to feed a pot of pellets to settle them down. The average stamp of the fish during the session is very impressive and it’s obvious how this method wins so many matches during the summer!

Gareth Uses…

Some people love it, others… not so much! Whatever your own personal view is, mugging is undeniably a match-winning tactic through the summer months on the right venue.  

It may appear to be a simple method, see a carp, flick a pellet in front of him, catch carp and repeat. But if you ask any of the anglers who really excel at mugging, you will quickly find out that it is the small tweaks, which make the biggest difference. With this in mind, we caught up with mugging maestro, Dan White at the stunning Viaduct fishery in the midst of a recent heat wave to find out his top five mugging tips!

Tip 1 – Think about hook baits

Everyone has their favourite hook bait for mugging, most will be either be using a straight pellet, wafter or maybe even a bit of meat. All will work on their day and finding the right one can be the difference between bagging or nicking the odd bite.

I always like to carry a selection with me, but the biggest thing to bare in mind is the sink rate of each bait. Wafters will obviously sink a lot slower so are perfect for those slow moving fish, basking right in the upper layers, often not really in a feeding mood. A wafter gently floating past its nose will often be enough to tempt a bite. If they are a lot more active and charging around the peg, slightly deeper in the water, then a 6mm or 8mm Catalyst Pellet will get down a lot quicker into it’s eye line.

Tip 2 – Target the groups

Next is picking the right fish to target, as a rule of thumb a single fish will generally be a nightmare! They have time to inspect the bait and decide if they want to eat it, a lot of the time they will opt to leave it no matter how well presented it is. Add a few of his mates into the equation and suddenly with the extra competition, they will be a lot more willing to snatch at a bait to make sure they get it before another in the group does.

The same goes for the speed which they are moving, if they are meandering about, sucking the odd leaf off the surface, they will be very catchable, if they are motoring through the peg at a hundred miles per hour… it’s probably not going to happen so easily so time might be better spent on another method.

Tip 3 – No shot down the line

Unlike most rigs, you don’t want any shot down the line, you want that hookbait to be falling as naturally as possible. Bulk it all right under the float to get the perfect presentation, shotting like this also helps you to accurately swing the rig. One thing I have been doing differently recently, is rather than using a string of number 8 shots for example, I prefer to use a single shot matched to my float, this gives a much nicer ‘plop’ as it hits the water, just like a pellet would helping to trigger those carp into eating my bait!

Tip 4 – Vary the depth for spooky fish

If you are constantly getting fish looking at baits and refusing them or spooking as the bait lands, a great tip is to set the float a lot deeper than you need to be fishing. What you are trying to achieve here is separation between the hookbait and float, as more often than not it is the float which will spook them!

By setting it at three feet deep, you are a lot more likely to get a take of fish that have had rigs swung at them all summer. Obviously it does mean your bite indication isn’t great, so in these situations I like to watch the hookbait rather than the float, so a nice light coloured wafter that you can see, like our Fruit Zing ones are ideal. As soon as that white shape disappears you know it’s time to strike!

Tip 5 – Pay attention to shadows

This is a really important one, you need to remember that carp will spook off shadows, be it a bird, an angler or a pole. We’ve all seen the surface erupt in summer as the local goose decides to fly overhead, that is exactly the same reaction you will get if they see your poles shadow!

So always approach a fish from the left or right, depending where the sun is to avoid going over them with the shadow from your pole. If you are at the ‘wrong’ side to do this, then ship back in and out again at the correct angle. With this in mind, if I am not actively ‘targeting’ a fish, then I prefer to ship back two thirds of the way to avoid having a 16m shadow over my peg whilst I’m looking for my next potential victim!

Dan White Uses…