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AnglingTımes<br />
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE GUIDE TO FEEDER FISHING<br />
STEVE RINGER’S<br />
ULTIMATE<br />
GUIDE TO<br />
FEEDER<br />
BIG<br />
VALUE!<br />
ONLY £6.99<br />
RIGS - BAITS - TACKLE - TACTICS - ADVICE - TIPS LIMITED EDITION<br />
FISHING<br />
EVERY FEEDER & BOMB TACTIC<br />
EXPLAINED IN THIS<br />
132-PAGE BUMPER GUIDE!<br />
L IMI T ED<br />
EDITION<br />
HOW TO TIE STEVE’S<br />
GREATEST FEEDER RIGS<br />
COMPLETE GUIDE TO<br />
THE TACKLE YOU NEED<br />
STEP-BY-STEP ADVICE ON<br />
PREPARING YOUR BAIT<br />
BANKSIDE ADVICE TO HELP<br />
YOU CATCH MORE FISH
WELCOME<br />
WELCOME<br />
Steve Ringer’s Ultimate guide to<br />
Feeder Fishing is produced by Angling Times.<br />
Contact us at Bauer Media, Media House,<br />
Lynch Wood, Peterborough PE2 6EA. Call<br />
01733 468000<br />
EDITORIAL<br />
Written by Steve Ringer<br />
Editor: Richard Grange<br />
Art Editor: Peter McClelland<br />
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Photography: Lloyd Rogers<br />
Sub Editor: Nick Fletcher<br />
PRODUCTION<br />
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Printed by Stephens and George Print Group<br />
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W E L C O M E T O M Y<br />
ULTIMATE GUIDE TO<br />
FEEDER FISHING<br />
IT WASN’T that long ago that fishing the<br />
feeder was viewed as an inferior way<br />
of catching, almost a last resort that<br />
required less skill and more luck than<br />
fishing the pole or waggler. Times have<br />
changed a bit since then!<br />
In fact, fishing the feeder has become a bit of<br />
an ‘in vogue’ thing in the UK and indeed across<br />
the continent with new feeder-0nly match<br />
competitions springing up every few months<br />
and more and more tackle companies producing<br />
feeder kit to keep pace with the demand.<br />
And I suppose I’ve been at the vanguard of<br />
this trend, having been lucky enough to be<br />
selected for the England Feeder Team in 2011<br />
and then be crowned World Champion in 2014.<br />
The feeder is a method I love, whether that’s<br />
casting a long way for bream at Ferry Meadows<br />
or plopping a tiny Method to the far side of a<br />
snake lake. What I love the most is that, like any<br />
way of fishing, there are lots of little things that<br />
you can do to get a bite.<br />
I’ve pooled my knowledge about the many<br />
aspects of feeder fishing alongside the best of<br />
my features from my Angling Times columns<br />
into this exhuastive bookazine and the finished<br />
product offers all you’ll ever need to know<br />
about using the feeder from catching carp on<br />
commercials to winkling<br />
out a few bream when the<br />
odds are against you.<br />
I hope you enjoy it!<br />
3
WHAT’S IN STORE INSIDE<br />
C O N T E N T S<br />
66-85<br />
TACKLE<br />
HYBRID FEEDER<br />
6-9 F EEDERS EXPLAINED<br />
Know your Methods from<br />
your Hybrids with Steve’s<br />
at-a-glance guide<br />
10-11 S ET UP CORRECTLY<br />
Organise your peg to fish the<br />
feeder efficiently<br />
12-13 T HE RIGHT RODS<br />
When to use a 9ft bomb rod<br />
over a 13ft distance model<br />
14-15 R EEL CHOICES<br />
Put yards on your cast by<br />
selecting the right reel<br />
16-17 L INES & BRAID<br />
Tie mono to braid and<br />
discover the hooklength<br />
materials Steve uses<br />
18-19 A LL ABOUT HOOKS<br />
The only patterns you’ll ever<br />
need for fishing the feeder<br />
20-21 A CCESSORIES<br />
Gear up with the little bits<br />
and bobs to make your<br />
feeder rigs deadly!<br />
METHOD FEEDER<br />
22-39<br />
42-43 H YBRID RIG<br />
Tie the perfect rig with this<br />
brilliant new feeder<br />
44-48 O N THE BANK<br />
See how Steve fishes the<br />
Hybrid in this great feature<br />
49-51 M INI HYBRID<br />
Keep on bagging in the cold<br />
with this toned down attack.<br />
52-53 H YBRID BAITS<br />
Why Wafters are the number<br />
one hookbait to use<br />
PELLET FEEDER<br />
56-57 P ELLET FEEDER RIG<br />
Turn every bite into a<br />
guaranteed fish in the net by<br />
fishing this brilliant rig<br />
58-61 H OW TO FISH IT<br />
Steve proves that bream love<br />
pellets just as much as carp<br />
on mixed fisheries.<br />
62-65 M ICRO PELLET FEEDER<br />
How you can catch big<br />
weight by scaling down your<br />
feeder tactics<br />
GROUNDBAIT FEEDER<br />
68-69 B REAM FEEDER RIG<br />
The famous Ferry Meadows<br />
rocket feeder rig explained<br />
70-71 F EEDERLINKS<br />
Tie your own and eliminate<br />
annoying tangles<br />
96-107<br />
78-79 C AST FURTHER!<br />
Six simple fixes from Steve<br />
82-85 S CALED-DOWN CAGE<br />
Drop down to a cage feeder<br />
to get bites in winter<br />
MAGGOT FEEDER<br />
STEVE’S TOP MATCHES<br />
108-109 FAVOURITE MATCHES<br />
A very special day with a<br />
new match record and a ton<br />
of big bream!<br />
110-113 I RISH BAGGING<br />
Full speed ahead for Irish<br />
roach at the World Pairs.<br />
116-119 K ING OF THE WORLD!<br />
Re-live how Steve became<br />
World Feeder Champion<br />
24-25 M ETHOD RIG<br />
How to tie Steve’s winning<br />
rig for this popular summer<br />
feeder attack<br />
26-30 P OP-UP METHOD<br />
Catch well in the summer<br />
with this unusual take on the<br />
traditional Method feeder<br />
32-36 W INTER METHOD<br />
Keep bites coming in the<br />
cold with top advice and a<br />
few simple tweaks<br />
72-75 L ONG-DISTANCE SLABS<br />
On the bank with Steve in<br />
search of big bream<br />
76-77 T OP BREAM BAITS<br />
Bream love hair-rigged<br />
worms – find out why<br />
86-93<br />
88-89 MAGGOT FEEDER RIG<br />
How to put together this<br />
simple set-up for F1s<br />
90-93 M IGHTY MAGGOTS!<br />
The maggot feeder is not<br />
just for river chub, as Steve<br />
shows at Packington Somers<br />
STRAIGHT LEAD<br />
98-101 T HE BOMB DEBUNKED<br />
Get the most out of the lead<br />
in this exhaustive feature<br />
120-121 F ISHING FOR ENGLAND<br />
What it takes to pull on the<br />
three lions fishing shirt<br />
...AND FINALLY<br />
122-125 W HERE TO FISH<br />
Fill you boots by visiting one<br />
of Steve’s top 10 UK venues<br />
for fishing the feeder.<br />
126-127 E SSENTIAL KNOTS<br />
How to tie the knots you<br />
need for safe feeder rigs<br />
38-39 M ETHOD BAITS<br />
What to put on the hook and<br />
around the feeder<br />
102-105 A NEW TYPE OF BOMB<br />
Get on the Impact Bomb this<br />
summer for big-fish action<br />
122-125 G LOSSARY<br />
Every feeder fishing term<br />
explained in detail.<br />
5
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
KNOW<br />
YOUR<br />
FEEDERS<br />
When should you fish a Method<br />
over an open-end? All is revealed...<br />
IT’S not only floats that can send<br />
your head into a bit of a spin when it<br />
comes to picking the right one to suit<br />
your fishing – feeder choice is just as<br />
perplexing, given the sheer number of<br />
types on the market.<br />
Years ago it was a straight pick between a<br />
plastic open-end for lake bream or a blockend<br />
for river chub, but the advent of commercial<br />
carp has introduced a whole new breed of<br />
feeders. They keep on coming, too, with the<br />
Guru Hybrid the latest feeder to hit the banks.<br />
Standard open-end feeders are sub-divided<br />
into cage, rocket and plastic varieties, so it’s<br />
no wonder that you can easily pick the wrong<br />
feeder before you’ve even wet a line.<br />
To help you make the right choice, over the<br />
next few pages I’ve broken down each type of<br />
feeder in my box and when it is best used.<br />
I store my feeders in a large<br />
box as this makes locating the<br />
right one a quick and easy job<br />
– no rummaging around here!<br />
BULLET FEEDER<br />
This is a type of maggot feeder with the<br />
weight built into one end. That makes<br />
for a feeder that casts accurately and<br />
goes a long way in windy weather.<br />
METHOD FEEDER<br />
I’ll pick a Method when I want to be<br />
attacking with my feeding in the<br />
summer and get lots of pellets into the<br />
peg when carp are the main target.<br />
WINDOW FEEDER<br />
Ireland’s big loughs seem to respond to<br />
this unique feeder. Brilliant for getting a<br />
quantity of particle baits to the bottom,<br />
especially chopped worm and caster.<br />
HYBRID FEEDER<br />
A cross between a Method and pellet<br />
feeder that’s a little more refined than<br />
both. Side walls stop the bait breaking<br />
away on the way down.<br />
PELLET FEEDER<br />
I don’t use a pellet feeder that much<br />
nowadays but they do allow you to<br />
regulate your feeding precisely and are<br />
very good in late autumn/early winter.<br />
MAGGOT FEEDER<br />
Great on winter venues when there’s a<br />
stock of mixed fish such as F1s, barbel<br />
and skimmers that are tuned into eating<br />
maggots rather than pellets.<br />
6
FEEDER CHOICE<br />
TACKLE<br />
On commercial fisheries, the Method or<br />
Hybrid feeder now rules the roost.<br />
7
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
O P E N - E N D<br />
F E E D E R S<br />
LARGE CAGE FEEDER<br />
These massive cage<br />
feeders see the light of day<br />
when I want to get lots of<br />
groundbait and particles<br />
down quickly for bream.<br />
CAGE FEEDER<br />
Lets bait out as it falls<br />
through the water, and<br />
is excellent for putting<br />
attraction in the swim when<br />
after roach and skimmers.<br />
INLINE CAGE FEEDER<br />
Should you prefer to use an<br />
inline cage, these are the<br />
ones to pick. I use them on<br />
commercials when fishing<br />
for F1s and skimmers.<br />
SOLID OPEN END FEEDER<br />
A standard open end<br />
feeder but without the<br />
holes. This ensures that<br />
nothing comes out of the<br />
feeder until it hits bottom.<br />
B O M B F E E D E R S<br />
OPEN-END E N FEEDER<br />
E E This is the open-end feeder<br />
that most of us will be<br />
familiar with. They still take<br />
some beating for bream,<br />
fished on a moderate cast.<br />
GURU CUBE<br />
My standard bomb for carp work. The<br />
square shape casts very well, and with<br />
the supplied stem there’s the option to<br />
fish it as an elasticated version.<br />
GURU IMPACT BOMB<br />
When the carp want a bit of feed but<br />
not feederfuls, these bombs let you<br />
introduce small helpings of micro<br />
pellets alongside your hookbait.<br />
FEEDER WEIGHTS<br />
It’s not only the overall size of feeder<br />
that should dictate the feeder you pick<br />
– weight is just as important to ensure<br />
accurate casting each time.<br />
8
FEEDER CHOICE<br />
D I S T A N C E F E E D E R S<br />
TACKLE<br />
GURU ROCKET FEEDER<br />
These are due out in the coming months<br />
and are a standard weight-forward<br />
rocket feeder for bream fishing. They<br />
also feature changeable weights.<br />
MATRIX BULLET FEEDER<br />
A real brute of a feeder for wild<br />
conditions – especially Ireland! Their<br />
shape helps with long casts while the<br />
cage means a quick release of bait.<br />
MINI DISTANCE FEEDER<br />
Effectively the same as the Kev Leach<br />
feeders but in a smaller size for shorter<br />
casts and when not too much feed is<br />
needed to keep the fish happy.<br />
KEV LEACH DISTANCE FEEDER<br />
The distance feeder that’s won me lots<br />
of matches at Ferry Meadows! With<br />
the weight built into one end, they cast<br />
superbly and are deadly accurate.<br />
INLINE OR ELASTICATED?<br />
Where permitted I will always opt to<br />
use an inline elasticated feeder. They<br />
offer security against hook-pulls when<br />
playing fish under the rod-tip.<br />
Match elastic<br />
strength to<br />
size of fish.<br />
9
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
ARE YOU SITTING<br />
COMFORTABLY<br />
TO FISH THE TIP?<br />
Set up correctly and see your catch rate rocket with Steve’s advice!<br />
FEEDER fishing is not like using the<br />
pole or waggler, where you’re quite<br />
active throughout the day with<br />
casting and feeding – instead you’ll<br />
be spending a lot of time sitting still<br />
watching and waiting for the tip to be<br />
pulled round.<br />
It therefore figures that your platform to fish<br />
from should be as comfortable as you can make<br />
it, with everything you’re likely to need easy to<br />
get to and in its rightful place.<br />
Look at my feeder set-up and you’ll see differences<br />
from how you may organise your kit for<br />
fishing at 16m of pole, for example.<br />
Put simply, when the tip goes round I want<br />
to be able to focus on what the fish is doing and<br />
not be groping around for the landing net that’s<br />
up the bank behind me!<br />
4<br />
1<br />
7<br />
8<br />
6<br />
7<br />
10
COMFORT ON THE BANK<br />
TACKLE<br />
LANDING NET<br />
I actually use a second Reaper<br />
back rest to place my landing net<br />
1<br />
on. This keeps it off the floor,<br />
where it can too easily get broken or<br />
slide into the lake!<br />
SEATBOX<br />
You may see some anglers that<br />
are fishing the feeder position<br />
2<br />
their box at a slight angle off to<br />
the side so it points roughly in the same<br />
direction as the rod will out into the<br />
lake. I don’t do this – instead I have the<br />
box facing forwards as normal. This<br />
allows me to fish the pole later on in the<br />
day if I set it up, and also lets me net<br />
fish directly in front of me.<br />
REAPER BACK REST<br />
A few years ago I would have<br />
popped the rod handle on my<br />
3<br />
side tray or my lap, but carp bites<br />
are fierce and can drag the rod in!<br />
Guru’s Reaper back rest actually grips<br />
the handle to prevent it being dislodged<br />
by a carp. A brilliant little gadget!<br />
FEEDER ARM & REAPER ROD REST<br />
How you angle the rod is down to<br />
personal choice but I like to leave<br />
4<br />
around a 45° angle. This still<br />
shows up bites, even from skimmers.<br />
Daiwa’s feeder rest is rock solid and the<br />
Guru Reaper rod rest allows me to place<br />
the rod in multiple positions so I can get<br />
the perfect tension.<br />
SPARE FEEDERS<br />
Over the course of a session you<br />
may need to up the size of feeder<br />
5<br />
that you are using or, if you’re<br />
unlucky, replace it after a crack-off.<br />
They’re too heavy to keep in the<br />
seatbox so I have a carry case packed<br />
full of feeders that I place behind my<br />
box. This lets me organise feeders so<br />
that I can find a specific one in seconds.<br />
SIDE TRAY<br />
In winter my tray probably won’t<br />
have many bait tubs on it but in<br />
6<br />
summer, especially at venues<br />
such as Ferry Meadows when I’m after<br />
bream, I can have several baits as well<br />
as groundbait on the go at once. As a<br />
result, I need a big stable tray to take<br />
this weight and take casters, worms,<br />
dead maggots, corn, micro pellets and<br />
meat. My tray is made by Fab Trays and<br />
is perfect for the job.<br />
9<br />
2<br />
3<br />
BAITS AND ACCESSORIES<br />
These are what will take up most<br />
of the space on your tray. I try to<br />
7<br />
use as big a bait tub as I can so<br />
that I can have as much bait as possible<br />
to hand. There’s nothing worse than<br />
running out of micro pellets and having<br />
to get off your box to find some more.<br />
I’ll also have things such as chopped<br />
worm scissors for bream fishing, baiting<br />
tools, disgorger and spare Hybrid or<br />
Method feeders made up and ready to<br />
go on the tray, along with my flask if the<br />
fishing isn’t very good!<br />
HAND TOWEL<br />
If you’re the sort of angler that<br />
wipes their hands down the front<br />
8<br />
of their trousers or top after<br />
landing a fish, do yourself a favour and<br />
get a decent quality hand towel. Having<br />
clean hands makes baiting up so much<br />
easier, especially when it’s cold and<br />
raining, and a towel is a godsend when<br />
dealing wih bream slime or for wiping<br />
groundbait off your hands.<br />
10<br />
KEEPNET<br />
This is placed on the opposite<br />
side of my swim to where the rod<br />
9<br />
is pointing, and basically clears<br />
more open water in front of me to net a<br />
fish without it trying to get behind the<br />
net. You can even use a keepnet as a<br />
basic rod rest if needed.<br />
5<br />
SPARE RODS<br />
On so many matches nowadays I<br />
will set up more than one feeder<br />
10<br />
rod, and to avoid having them get<br />
tangled up in the grass or bankside<br />
nettles I use this smart rod holder<br />
system that slots on to my box leg. This<br />
can take three rods and can be angled<br />
to keep spare rods away from mischief.<br />
11
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
PICK THE<br />
RIGHT<br />
ROD FOR<br />
THE JOB<br />
Does a 12ft rod make any difference<br />
to your fishing? Steve reckons so...<br />
HOW times have changed! When<br />
I was a kid I had one feeder rod<br />
that could be used for everything<br />
from catching bream on rivers to<br />
throwing out a bomb with a bit of<br />
corn on the end for carp.<br />
Not today, though. That’s because every<br />
good tackle manufacturer now makes a range<br />
of feeder rods to achieve very specific jobs –<br />
such has been the changing face of fishing in<br />
the UK over the past 30 years.<br />
Commercial carp have played a big role<br />
in that, but on rivers and lakes we’ve found<br />
the need for longer and more powerful rods<br />
for bream and skimmers. The days of giving<br />
yourself a hernia trying to cast 60 yards with an<br />
11ft rod are thankfully no more!<br />
For casting up to 90 yards, a 13ft feeder rod<br />
will make the job so much easier, whereas a<br />
gentle lob with a small feeder would suit a 9ft or<br />
10ft bomb-style rod.<br />
Action needs to be considered when picking<br />
a rod. What I look for is backbone in the lower<br />
part to provide casting power, changing to a<br />
softer through action in the middle and tip of<br />
the rod to avoid lost fish on the strike.<br />
Too soft a rod and you won’t be able to cast<br />
accurately... too stiff and you’ll lose more fish<br />
than you land. Finding the balance is key.<br />
Picking the correct rod will make<br />
hitting your mark an absolute doddle.<br />
QUIVERTIP EYES<br />
Just as you would<br />
when considering rings<br />
on the main rod, so the<br />
guides on a quivertip<br />
should be correct.<br />
Braid fishing requires<br />
bigger rings to let<br />
shockleader knots pass<br />
through, while straight<br />
mono fishing suits<br />
standard guides.<br />
12
CHOOSING A FEEDER ROD<br />
TACKLE<br />
DAIWA TOURNAMENT 9FT<br />
This is a very slender rod with no real<br />
casting backbone. It’s perfect for winter<br />
bomb fishing or for flicking a small<br />
feeder underarm to snake lake far banks<br />
in windy weather. It is incredibly soft in<br />
its action and so is ideal for F1 work.<br />
DAIWA TOURNAMENT 10FT<br />
Very similar to the 9ft Tournament but<br />
with that extra foot of length to allow<br />
longer casts. I use this rod for much of<br />
my general commercial fishery work<br />
when casting to islands up to 30m away.<br />
or into open water.<br />
DAIWA TOURNAMENT 11FT<br />
My favourite rod of the range. It is very<br />
versatile and can be used for carp work,<br />
although I think it is a brilliant roach<br />
and skimmer rod for use in Ireland – in<br />
fact, this is the rod that I used to win the<br />
World Champs at Inniscarra in 2014.<br />
DAIWA TOURNAMENT 12/13FT<br />
We’re in the realm of the big boys now,<br />
and this multi-length rod is designed<br />
for long casts on commercials such<br />
as Barston Lakes or in Ireland, on the<br />
big loughs. I tend to use it almost<br />
exclusively at its 12ft length.<br />
DAIWA TOURNAMENT 13FT HEAVY<br />
When I need to cast a long way, this is<br />
the rod to do it! I can throw a feeder<br />
up to 90 yards at Ferry Meadows with<br />
ease and because of its power, it is best<br />
suited to big-fish situations as opposed<br />
to catching skimmers and roach.<br />
TEAM DAIWA POWER MATCH 11FT<br />
Relatively new, but a rod that I’ve<br />
already grown to love. This is a brute of<br />
a rod with lots of power and can cast a<br />
bomb or feeder a very long way. I use it<br />
a lot in winter at Boddington Reservoir<br />
when I’m after big carp.<br />
Pick each<br />
rod to do a<br />
specific job.<br />
13
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
WHY<br />
REEL<br />
CHOICE<br />
MATTERS<br />
JUST as it is vital to pick a rod that’s<br />
suited to the type of feeder fishing<br />
that you plan on doing, so too should<br />
the reel that’s going to be strapped<br />
on to the handle be fully capable of<br />
getting the job done.<br />
This is something I’ve learned in the last<br />
decade or so, when I’ve found more and more<br />
of my feeder work requiring longer casts. A<br />
normal match-type reel hasn’t got the guts to<br />
go the distance. These smaller reels are built<br />
for trotting floats or casting wagglers up to 30<br />
yards. Beyond this they struggle.<br />
Fortunately, the big-carp world has stepped<br />
in. Carp anglers regularly cast over 100 yards<br />
and use massive reels to suit – so by slimming<br />
these ‘big pit’ models down to suit match<br />
fishing, we now have big reels for big casts.<br />
The difference they make is astounding.<br />
But if you don’t need one of these beasts for<br />
your feeder fishing, you can invest in a feedertype<br />
reel. This will share many of the traits of<br />
a mini big pit, but at half the<br />
size and price!<br />
From mini ‘big pits’ to beefed-up<br />
match models, they all play their part<br />
1<br />
14
CHOOSING A FEEDER REEL<br />
The TDR 4012<br />
is my general<br />
feeder reel.<br />
2<br />
For big casts<br />
you can’t beat<br />
the Cast’izm!<br />
TACKLE<br />
THE REELS STEVE USES...<br />
RATHER than getting bogged down<br />
with several reels on my rods, I’ve cut<br />
my choice down to just two Daiwa models<br />
for all my feeder work both at home<br />
and when fishing abroad. Although both<br />
come in different sizes, I find that one<br />
size really does fit all!<br />
DAIWA TDR 4012A<br />
TDRs are legendary among float<br />
anglers in the smaller sizes and<br />
1<br />
the bigger 4012A is just perfect in<br />
terms of size, power and casting for<br />
much of my general feeder work on<br />
commercial fisheries and lakes. It packs<br />
a lot of winding power and I do get<br />
asked a lot why I use such a heavy reel.<br />
My answer is that I’m not actually<br />
holding the rod unless I’m playing a fish,<br />
so it doesn’t matter!<br />
DAIWA CAST’IZM 25QDA<br />
Daiwa’s mini big pit reel is a bit of<br />
a beast, and that’s fine by me!<br />
2<br />
The cranking power is awesome<br />
and that makes it capable of battling big<br />
carp and bream at range, while the big<br />
spool produces less friction on the cast<br />
to let me throw a bomb or feeder a long<br />
way. This is the reel I use when I am<br />
chucking up to 90 yards at Boddington<br />
Reservoir or Ferry Meadows.<br />
“THE DIFFERENCE THAT A MINI<br />
BIG PIT REEL MAKES TO YOUR<br />
CAST IS ASTOUNDING!”<br />
15
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
GET ON THE<br />
RIGHT LINES!<br />
From braid to mono, here’s how to make<br />
sense of line for feeder fishing use<br />
Braid fishing requires a<br />
shockleader to cut down on<br />
lost fish under the rod-tip or<br />
crack-offs on the cast. I build<br />
around four turns of 8lb or 10lb<br />
Daiwa Tournament ST into my<br />
rig to act as that vital cushion.<br />
AT FIRST glance, picking a line for<br />
feeder fishing can be a daunting.<br />
Do you go for mono? When does<br />
baid work? Is fluorocarbon worth it?<br />
The days of winding a spool of 4lb<br />
Maxima on to your reel and asking it<br />
to do everything are gone.<br />
I think that most of us understand breaking<br />
strains relative to the size of fish being targeted<br />
but there is more to it than meets the eye.<br />
Mono still rules the roost and is my mainline<br />
for 90 per cent of my fishing but there are times<br />
when braid is utterly dominant and occasions<br />
when a heavier mono shockleader built into<br />
your rig can help your fishing.<br />
Even hooklength materials can throw up<br />
questions in terms of diameter and the material<br />
you’re using in the first place, but I have some<br />
very simple rules that you can follow when the<br />
times comes to reload your reels with line.<br />
I’m happy to fish either Guru<br />
Pulse or Daiwa Hyper Sensor<br />
as mono mainlines as both are<br />
supple, tough and sink well<br />
after a few casts. Around 150m<br />
is ample to load on to a reel.<br />
Here’s a line that sees the<br />
light of day when I go over to<br />
Ireland fishing for roach and<br />
skimmers. Drennan Double<br />
Strength is very strong for its<br />
diameter, but incredibly fine.<br />
16
CHOOSING LINES FOR FEEDER FISHING<br />
TACKLE<br />
STEP-BY-STEP – TYING BRAID TO MONO<br />
1<br />
The first job is to create a loop in the<br />
braid. I make mine 1.5ins-2ins long to<br />
give some flexibility. Simply pass the<br />
braid back on itself to start.<br />
2<br />
Time to tie the loop off. I use the figure<br />
of eight knot and this is done to begin<br />
with by passing the doubled braid back<br />
over itself, as above.<br />
Fluorocarbon isn’t something<br />
that you’ll see a lot of feeder<br />
anglers using but in winter,<br />
when the water is clear, it plays<br />
a part for smaller fish such as<br />
skimmers and F1s. I wouldn’t<br />
use it for carp, though!<br />
Braid’s lack of stretch means<br />
that bites are magnified and its<br />
low diameter makes for long<br />
and accurate casting. I use<br />
0.10mm Guru Pulse 8 for my<br />
short-range work, Tournament<br />
Evo for longer casts.<br />
3<br />
Now pass the end of the braid<br />
underneath the loop that you have<br />
made and back to bring it through the<br />
loop. Pull tight to create the knot.<br />
4<br />
This is the finished loop. It has to be big<br />
enough to pass the shockleader mono<br />
through but the knot must be small<br />
enough to pass through the rod rings.<br />
5<br />
Take the shockleader mono and thread<br />
it through the loop. I like to have around<br />
four turns of shock leader on my reel<br />
when the feeder’s ready to cast.<br />
6<br />
Now it is time to tie the leader on to the<br />
braid. This uses a double tucked blood<br />
knot that will take into account any<br />
slippage of the knot when fishing.<br />
Guru N-Gauge isn’t just a line<br />
for making pole rigs from –<br />
it is also my main hooklink<br />
material for feeder fishing on<br />
commercials or for big bream<br />
work at home and in Ireland.<br />
7<br />
Once the double tucked blood knot is<br />
tied, I make sure that the tag ends on<br />
both the braid and mono are trimmed<br />
very short to help on the cast.<br />
8<br />
The finished knot that’s very neat, won’t<br />
cause tangles and can pass through the<br />
rod rings with ease when casting. It is<br />
also very strong and extremely flexible.<br />
17
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
Steve ties his hooks<br />
in advance and stores<br />
them on spools.<br />
M A K I N G T H E<br />
RIGHT<br />
HOOK<br />
CHOICE<br />
They’re the most important part<br />
of your rig, but are you picking<br />
the right one for the job?<br />
AS THE part of your rig that is in<br />
the most direct contact with<br />
a fish, it stands to reason that<br />
selecting the right hook is the<br />
most important choice to make<br />
when tackling up on the feeder.<br />
Because you are fishing at<br />
reasonable ranges, a lot of presure is placed<br />
on the hook during the strike and battle. You<br />
may also need to hair-rig baits in summer or<br />
scale down with small baits in cold weather.<br />
That means having a versatile selection<br />
in your hook box. I limit my selection to the<br />
following six patterns for my feeder fishing...<br />
TUBERTINI SERIES 18<br />
My standard hook for roach and hybrid<br />
fishing in Ireland. The Series 18 is very<br />
strong for its size and I tend to use them<br />
in big sizes (10-14). Another bonus is<br />
that they stay sharp for a long time.<br />
KAMASAN B512<br />
For catching small fish at speed in<br />
Ireland the B512 is my favourite, as it<br />
has a long shank that makes unhooking<br />
fish so much faster. They’re also a very<br />
sharp and durable pattern.<br />
18
THE RIGHT HOOK FOR THE JOB<br />
TACKLE<br />
GURU LWGF FEEDER SPECIAL<br />
When fishing natural venues for<br />
skimmers and when I want to hook baits<br />
normally (ie. not hair-rig them) these<br />
are superb in sizes 12 to 16.<br />
GURU QM1<br />
A legendary hook on commercial<br />
fisheries – an out-and-out carp pattern<br />
for hair-rigging pellets, boilies and<br />
Wafters. I use them in sizes 10 to 14.<br />
GURU SUPER MWG<br />
If I am fishing for more of a mixed<br />
bag on commercial fisheries (F1s and<br />
skimmers) then I change from the QM1<br />
to these hooks in sizes 14 to 18. Being<br />
eyed, they’re perfect for hair-rigging.<br />
GURU MWGB BARBED<br />
A barbed hook comes into play on<br />
bream waters like Ferry Meadows, but<br />
it still needs an eyed pattern to hairrig<br />
worms or corn. I can’t fault these in<br />
sizes 18 and 16.<br />
19
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
LITTLE THINGS<br />
THAT COUNT<br />
Why those small bits and bobs can make such a difference<br />
FEEDER fishing is about much more<br />
than just a rod, a reel and a feeder.<br />
There are dozens of little accessories<br />
that can be used in rigs or employed<br />
to make the job a whole lot easier.<br />
A good feeder arm and rod rest head are<br />
essential, and a pair of distance sticks will<br />
ensure you’re fishing at the same range if you<br />
need to tackle up again after a crack-off.<br />
When it comes to rigs, I’ve got a boxful of<br />
little bits and pieces – some borrowed from the<br />
carp world – to help make my set-up as effcient<br />
as possible. They all have their part to play!<br />
REAPER BACK REST<br />
This gripper-style back rest<br />
will hold the rod butt securely<br />
in place, stopping it being<br />
dragged in by a savage<br />
carp bite. It also adds to the<br />
overall stability when you are<br />
waiting for a take.<br />
DISTANCE STICKS<br />
S<br />
These let you make a<br />
note of the distance you<br />
are fishing at so if you<br />
have to tackle up again<br />
you know that you’re<br />
right on the money.<br />
FEEDER E E ARMS<br />
Invest in a good quality feeder arm and<br />
you’ll immediately have a rock-solid<br />
platform to put the rod on – no more<br />
rods nodding like a donkey.<br />
REAPER ROD REST<br />
With multiple positioning<br />
points you can get the<br />
correct tension in the<br />
rod-tip every time.<br />
20
ESSENTIAL FEEDER ACCCESSORIES<br />
TACKLE<br />
BAIT BAYONETS<br />
There is the odd occasion when I won’t<br />
want to band or hair-rig a bait in the<br />
normal way. These bayonets allow me to<br />
pierce a boilie or piece of meat quickly.<br />
BAIT BANDS<br />
Banded pellet is a deadly bait on the<br />
bomb or feeder. Guru’s Micro Bands are<br />
very strong and can take a battering<br />
and a 6mm pellet with ease.<br />
HAIR STOPS<br />
These are standard stops for securing<br />
hair-rigged baits in place. They’re<br />
especially useful for softer baits, and<br />
the small size makes them unobtrusive.<br />
LEAD CLIPS & SNAP LINK SWIVELS<br />
Snap links let me change open-end<br />
feeders quickly, while lead clips help to<br />
create an anti-tangle rig when fishing<br />
with light bombs.<br />
SILICONE TUBING<br />
I’ll pop a tiny piece of tubing into the<br />
hook shank when hair-rigging as this<br />
will keep the hair in place and increase<br />
the chances of a proper take.<br />
SPEED E STOPS<br />
S<br />
Another type of bait stop, and one that<br />
is important for me when fishing for<br />
bream with worms. I can hair-rig with<br />
these and know that they are secure.<br />
LINE STOPS<br />
S<br />
Some of my running feeder rigs will<br />
have a line stop to act as a secure buffer<br />
and to prevent the feeder from sliding<br />
down the hooklength.<br />
SPEED BEADS<br />
Another type of buffer on running<br />
rigs, these let me change hooklengths<br />
quickly so I can try a different hookbait<br />
without having to bait up.<br />
21
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
METHOD<br />
FEEDER<br />
22
METHOD RIG<br />
Create the ultimate<br />
Method rig that’s 100%<br />
safe and hugely effective.<br />
PAGES 24 - 25<br />
SUMMER METHOD<br />
Add a pop-up boilie to<br />
your summer Method<br />
attack and bag up!<br />
PAGES 26 - 30<br />
WINTER METHOD<br />
There’s no need to bin<br />
the Method in winter if<br />
you follow Steve’s advice.<br />
PAGES 32 - 36<br />
METHOD BAITS<br />
Make your decision an<br />
easy one by picking from<br />
these top hookbaits.<br />
PAGES 38 - 39<br />
23
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
FISH THE<br />
METHOD<br />
FEEDER<br />
Go positive for a big net of carp<br />
<strong>ANG</strong>LERS who fish commercial<br />
waters for carp will be familiar with<br />
the Method feeder, a very positive<br />
way of catching carp and F1s<br />
throughout the year but one which<br />
I believe works best in warmer<br />
weather when fish are at their most<br />
active – and hungry!<br />
In fact, the Method was the first style of<br />
feeder that I used for carp way back in the day<br />
on places such as Castle Ashby Lakes, fishing<br />
with massive Emstat and Kobra models that<br />
featured a central brass stem as the weight and<br />
which were all elasticated.<br />
This was the set-up I used to win the Fish<br />
O’Mania final in 1998 at Hayfield Lakes.<br />
Today, though, we now have the pick of inline<br />
or elasticated feeders and a range of sizes and<br />
weights to suit the water we’re fishing, but one<br />
thing remains the same.<br />
The Method is very positive and very<br />
attacking, letting you get plenty of feed into<br />
the swim over a session, making it ideal for<br />
catching lots of hungry carp.<br />
W H E N T O U S E I T<br />
For catching big weights of carp in<br />
warmer weather when lots of feed is<br />
needed to hold the fish in the swim.<br />
W H Y U S E I T ?<br />
The Method feeder allows you to<br />
place the hookbait in among the feed<br />
at long range so that when a carp<br />
breaks open the ball of goodies, it<br />
finds your hookbait immediately.<br />
H O W T O T I E I T<br />
1 Thread feeder on to the mainline.<br />
2 Take the line and create a 6ins<br />
twizzled loop that the feeder can<br />
slide down with ease.<br />
3 Within this twizzled length tie in a<br />
Guru Speed Bead, trapping it at the<br />
end of the twizzled loop.<br />
4 Run the feeder down the line so that<br />
it sits against the bead.<br />
5 Now attach your hooklink and hook<br />
on to the crook of the bead.<br />
Hook<br />
That’s a Guru QM1<br />
every time – it’s the<br />
perfect hair-rigging<br />
hook for carp, in sizes<br />
14 or 16.<br />
Hooklink<br />
Most fisheries insist<br />
of a minimum of a<br />
4ins hooklink and I<br />
fish with 0.17mm Guru<br />
N-Gauge.<br />
Speed Bead<br />
This acts as a buffer<br />
and lets me change<br />
hooklinks (and so use<br />
different hookbaits) in<br />
a matter of seconds.<br />
24
ANATOMY OF A METHOD FEEDER<br />
METHOD<br />
FEEDER RIG<br />
Stems<br />
When allowed, I<br />
would fish the Method<br />
elasticated using black<br />
or white Hydro based<br />
on the size of fish.<br />
Mainline<br />
Something tough is<br />
needed when casting<br />
regularly, and I pick<br />
Guru Pulse in 8lb<br />
breaking strain.<br />
Feeder<br />
Guru’s X-Safe feeders<br />
allow me to fish inline<br />
or elasticated. I fish<br />
the 36g size in most<br />
situations.<br />
Feed<br />
Nothing more than<br />
pellets, namely<br />
Ringers Method Micros<br />
dampened down to<br />
help them stick.<br />
25
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
I N T R O D U C I N G T H E<br />
POP-UP METHOD<br />
Get on this new set-up that’s transformed Steve’s feeder fishing<br />
SOME of the best ideas in fishing<br />
are often the simplest, and Guru’s<br />
Method feeder clip most certainly<br />
falls into that category.<br />
This brilliant little device transforms<br />
a normal Method feeder into one that<br />
allows you to fish popped-up baits on it.<br />
Now, pop-ups are very effective when fished<br />
on the feeder but I’ve never felt they were being<br />
presented properly. The biggest issue I always<br />
had was keeping the hookbait in among the<br />
loose offerings. It always tended to move away<br />
due to both the stiffness of the hooklength and<br />
the fact that it was attached to the base of the<br />
feeder.<br />
The answer was, of course, to attach the<br />
hookbait to the middle of the feeder, therefore<br />
keeping it in the perfect position amid the loose<br />
offerings. This is where the Method feeder clip<br />
comes in.<br />
26
POP-UP METHOD<br />
METHOD<br />
FEEDER<br />
27
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
Without the clip, you just wouldn’t get<br />
enough bites fishing a pop-up on the hook!<br />
28
POP-UP METHOD<br />
THE METHOD FEEDER<br />
HOOKBAIT<br />
Nothing more complex than an<br />
8mm or 10mm pink or yellow<br />
Ringers pop-up!<br />
METHOD<br />
FEEDER<br />
CLIP POSITION<br />
Fix the Method clip in the<br />
middle of the feeder to put the<br />
pop-up amid the pellets.<br />
LENGTH OF LINK<br />
Altering the clip leaves 2ins of<br />
line for the link, which speeds<br />
up how fast I get a bite.<br />
FEEDER CHOICE<br />
As always this is the reliable<br />
Guru X-Safe... the weight<br />
depends on how far I need<br />
to cast.<br />
Pink and yellow are top bait colours.<br />
HOW IT WORKS<br />
The Method clip comes in two sizes, small and<br />
large, and is designed to fit the two sizes of<br />
Guru Method feeders that I use.<br />
It’s easy to attach and basically sits on top of<br />
the feeder’s bait platform in the middle of the<br />
feeder.<br />
The clip has a rubber slot in the middle which<br />
safely grips the hooklength, so that once a fish<br />
sucks in the hookbait it feels the bolt effect a lot<br />
quicker. The chances of a fish getting away with<br />
it are vastly reduced too.<br />
Once the fish is hooked, the line is pulled free<br />
from the clip so you are able to play the fish in<br />
the normal manner.<br />
The beauty of the clip is that it’s so easy<br />
to vary the length of your hooklength while<br />
maintaining perfect bait presentation.<br />
HOOKLENGTHS<br />
I still use a 4ins hooklength, as would normally<br />
be the case when fishing the Method, but by<br />
varying where I put the line in the clip I can fish<br />
with as long or short a hooklength as I want,<br />
depending on how the fish are feeding on<br />
the day. Where I’m looking to catch mainly<br />
carp from 3lb to well into double figures I use a<br />
4ins hooklength of 0.19mm N-Gauge to a size<br />
12 QM1 hook and pop the bait up 2ins from the<br />
feeder.<br />
When fishing a pop-up, and having<br />
experimented a lot, I like to start off a session<br />
with the hookbait popping up around 2ins from<br />
the feeder.<br />
Once the feed breaks down, this leaves the<br />
hookbait just clear of the loose offerings and<br />
it is therefore the first thing a fish will see as it<br />
approaches the feeder, massively increasing<br />
your chances of a bite.<br />
One in the<br />
net for the<br />
pop-up Method!<br />
A little tip when using the clip is to fish with<br />
a relatively short hair. If it is too long there’s a<br />
chance the fish will feel resistance before the<br />
hook is actually in its mouth.<br />
With a short hair (with the bait just sitting off<br />
the back of the bend) this can’t happen. Long<br />
hairs, in my opinion, are not suited to short<br />
hooklengths.<br />
In terms of what to fish on the hook, two of<br />
my favourite summer colours for carp are pink<br />
and yellow with the Ringers 8mm or 10mm the<br />
most productive sizes for me.<br />
Around the feeder go dampened Ringers<br />
Method micro pellets – I leave groundbait out<br />
completely when fishing for carp.<br />
29
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
STEP-BY-STEP LOADING THE POP-UP FEEDER<br />
1<br />
Add the device to the bait platform on<br />
your Method feeder with the rubber<br />
hooklength clip upwards.<br />
2<br />
Pull your hooklength into the rubber<br />
clip and set it at the height you want the<br />
bait to sit – 2ins is a good starting point.<br />
3<br />
Fill your mould with your chosen bait – I<br />
have pellets here – and create a small<br />
indentation for the hookbait to sit in.<br />
4<br />
Add more of your pellet feed to the<br />
mould so it fills the mould and covers<br />
your hookbait.<br />
5<br />
Push the feeder into the mould as<br />
normal, applying plenty of pressure to<br />
make sure the pellets stick to the feeder.<br />
6<br />
Remove the feeder. For more bait I put<br />
extra pellets in the mould and then pop<br />
the feeder back in for a second layer.<br />
30
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STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
GET<br />
ON THE<br />
METHOD<br />
THIS<br />
WINTER<br />
Think the Method feeder is a<br />
summer-only tactic? Think again…<br />
MANY anglers think of the Method<br />
feeder as being very much a<br />
summer approach to catching<br />
on stillwaters. But, providing it<br />
is fished in the right manner, I’ve<br />
found it works all year round<br />
and it’s a tactic I’ve been using<br />
recently with a great deal of success.<br />
A lot of winter tip fishing is done with a<br />
straight lead and a single hookbait, and if you<br />
are on a shoal of carp this is a great way of<br />
catching them.<br />
However, there are times when it simply<br />
doesn’t work, and quite often I’ve chucked the<br />
Method feeder out and left it as a last resort,<br />
only to find that the tip goes around and I start<br />
catching fish!<br />
The benefit that the Method has over a<br />
straight lead and single hookbait is that the<br />
feeder offers that bit of extra attraction which<br />
might just be enough to get a bite or two.<br />
I’ve spent matches in winter solely on the<br />
Method, so don’t just think it’s a ‘get out of jail<br />
card’ trick to get a bite.<br />
Depending on the venue you’re fishing, you<br />
can make it work for you for the whole session –<br />
you just need to refine your approach and take<br />
the conditions into account.<br />
This will determine how you fish the feeder,<br />
the baits you use, and ultimately what you’ll<br />
catch.<br />
GROUNDBAIT OR PELLETS?<br />
This is the first choice you have to make, and<br />
it’s all about taking the conditions into account<br />
before deciding which bait to put around your<br />
feeder.<br />
If it’s been a wet winter then many venues will<br />
be extremely coloured, and in such cases<br />
32
WINTER METHOD<br />
METHOD<br />
FEEDER<br />
33
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
I feel carp tend to rely more on their sense of<br />
smell than sight to find food.<br />
When the water is coloured I tend to opt for<br />
a mix consisting of mainly pellets with a small<br />
amount of groundbait, and will add flavour to<br />
boost the mix.<br />
You don’t need a lot of groundbait, in fact just<br />
three handfuls is often enough for two pints<br />
of wetted-down 2mm Ringers Method micro<br />
pellets. The groundbait just gives me that little<br />
bit of extra attraction and smell which the carp<br />
can home in on.<br />
As well as using groundbait I’m a big believer<br />
in flavouring my pellets, again just for added<br />
attraction.<br />
IN CLEAR WATER<br />
Normal winter conditions, however, mean<br />
clear water and in this instance things change<br />
in terms of bait. I will drop the groundbait from<br />
the mix as I feel its effectiveness is lost in clear<br />
water. Instead look to use micro pellets with a<br />
boost of colour.<br />
By adding just a pinch of Mainline’s boilie dye<br />
in either orange or yellow to the wetted-down<br />
micros I can enhance the colour of the pellets<br />
and give the carp something to home in on<br />
visually in the clear water.<br />
It also I feel gives me an edge over those<br />
around me – after all, if everyone is using the<br />
same pellets, why will a carp come to yours as<br />
opposed to someone else’s? That bit of colour<br />
in clear water can make all the difference,<br />
which is why this is a trick I use a lot.<br />
PULLING POWER<br />
One of the reasons I use Ringers Method<br />
micros is that they take on flavour and colour<br />
really well. My favourite winter flavour for<br />
micros is Mainline’s Activ-8 liquid. This has a<br />
really meaty flavour that carp in the cold seem<br />
to love.<br />
I always add the Activ-8 once the pellets have<br />
already been soaked, rather than adding it to<br />
the water as some anglers do – this just dilutes<br />
the flavour and reduces the pulling power.<br />
SEAL IN THE GOO<br />
Another additive I use in coloured water is Goo,<br />
but rather than soaking it into the pellets I add<br />
it to the feeder when I’m forming the Method<br />
ball and then seal it in with a layer of pellets.<br />
This gives a slower release of the Goo and<br />
therefore prolonged attraction.<br />
I’ve had most success with the Caramel<br />
Cloud and Tutti Frutti Power Smoke versions.<br />
CASTING – IS DISTANCE KEY?<br />
A lot of anglers will tell you that on big waters<br />
such as Boddington or Clattercote Reservoirs,<br />
the further you cast, the more carp you’ll catch.<br />
Vary how far<br />
you cast to<br />
find the carp.<br />
Now, there will always be days when the carp<br />
can be at range, and under these circumstances<br />
it’s well worth learning how to cast in excess of<br />
80m. More often than not, though, you’ll find<br />
the carp a lot closer in.<br />
I well remember a match on Boddington<br />
where I fished at 70m-90m for the first three<br />
hours and managed just one carp. That left me<br />
scratching my head a bit.<br />
With little to lose, I dropped in at 45m after<br />
seeing others catch there and managed six carp<br />
for 48lb and a section win.<br />
I guess the message is that being able to cast a<br />
long way does gives you an extra string to your<br />
bow but location is everything, as is often the<br />
case with carp in winter.<br />
The quicker you can work out the right<br />
distance to fish, the more you’ll catch.<br />
MY TOP WINTER FEEDER HOOKBAITS<br />
1 2 3<br />
RINGERS ALLSORTS BOILIE<br />
Hookbait choice is entirely personal<br />
but I catch loads of fish on the orange<br />
Allsorts boilie in both coloured and clear<br />
water. I have caught on other colours<br />
too, but orange is very much my go-to<br />
colour and having spoken to others they<br />
also choose this as their favourite.<br />
PUNCHED MEAT SLICE<br />
Instead of using a whole cylinder of<br />
meat I cut the piece into a disc using<br />
my baiting needle. This makes the<br />
hookbait smaller and easier for the carp<br />
to suck up. It’s also perfect for burying<br />
in a Method ball, as there is no risk of it<br />
being crushed – it is already flat!<br />
BREAD DISCS<br />
This is probably the best winter bait of<br />
all. I compress the bread so that it sinks<br />
and I then fish three pieces of 8mm<br />
punch on the hair. Once the bread is in<br />
the water it swells up, and as a target<br />
bait in clear water it really does take<br />
some beating.<br />
34
WINTER METHOD<br />
METHOD<br />
FEEDER<br />
Give each cast<br />
roughly 20<br />
minutes before<br />
winding in.<br />
TIMING YOUR BITES<br />
I really can’t stress how<br />
important this is in<br />
winter. Nine times out<br />
of 10, if I’m getting a<br />
few bites a pattern will<br />
develop, and this will<br />
dictate how long I fish<br />
each cast for.<br />
As a rule I’ll kick off<br />
by fishing 20 minutes a<br />
cast and let bites dictate<br />
matters from then on.<br />
If I haven’t had a bite<br />
inside 20 minutes I wind<br />
in and repeat the process<br />
by casting to a new spot.<br />
Winter Method fishing<br />
isn’t about building a peg<br />
but more about trying to<br />
find the fish.<br />
35
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
Use a feeder that’s heavy<br />
enough to stay put once<br />
you have cast it.<br />
STEP-BY-STEP MAKING THE WINTER METHOD FEEDER<br />
1<br />
Add a thin layer of pellet and<br />
groundbait mix to the mould and drop<br />
your hair-rigged hookbait on top.<br />
Ensure the hook is lying flat on its side.<br />
2<br />
I like to seal in a small amount of Goo<br />
liquid additive. I drop it directly on to<br />
my hookbait to give it added attraction<br />
once the feed has done its job.<br />
3<br />
Now cover the hookbait with more of<br />
your pellet and groundbait mix so that<br />
the mould is overflowing. This ensures a<br />
neat ball is produced each time.<br />
4 5<br />
Give the feeder an extra-hard squeeze.<br />
This will seal the bait to the feeder... the<br />
pellets will compress but then return to<br />
their natural state in the water.<br />
It’s now time to turn the feeder out of<br />
the mould. The Guru Speed Mould is<br />
made of flexible rubber so there’s no<br />
danger of the ball breaking apart.<br />
6<br />
The finished feeder is streamlined<br />
for long-range fishing if necessary,<br />
and packed with visual and flavour<br />
attractants – what carp could resist it?<br />
36
GET THE BEST FROM YOUR METHOD FISHING<br />
METHOD<br />
TIPS<br />
TEN TOP<br />
METHOD<br />
TRICKS<br />
Master the basics of Method fishing<br />
1 ALWAYS BURY YOUR HOOKBAIT<br />
It never ceases to amaze me the number<br />
of anglers I see fishing the Method<br />
who leave the hookbait hanging out of<br />
the bottom of the feeder. The whole<br />
idea behind the Method is to get carp<br />
feeding on the loose offerings on the<br />
feeder, so it makes perfect sense to put<br />
your hookbait in among them.<br />
2 PICK A HEAVY FEEDER<br />
Choosing the right weight feeder is far<br />
more important than a lot of anglers<br />
realise. It’s absolutely vital that once the<br />
feeder hits the bottom you don’t move<br />
it. If the feeder moves, the hookbait<br />
gets pulled away from the loose<br />
offerings. When fishing into open water<br />
I use one as light as 24g. However, if I’m<br />
casting up to an island where it is likely<br />
that the feeder will be resting on a slope<br />
I will opt for 36g model.<br />
3 GIVE YOURSELF A SAFETY NET<br />
If allowed, I will always opt to use<br />
an elasticated feeder. The thinking<br />
behind it is that when I’m playing a fish<br />
the elastic acts as a shock absorber<br />
and helps to minimise hook-pulls,<br />
particularly when the fish is under the<br />
rod-tip and ready to be netted.<br />
2<br />
1<br />
4 CLIP UP TO BUILD A SWIM<br />
As with any type of feeder fishing the<br />
key to success with the Method is to<br />
build a swim up by regularly casting to<br />
the same spot. The best way of doing<br />
this is to use the line clip on your reel’s<br />
spool to ensure you are hitting the same<br />
spot every time. I also try and pick an<br />
immovable marker to cast at.<br />
5 THINK ABOUT YOUR HOOKBAITS<br />
I use two types of hookbaits – ‘blend<br />
in’ and ‘stand out’. Blend in baits<br />
match the bait around the feeder. For<br />
instance, if I’m fishing 2mm pellets<br />
around the feeder I’ll use a 6mm hard<br />
pellet hookbaits. At the opposite end of<br />
the spectrum we have stand out baits<br />
such as mini fluoro boilies. These work<br />
because they are bright and highly<br />
visible to fish.<br />
6 A 4ins HOOKLENGTH IS BEST<br />
Having experimented a lot I believe 4ins<br />
is the optimum for Method hooklengths.<br />
Such a hooklength is long enough<br />
to allow the hookbait to behave in a<br />
natural manner, which is important in<br />
terms of getting the carp to pick the<br />
hookbait up in the first place.<br />
7 TRY GROUNDBAIT AND PELLETS<br />
I will always opt for 2mm coarse pellets<br />
around the feeder, as they are a safe<br />
option. I will however, always have<br />
some groundbait with me just in case.<br />
That way, if nothing is happening on<br />
pellets, I can easily switch to groundbait<br />
– whereas if pellets are right on the<br />
day, the fish will let me know within the<br />
space of a few casts!<br />
5<br />
8 DEAD MAGGOTS<br />
Dead maggots are something of a<br />
forgotten hookbait for the Method, but<br />
that doesn’t mean they are any less<br />
effective. Normally, for carp, I like to fish<br />
three or four on a size 14 LWG whereas<br />
for F1s I will fish one or two on a size 16<br />
or 18 in the same pattern.<br />
9 SOFT RODS ARE A MUST<br />
When using the Method feeder in the<br />
margins I am always likely to be fishing<br />
at relatively close range, so a short rod<br />
is needed. With this in mind my choice<br />
is a 10ft Daiwa Tournament Quiver. This<br />
rod has a soft action which I find perfect<br />
for absorbing the lunges of big fish.<br />
10 HOW OFTEN TO CAST<br />
As a guide, to kick off on a normal<br />
commercial I will look to cast every<br />
three to five minutes to start with to try<br />
and get some bait down. That means<br />
that when the carp do turn up I can hold<br />
them for that little bit longer. In the last<br />
hour you’ll often find the swim will be<br />
solid with fish, as by this time there is<br />
plenty of bait on the bottom and the<br />
fish will be properly on the feed anyway<br />
due to the time of day.<br />
37
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
BEST BAITS FOR<br />
THE METHOD<br />
Make this decision an easy one by going for pellets or boilies!<br />
THERE are a lot of baits that’ll catch<br />
on the Method feeder but I’d say 90<br />
per cent of the time I using either<br />
pellets or boilies in their various<br />
guises. That’s because of what I put<br />
around the feeder – pellets.<br />
A banded hard pellet is brilliant in<br />
summer but as the water cools, small boilies or<br />
Wafters take over thanks to their bright colours<br />
and their ability to be fished off bottom slightly.<br />
The decision is slightly easier when choosing<br />
what to make the ball of Method feed out of.<br />
I’d say 99 times out of 100 that’s plain micro<br />
pellets, only adding groundbait on venues<br />
where skimmers could play an important part.<br />
I’ll dye these micros too, especially in winter<br />
on clear water where turning them from their<br />
natural brown colour to a very visible yellow<br />
or red will complement perfectly the use of a<br />
brightly-coloured hookbait.<br />
Wafters offer a different<br />
presentation, with the bait sitting<br />
just off bottom. I use 8mm and 10mm<br />
sizes, with yellow and pink good.<br />
A selection of hardpellet<br />
hookbaits for<br />
the Method.<br />
When the carp are sitting off bottom,<br />
slipping an 8mm or 10mm pink or<br />
orange pop-up on to the hook will<br />
pick them off.<br />
38
PELLETS AND BOILIES FOR THE METHOD<br />
METHOD<br />
BAITS<br />
STEP-BY-STEP<br />
DYEING MICROS<br />
1<br />
Put the micros in a bag and add a slug<br />
of Ringers yellow liquid.<br />
2<br />
Seal the bag and give it a good shake to<br />
coat each pellet fully.<br />
3<br />
After 10 minutes the pellets are ready –<br />
look at the difference dye makes (left)!<br />
39
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
HYBRID<br />
FEEDER<br />
40
HYBRID RIG<br />
Follow Steve’s step by<br />
step guide to create this<br />
deadly fish-catcher.<br />
PAGES 42 - 43<br />
HYBRID FEATURE<br />
All you need to know<br />
about fishing the Hybrid<br />
this summer.<br />
PAGES 44 - 48<br />
MINI HYBRID<br />
Think small and keep the<br />
carp coming with this<br />
scaled-down attack.<br />
PAGES 49 - 51<br />
HYBRID BAITS<br />
Discover why the Wafter<br />
is so highly rated by<br />
Steve for the Hybrid.<br />
PAGES 52 - 53<br />
41
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
HYBRID<br />
– DOUBLY<br />
EFFECTIVE<br />
Mainline<br />
Because carp are the<br />
number one target,<br />
I wouldn’t go lower<br />
than 8lb Guru Pulse,<br />
even in winter.<br />
Carp feeder fishing enters a new era!<br />
FOR years, fishing the feeder for carp<br />
on commercial waters has revolved<br />
around either the Method or pellet<br />
feeder – that was until Guru came up<br />
with the Hybrid feeder which, as the<br />
name suggests, it a combination of<br />
the best elements of both pellet and<br />
Method models rolled into one.<br />
Since then, they’ve won hundreds of matches<br />
and have rapidly replaced the Method in my<br />
attack on commercials, whether that’s in high<br />
summer or the depths of winter.<br />
The principles of fishing the Hybrid are much<br />
the same as the Method, putting your hookbait<br />
right in amid the feed at long range but the<br />
Hybrid takes less feed and so comes into its<br />
own when you need to keep tabs on how much<br />
bait is being introduced.<br />
The ‘walls’ of the Hybrid also hold the bait in<br />
until it hits bottom, meaning that I can be 100<br />
per cent confident that the feed is in exactly the<br />
right place and not wafting down to the bottom<br />
after breaking up too early.<br />
Stems<br />
Should I be using an<br />
elasticated Hybrid I’d<br />
pick the stem with the<br />
heavier black elastic<br />
running through it.<br />
W H E N T O U S E I T :<br />
The Hybrid has proved its worth for<br />
catching big carp throughout the<br />
year in conjunction with big baits,<br />
although a smaller version is equally<br />
deadly for smaller fish and F1s.<br />
W H Y F I S H I T ?<br />
Similar to the Method feeder, the<br />
Hybrid lets you regulate the amount<br />
of feed going into the peg.<br />
H O W T O T I E I T<br />
1 Thread the feeder on the mainline.<br />
2 Take the line and create a six-inch<br />
twizzled loop that the feeder can<br />
slide down with ease.<br />
3 Within this twizzled length tie in a<br />
Guru Speed Bead, trapping it at the<br />
end of the twizzled loop.<br />
4 Run the feeder down the line so that<br />
it sits against the bead.<br />
5 Now attach your hooklink and hook<br />
on to the bead’s crook.<br />
Feed<br />
As with the Method<br />
feeder, I almost<br />
exclusively use<br />
dampened micros<br />
inside the Hybrid.<br />
42
THE VERSATILE HYBRID FEEDER<br />
HYBRID<br />
FEEDER RIG<br />
Feeder<br />
Match the weight of<br />
the feeder to how far<br />
you need to cast – 36g<br />
is a good starting<br />
point on many lakes.<br />
Hooks<br />
Baits will be hairrigged<br />
on the Hybrid<br />
so the Guru QM1 is the<br />
only choice, fished in<br />
sizes 14 and 16.<br />
Speed Bead<br />
Using this gadget lets<br />
me have hooklinks<br />
with different baits<br />
ready to be swapped<br />
over in seconds.<br />
Hooklink<br />
No more than four<br />
inches of 0.17mm Guru<br />
N-Gauge makes up<br />
my links and I’d rarely<br />
shorten them either.<br />
43
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
HYBRID FEEDER...<br />
THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS<br />
Splice together two of the most popular feeders on the market and you get this deadly fish-catcher!<br />
Hybrids are so good<br />
that I now rarely fish<br />
the Method feeder!<br />
44
HYBRID FEEDER<br />
HYBRID<br />
FEEDER<br />
EVERY now and again an item of gear<br />
comes along that you quickly realise<br />
is something very special and will<br />
help you put more fish in your net.<br />
TheHybrid feeder certainly falls into<br />
that category. For those of you who don’t<br />
know of it, the best way I can think of to<br />
describe it is a cross between a conventional<br />
Method feeder and a Banjo feeder – hence the<br />
name ‘Hybrid’.<br />
The Hybrid actually started from an idea that<br />
Guru brand manager Adam Rooney and myself<br />
had, and with the help of some design tweaks<br />
from top commercial angler Paul Holland we<br />
went about creating the perfect feeder.<br />
Months of testing followed and I can honestly<br />
say the results with it, for me personally, have<br />
been exceptional, starting with a winter match<br />
win at Boddington on its first outing.<br />
For me the Hybrid feeder ticks every box as it<br />
casts well, offers superb bait presentation, and<br />
is dead easy to load with bait.<br />
If I had to pick one key point, though, it would<br />
be bait presentation. The way the Hybrid works<br />
is that you get a little ‘bowl’ of pellets with your<br />
hookbait on top that carp simply can’t miss.<br />
I’m so confident in these feeders now that<br />
under certain circumstances I now prefer them<br />
to a Method. Apparently I’m not alone, as I see<br />
and speak to so many anglers who are converts<br />
to the Hybrid.<br />
SHORT HOOKLENGTHS RULE<br />
Just like when I’m fishing the Method, I find a<br />
4ins hooklength to be the ideal length on the<br />
Hybrid feeder.<br />
45
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
Experiment<br />
with your<br />
hookbaits to<br />
get the best<br />
out of the<br />
Hybrid.<br />
Not only does it comply with most fishery<br />
rules, but it also gives the hookbait that little bit<br />
of extra movement to enable it to behave in a<br />
more natural way once a fish sucks it in.<br />
Hook size and line diameter depend on what<br />
species and size of fish I’m targeting.<br />
For venues like Barston Lakes, where I’m<br />
looking to catch a mixed bag of skimmers, F1s<br />
and carp, I will use a size 16 MWG to 0.17mm<br />
Guru N-Gauge.<br />
However, on bigger waters, like Boddington<br />
Reservoir – where it’s all about carp and the<br />
average fish is 8lb-plus – I’ll set up with a size 12<br />
QM1 hook to 0.19mm line.<br />
BLEND IN OR STAND OUT?<br />
When it comes to hookbaits there are two<br />
distinct camps that they fall into – blend in and<br />
stand out.<br />
Blend in baits such as 6mm or 8mm hard<br />
coarse pellets are used to match the feed, and<br />
can work really well when the fish are proving<br />
a bit cagey and you can trick them into eating<br />
a hookbait which is masked among the loose<br />
offerings.<br />
Stand out hookbaits, such as mini 8mm fluoro<br />
boilies, work in the opposite way in that they<br />
give the fish a bait they can really home in on.<br />
However, the best hookbait of all for the Hybrid<br />
has to be the Ringers Chocolate Orange Wafter.<br />
This is a bait that has neutral buoyancy and<br />
when fished on a hair rig it will naturally sit a<br />
tiny bit off bottom and, more importantly, act<br />
very naturally to a feeding carp.<br />
Both types of hookbait can be extremely<br />
effective – it’s all about working out which is<br />
right on any particular day.<br />
WHERE TO PUT YOUR FEEDER<br />
The beauty of the Hybrid feeder is that it can<br />
be fished in pretty much any situation, ranging<br />
from shallow water tight to islands or in the<br />
margins to big, deep, open-water lakes. This is<br />
because it’s available in a range of sizes.<br />
Because the majority of the bait is enclosed<br />
inside the feeder, very little feed is lost on<br />
impact after casting, so even in deep water you<br />
can rest assured that your bait will hit the<br />
Match end tackle to the size of the fish.<br />
46
HYBRID FEEDER<br />
THE HYBRID FEEDER<br />
HYBRID<br />
FEEDER<br />
SIDE SLOTS<br />
During testing of early<br />
versions one of the problems<br />
encountered was getting the<br />
bait to break down once the<br />
feeder was on the bottom.<br />
This is where Paul Holland’s<br />
advice came in. His idea was to<br />
put holes in the base and slots<br />
in the side. These helped to get<br />
the bait out, and gave pellets a<br />
bit of extra purchase to grip on<br />
to when being loaded.<br />
PICK THE RIGHT SIZE<br />
Getting the right size and<br />
weight of feeder for your<br />
fishing is crucial, and allows<br />
you to not only reach longrange<br />
spots but also to<br />
regulate the amount of bait<br />
that you’re putting in.<br />
I use all three sizes of feeder.<br />
The Mini weighs 24g and is<br />
perfect for winter on small<br />
waters. The Small version is a<br />
more general-sized feeder for<br />
year-round use and comes in<br />
24g and 36g weights.<br />
A ‘Big Bertha’ version, in both<br />
28g and 45g, allows you to get<br />
a lot more feed out, and it’s the<br />
45g size that I love for venues<br />
such as Boddington.<br />
BOTTOM LIP<br />
The lip at the bottom of the<br />
feeder is raised. This makes it<br />
a lot easier to load and adds<br />
weight forward, meaning that<br />
accurate casting even at range<br />
becomes a little easier.<br />
You’ll notice the feeder has<br />
long stems too. All sizes are<br />
compatible with the X-Safe<br />
system, which means they can<br />
be fished inline or elasticated,<br />
just by changing the stems.<br />
47
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
bottom intact and you’ll be fishing effectively.<br />
The secret to getting the best out of this tactic<br />
is regular casting in order to try and build the<br />
swim up. Using ythe line clip on your reel plus<br />
a far-bank marker as an aiming point is vital to<br />
ensure you hit the same spot every time.<br />
Building the peg<br />
up will result in a<br />
bite every chuck in<br />
the closing stages.<br />
HOW OFTEN TO CAST<br />
As a guide, to kick off on a normal commercial<br />
fishery I will look to cast every three to f ive<br />
minutes to start with in order to try and get<br />
some bait down into the peg early doors.<br />
That means that when the carp do turn up I<br />
can hold them for that little bit longer.<br />
What you will find when fishing in this<br />
manner is that you will get little bursts of fish –<br />
such as four quick carp, nothing for 20 minutes,<br />
and then three more fish in quick succession.<br />
In the last hour of a session you’ll often find<br />
the swim will be solid with fish. By this time<br />
there will be plenty of bait on the bottom and<br />
the fish will be properly on the feed anyway at<br />
this late stage of the day.<br />
This is a very positive way of fishing and it has<br />
caught me a lot of big weights already this year.<br />
STEP-BY-STEP – HOW TO LOAD THE HYBRID<br />
1<br />
First job is to prepare the micro pellets<br />
for use. That’s done by dampening them<br />
down for a few seconds, as you’ll need<br />
them to stick into the feeder.<br />
2<br />
With bait prepared, I now take a good<br />
helping of micros and pour them into<br />
the feeder frame. Go overboard with the<br />
amount, as you’ll be compressing them.<br />
3<br />
Now squash the pellets relatively firmly<br />
with your finger to pack them into the<br />
frame, effectively creating a layer of<br />
micros in the base.<br />
4<br />
The hookbait is placed on top of the<br />
pellets and can even be pressed gently<br />
into them. A banded 6mm pellet is hard<br />
to beat in my opinion.<br />
5<br />
To complete the feeder, I now take more<br />
prepared micros and pop them on top<br />
of the feeder, but only squeeze them<br />
hard enough to create a dome.<br />
6<br />
The finished Hybrid! Once it hits bottom<br />
the gently-squeezed pellets will break<br />
down fast, revealing the hookbait. The<br />
bottom layer is next to break down.<br />
48
MINI HYBRID FEEDER<br />
HYBRID<br />
FEEDER<br />
WHEN SMALL REALLY<br />
IS BEAUTIFUL!<br />
The scaled-down Hybrid packs a punch for winter carp, as Steve reveals...<br />
THERE is a massive misconception in<br />
fishing that as soon as it goes cold<br />
the feeder stops working – what<br />
nonsense!<br />
Okay, I have to admit that I’m a huge fan<br />
of bomb and single hookbait fishing on<br />
big stillwaters in the winter but there are<br />
times – especially on some of our commercial<br />
lakes – when the fish will respond to a bit of bait<br />
at range, just as they do on a pole line.<br />
However, you need to refine your approach,<br />
in particular paying attention to the size of your<br />
feeder, hooks, and lines, as well as the spots<br />
where you cast to.<br />
Get it right and there can be plenty of bites,<br />
and fish, to be had. Here’s how to get the best<br />
out of my micro feeder attack…<br />
CHOOSING THE RIGHT FEEDER<br />
When the water is cold and clear there is<br />
nothing worse than crashing a great big feeder<br />
into the lake – all it does is scare the fish.<br />
This is the time for a small, stealthy feeder<br />
and I’m having a lot of success using the Guru<br />
Mini 24g Hybrid.<br />
Not only is this a very small feeder, it’s also<br />
not too heavy so it won’t make a big impact as it<br />
hits the surface.<br />
The other point worth making is that the Mini<br />
Hybrid doesn’t carry lots of bait, and at this<br />
time of year I’m looking to put just enough bait<br />
in to catch a fish, rather than trying to build up<br />
a swim.<br />
The only change I make to the feeder itself is<br />
to remove the inline stem that it comes with<br />
and attach a small, elasticated ‘X-Safe’ stem<br />
49
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
In winter I will always cast into the deepest water<br />
available, as this is where you’ll find the carp.<br />
50
MINI HYBRID FEEDER<br />
HYBRID<br />
FEEDER<br />
as I feel I lose less fish with elastic in the feeder.<br />
This is particularly the case when the hooked<br />
fish is around the net.<br />
FINE DOWN YOUR HOOKLENGTHS<br />
Depending on the size of carp I’m likely to<br />
encounter I like to fine things down a little, but<br />
not too much! Take a venue where the carp<br />
run from 2lb-6lb... in this instance I’d fish a<br />
4ins hooklength of 0.17mm Guru N-Gauge line<br />
(6lb) to a size 18 Super MWG hook.<br />
I don’t see any need to go lighter than this as<br />
I want to land every fish you hook. There’s no<br />
point working hard for a bite if you can’t land it!<br />
SAFE BAITS TO USE<br />
Groundbait can work in the cold, but for me<br />
pellets are far more reliable. My first choice is<br />
2mm Ringers Method micros in particular.<br />
These are relatively low in oil, so easier for the<br />
carp to digest, and light-coloured to offer visual<br />
attraction too.<br />
They need to break down quickly, and being<br />
a blend of different pellets they are designed to<br />
do just that.<br />
If you are in any doubt as to how quickly your<br />
pellets are breaking down, it’s worth having a<br />
little tub of water on your bait tray which you<br />
can use to check the breakdown time.<br />
USE BRIGHT HOOKBAITS<br />
Hookbaits are all about colour! In clear water I<br />
want to give the carp a hookbait they can spot<br />
easily. My favourite is a 6mm orange Dumbbell<br />
Wafter, brightly coloured and very light so it<br />
just sinks under the weight of the hook.<br />
You don’t have to fish orange all the time, and<br />
if I don’t get an immediate response I’ll try a<br />
change. As a guide, in clear water I like to stick<br />
to four colours – orange, white, pink and yellow.<br />
WHERE TO FISH<br />
It’s important to remember that areas that hold<br />
feeder fish in the summer rarely do so in the<br />
winter.<br />
When it’s freezing cold you aren’t going to<br />
Gear up<br />
correctly<br />
so you land<br />
every fish.<br />
Carp can’t<br />
fail to notice<br />
a bright<br />
hookbait!<br />
catch carp in inches of water against an island,<br />
but drop the feeder into deeper water and you<br />
just might!<br />
For example, in summer I would be casting<br />
tight across to far-bank rushes in the shallow<br />
water, but at this time of year when the water<br />
is cold and clear the carp just don’t want to be<br />
there.<br />
Instead I’m looking to target the deeper<br />
water, in this case the bottom of the far shelf<br />
or in open water, the main depth of the lake.<br />
The carp feel safer in the deeper water and as a<br />
result are more likely to feed.<br />
Another little tip on this subject is that in<br />
winter you have to try and find the fish. By all<br />
means clip up at the start, but it is pointless<br />
casting to the same spot every time if you are<br />
getting no bites or indications.<br />
If after a couple of casts you haven’t had any<br />
signs, look to take the clip off and cast to a new<br />
piece of water.<br />
Carp won’t move far in the cold, so it’s<br />
important you try and find them.<br />
When you do, bites are virtually guaranteed<br />
- the difference a few feet can make really is<br />
amazing.<br />
HOW OFTEN TO CAST<br />
There’s no golden rule here, but one thing you<br />
definitely don’t want to be doing is recasting<br />
every two minutes, unless of course the tip is<br />
going round inside that time!<br />
Regular recasting just for the sake of it is a<br />
sure-fire way to spook fish in clear water.<br />
As a guide, providing I’m happy with the cast<br />
(as in where and how it’s landed) I will leave the<br />
feeder out for 20 minutes.<br />
In fact as the match goes on, if the fishing is<br />
hard, I will leave it out even longer.<br />
In the past I have found that in winter the<br />
longer the feeder is in the water, the more<br />
chance there is of getting a bite.<br />
STEP-BY-STEP – LOADING THE MICRO FEEDER<br />
1 2 3<br />
The first step is to cover the bowl of<br />
the feeder with a decent layer of your<br />
dampened micro pellets.<br />
I like to push the pellets into the bowl so<br />
I know they will get to the bottom even<br />
if the feeder doesn’t land quite right.<br />
Place the hookbait on top and add<br />
enough pellets to cover. The pellets<br />
should sit just above the edges.<br />
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STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
PICK PELLETS<br />
FOR THE HYBRID<br />
A bag of micros is the perfect partner for a Wafter<br />
THE Hybrid feeder isn’t that different<br />
from a Method in terms of the baits<br />
and feeds that I use, and looking<br />
back, I can limit my picks to just a<br />
handful – micros in the feeder and a<br />
Wafter on the hook.<br />
Whether I’m fishing in summer on<br />
waters such as Barston Lakes or waiting for a<br />
pull on Boddington Reservoir in winter, this<br />
combo gives me enormous confidence.<br />
Wafters, in particular, will outfish a pellet<br />
or a boilie every time, offering a more<br />
natural presentation to wary carp.<br />
To create sticky pellets I give<br />
them a good squirt of Mainline’s<br />
Stick Mix Liquid, then disperse<br />
it for an even coating.<br />
52
HYBRID FEEDER PELLETS<br />
HYBRID<br />
BAITS<br />
STEP-BY-STEP PELLET PREPARATION<br />
1<br />
The Guru Pellet Strainer makes prepping<br />
micros so much easier! The micro pellets<br />
I use for all Hybrid and Method feeder<br />
work are Ringers Method Micros.<br />
2<br />
The strainer slots perfectly into a bait<br />
tub and into this I pour the dry pellets.<br />
Don’t overfill the strainer, though, or<br />
you’ll end up with water everywhere!<br />
Without a doubt the bait of the<br />
moment is the chocolate orange<br />
Wafter for winter and summer<br />
work. I use 8mm and 10mm sizes.<br />
3<br />
Add water to generously cover the<br />
pellets. If you wish, at this point you can<br />
also add any liquid flavourings to the<br />
water to seal them into the pellets.<br />
4<br />
Allow a few minutes for the water to be<br />
absorbed and then lift the strainer out,<br />
making sure to drain the water into the<br />
bait tub. Give it a good shake at the end.<br />
Natural-coloured pellet Wafters<br />
come into play in summer, or on<br />
waters that see lots of pellets.<br />
Again I fish 8mm and 10mm baits.<br />
5<br />
The micros will now be evenly wetted<br />
and start to soften. Pop them into your<br />
bait tub. You’ll find that they now don’t<br />
stick together in the tub in a clump!<br />
6<br />
A few more minutes to let the pellets<br />
stand will produce the perfect<br />
consistency to mould around a Method<br />
or cram into a Hybrid feeder.<br />
53
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
PELLET<br />
FEEDER<br />
54
PELLET FEEDER RIG<br />
Often overlooked, this<br />
set-up rules the roost on<br />
pellet-dominated waters.<br />
PAGES 56 - 57<br />
HOW TO FISH IT!<br />
Steve shows that spring<br />
bream love pellets just as<br />
much as carp do.<br />
PAGES 58 - 61<br />
MINI FEEDER MAGIC<br />
When autumn arrives,<br />
pick a tiny pellet feeder<br />
from the bag.<br />
PAGES 62 -65<br />
55
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
PELLET<br />
FEEDER<br />
POWER!<br />
Mainline<br />
With both carp and<br />
F1s likely, 8lb Guru<br />
Pulse will deal with<br />
specimen fish and<br />
regular casting.<br />
Get on this superb feeder attack now<br />
THERE are some waters that I fish<br />
where the Method or Hybrid feeder<br />
can be superceded by the pellet<br />
feeder, a totally different-looking<br />
approach that still aims to achieve<br />
the same job – putting the bait on a<br />
short hooklink right where the fish<br />
can’t fail to see it.<br />
But which waters am I talking about?<br />
Generally, I’d count fisheries with a high<br />
proportion of F1s that see lots of pellets fed<br />
either on the pole or waggler. Unlike carp, F1s<br />
need slightly more moderated feeding, often<br />
just a pinch on each cast to get a quick reponse,<br />
and the pellet feeder does this perfectly.<br />
You’ll struggle to cram much more than a<br />
small palmful of micro pellets into the feeder<br />
and as they are often smaller overall than a<br />
Method or Hybrid, they’re brilliant for casting<br />
into gaps in reeds against islands as they make<br />
less disturbance when landing.<br />
The pellet feeder is also a good pick in winter<br />
when appetites are lessened by the cold and<br />
tiny helpings of bait are the way to go.<br />
Stems<br />
When allowed I’ll go<br />
down the elasticated<br />
route, picking the<br />
white elastic unless<br />
fishing for big carp.<br />
W H E N T O U S E I T<br />
On waters where pellets dominate<br />
from spring to autumn, especially<br />
where F1s are the dominant species.<br />
W H Y F I S H I T ?<br />
Accuracy when casting to islands is<br />
unrivalled and the hookbait will ‘pop’<br />
out of the feeder as the bait breaks<br />
down – right in front of the fish.<br />
H O W T O T I E I T<br />
1 Thread the feeder on the mainline.<br />
2 Take the line and create a six-inch<br />
twizzled loop that the feeder can<br />
slide down with ease.<br />
3 Within this twizzled length tie in a<br />
Guru Speed Bead, trapping it at the<br />
end of the twizzled loop.<br />
4 Run the feeder down the line so that<br />
it sits against the bead.<br />
5 Now attach your hooklink and hook<br />
to the bead’s crook.<br />
56
PELLET FEEDER FINESSE<br />
PELLET<br />
FEEDER RIG<br />
Feeder<br />
The Guru Inline Pellet<br />
Feeder lets me fish an<br />
elasticated feeder in<br />
safety. The 28g model<br />
is just perfect.<br />
Hooklink<br />
This is made up of<br />
0.15mm Guru N-Gauge<br />
and I always use a<br />
short 4ins link for the<br />
pellet feeder.<br />
Feed<br />
Dampened Ringers<br />
Method Micros go<br />
into the feeder –<br />
occasionally I may add<br />
a touch of groundbait.<br />
Hooks<br />
On the pellet feeder<br />
you’ll be banding hard<br />
pellets or a dumbell,<br />
so a size 16 MWG lets<br />
me fish a hair rig.<br />
57
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
As the weather warms up<br />
bream will come to the feeder.<br />
S W I T C H T O<br />
T H E P E L L E T<br />
F E E D E R F O R<br />
EARLY<br />
SEASON<br />
BREAM<br />
Not just for carp, the pellet feeder<br />
can catch bream by the dozen!<br />
WHEN the weather begins to warm<br />
up, one of the first fish to start<br />
to come to the feed are bream<br />
– and if there’s one thing I know<br />
about bream it’s that they love<br />
‘yellow’ baits.<br />
Yellow groundbait, dyed pellets and<br />
meat and, of course, sweetcorn are the staple<br />
baits every angler needs to have on their side<br />
tray over the next few months as our stillwaters<br />
wake up and bream become the target species.<br />
I’ve learned a lot about catching early<br />
season bream in recent years and now have a<br />
three-pronged approach that works for me – it<br />
revolves around a groundbait feeder, the bomb,<br />
and even a pellet feeder.<br />
On standard commercials my bream set-up is<br />
normally a small cage feeder and a short,<br />
8ins hooklength in order to keep the hookbait<br />
close to the feeder itself.<br />
Over the years I’ve caught a lot of bream using<br />
this approach but always felt that it could be<br />
improved, and that got me thinking about the<br />
pellet feeder as a viable option.<br />
I have always felt that I want to get my<br />
hookbait close to the feeder as possible when<br />
bream fishing, and the pellet feeder allows me<br />
to do this compared to a cage or open-end.<br />
In fact I can bury my hookbait in the feeder<br />
itself, where it couldn’t be any closer to the<br />
feed. Perfect!<br />
The bomb comes into play during a session as<br />
sometimes bream can shy away from the feeder<br />
crashing in and a couple of casts with a light<br />
bomb can help you pick up a few shy fish during<br />
the day when the bites have tailed off. A simple<br />
change can make a huge difference.<br />
There are some big weights on the cards once<br />
the fish get on the feed, so grab your feeder rod,<br />
dig out your yellow baits and get catching…<br />
USE A YELLOW MIX<br />
Fishmeal groundbaits are my first choice for<br />
bream, and my mix is made up of Ringers<br />
Original Bag Up with a little bit of powdered<br />
yellow dye added to enhance the colour.<br />
I’m a big believer in bream liking bright baits<br />
and the addition of the dye makes the mix really<br />
stand out on the bottom.<br />
Bream seem to love the colour yellow.<br />
58
PELLET FEEDER FOR BREAM<br />
PELLET<br />
FEEDER<br />
59
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
The perfect<br />
big bream<br />
spread for<br />
early season.<br />
MY PELLET FEEDER RIG<br />
ADD MICROS<br />
A particle-rich mix is crucial when bream<br />
fishing, and I will add 2mm Ringers Method<br />
micro pellets which are wetted down with<br />
water prior to adding to my groundbait mix.<br />
I also add a sprinkling of yellow boilie dye to the<br />
prepared pellets.<br />
As they’re so small they allow me to put a lot<br />
of individual particles down, which helps me to<br />
hold the bream in the swim for much longer.<br />
DROP IN A FEW HOOKBAITS<br />
I also add corn to the mix - being bright yellow<br />
it stands out and gives the bream something to<br />
home in on – plus it gives me another hookbait<br />
option. For the same reason I will also add a few<br />
larger expander pellets to the feeder mix.<br />
These bigger baits help stop the fish<br />
becoming preoccupied with one size of<br />
Ensure that your bream feed is packed with<br />
particles to hold big fish in the swim.<br />
I can’t fault the<br />
MWG hook for<br />
bream work.<br />
particle, which can lead to them ignoring your<br />
bigger hookbaits.<br />
FIND A HOTSPOT<br />
Bream love to patrol around the bottom of<br />
shelves where food collects and they can get an<br />
easy meal. Therefore it makes sense to target<br />
them there.<br />
If I genuinely don’t know the venue at all I will<br />
always have a cast about with a bomb to try and<br />
build a picture of exactly what’s in front of me,<br />
things like drop-offs or depth changes. If I can’t<br />
find any variations on the bottom I’ll pick a<br />
comfortable distance and just fish it for the day.<br />
PUT SOME FEED OUT<br />
I always like to get a few feederfuls of bait out<br />
into the swim at the start of my session and use<br />
a large cage feeder to put out a lot of particles<br />
quickly. On a normal session I will look to put<br />
in six large cage feeders full of groundbait,<br />
expander pellets, micros and corn.<br />
EMPTY ON THE TOP<br />
I will empty at least two of the baiting-up<br />
feeders as soon as they hit the surface. This<br />
gives you a much bigger spread of bait as it falls<br />
through the water, giving the fish more room to<br />
feed over.<br />
The way to do this is to plug the feeder lightly<br />
then, as soon as it hits the water, shake the<br />
contents out.<br />
FEEDER CHOICE<br />
The 24g Guru X-Safe<br />
Pellet Feeder holds<br />
1<br />
enough bait and it<br />
heavy enough to cast<br />
accurately even in windy<br />
conditions.<br />
HOOKLINK LENGTH<br />
I’m trying to get a<br />
bream to take the bait<br />
2<br />
quickly so that means<br />
no less than 4ins of 0.15mm or<br />
0.17mm N-Gauge.<br />
TOP HOOKS<br />
3<br />
Even with the chance of<br />
a carp I’d go with a size<br />
16 Guru MWG pattern.<br />
BAIT SELECTION<br />
Yellow is the key here<br />
so that means corn,<br />
4<br />
dyed meat discs or a<br />
yellow mini boilie. Corn is<br />
always my starting bait.<br />
PACKING THE FEEDER<br />
Bream love groundbait<br />
so this forms the core<br />
5<br />
of my feed. To it are are<br />
added plenty of dampened<br />
micro pellets and a few grains<br />
of corn.<br />
LOAD THE PELLET FEEDER<br />
I always bury the hookbait. The way to do<br />
this is to load the pellet feeder with a mix of<br />
groundbait and micros and then flatten the end<br />
with your thumb.<br />
I then place the hookbait on the flattened<br />
area and cover it with a little more groundbait.<br />
As the feeder hits the bottom the first thing<br />
to come free will be the hookbait, once the<br />
groundbait starts to break down.<br />
GEAR UP PROPERLY<br />
My 6lb mainline is tied direct to a 24g,<br />
small Guru X-Safe pellet feeder with a 4ins<br />
hooklength of 0.15mm or 0.17mm to a size 16<br />
MWG hook. Hooklength diameter depends on<br />
whether there are any bonus carp or tench in<br />
the venue. If it’s all bream then I’ll use 0.15mm.<br />
60
PELLET FEEDER FOR BREAM<br />
PELLET<br />
FEEDER<br />
1<br />
2<br />
5<br />
4<br />
3<br />
HAIR-RIG THE BAITS<br />
Hair-rigging your baits is vital to ensure better<br />
hook-ups, especially when using baits like corn.<br />
I hair-rig a single grain lengthways with the<br />
bait stop on the outside of the rounded end<br />
of the bait – this way the hook is left clear for<br />
better hooking potential.<br />
TRY A MEAT DISC<br />
Switching hookbaits can really pay off when<br />
bream fishing, as they can be really picky. One<br />
bait I really rate is meat discs. I punch out<br />
8mm cylinders of meat and then cut them into<br />
narrow discs around 5mm long. These discs are<br />
dyed yellow and then hair-rigged.<br />
SWITCH TO A BOILIE<br />
One of my favourite bream hookbaits is a<br />
yellow, 8mm Ringers Allsorts boilie fished on a<br />
hair rig and once on the bottom this looks just<br />
like a grain of corn and is therefore sucked in<br />
with confidence.<br />
The advantage the boilie has over other<br />
hookbaits is that it’s a lot more robust. If small<br />
nuisance fish are a problem this can be a big<br />
plus, as you can fish in confidence knowing that<br />
your hookbait is still intact!<br />
LEAVE IT OUT<br />
You’ll often find the first hour of your session<br />
can be quite slow when fishing for bream, but<br />
this doesn’t bother me and I actually prefer not<br />
to catch during this opening spell.<br />
Anglers often ask me how long they should<br />
be leaving the feeder out at this time. I reckon<br />
that around 10 minutes for each cast is fine, but<br />
if you’ve not had an indication then reel in, fill<br />
your feeder and go back out again so that you<br />
are building the swim up over time.<br />
TOP UP YOUR SWIM<br />
Quite often you’ll find you’ll get a few bites and<br />
indications before the swim goes quiet again,<br />
and when this happens you have a decision to<br />
make.<br />
You can either sit tight and hope the bream<br />
come back and settle again, or you can top the<br />
swim up and try to pull them back.<br />
Personally I prefer the latter, so when it goes<br />
quiet I will put three more big cages of bait in<br />
and then cast the pellet feeder back over the<br />
top. Quite often this will provoke an immediate<br />
response as the bream come straight back to<br />
the feed and you’re catching again.<br />
61
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
The Mini Pellet Feeder<br />
drops just enough<br />
feeder into the swim on<br />
each cast.<br />
I N S T A N T A C T I O N<br />
ON THE MICRO FEEDER<br />
How to catch big weights now by scaling down your tactics<br />
62
MICRO FEEDER FOR QUICK RESULTS<br />
MICRO<br />
FEEDER<br />
IF YOU’RE out on the bank of your local<br />
commercial in autumn then doubtless<br />
you’ll notice the colour of the water is<br />
starting to drop out as the feeding of<br />
the fish slows down.<br />
For me that’s the signal to adapt my tactics<br />
and adopt a more ‘softly softly’ approach,<br />
especially when it comes to fishing the feeder.<br />
Instead of using big feeders to put plenty of<br />
bait in, it’s all about ‘less is more’, using a<br />
micro-sized feeder to put in just enough bait to<br />
catch a fish without spooking them.<br />
Rather than the Method or groundbait feeder,<br />
I often reach for Guru’s Micro Pellet Feeders.<br />
These are barely bigger than a pound coin and<br />
so are perfect for keeping both disturbance and<br />
feed going into the peg to a minimum.<br />
It might be getting colder, but there’s still the<br />
chance to catch big weights of carp from most<br />
fisheries – if you get things right, of course.<br />
This means limiting how often you cast so as<br />
not to cause too much commotion in the swim,<br />
as well as regulating just how much feed is<br />
going into the peg.<br />
PELLETS FOR THE FEEDER<br />
As the name suggests, these feeders are<br />
designed for fishing with pellets.<br />
That isn’t to say groundbait can’t be used in a<br />
pellet feeder because it can, but I feel that in<br />
63
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
Always begin with a 6mm hard pellet.<br />
the cold pellets are a better option.<br />
The type of pellets you use is crucial. I prefer<br />
coarse pellets, as they are lower in oil than<br />
others and so are a lot easier for carp to digest<br />
in water that’s turning colder each day.<br />
I don’t think you can go wrong with Ringers<br />
Method Micros, as they are not only low oil but<br />
light in colour. This means they offer a visual<br />
attraction too, although any low oil pellet will<br />
do the job!<br />
In terms of pellet size, I like to use a mixture<br />
of 2mm and 4mm pellets and will mix them so I<br />
have two-thirds 2mm to one-third 4mm.<br />
By mixing the sizes of the pellets I feel it helps<br />
to prevent the fish getting too preoccupied on<br />
one size of food item. That can cause problems<br />
when you want to get the fish to pick up a<br />
Mix the pellet sizes to get bites quicker.<br />
hookbait which is bigger than the free offerings.<br />
HARD PELLET HOOKBAITS<br />
There are a couple of bait types I have a lot of<br />
faith in for this approach.<br />
The first is either a 4mm or 6mm hard pellet.<br />
These are what I call ‘blend in’ baits as they<br />
match the pellets in the feeder and I believe<br />
they are sucked up by a feeding fish without it<br />
even realising until it’s too late!<br />
I will kick off on a 6mm bait but if I start to get<br />
a few indications (tiny taps and knocks) that<br />
suggest there are fish around the feeder and I’m<br />
not getting proper bites then I will switch to a<br />
smaller 4mm offering.<br />
A 4mm pellet matches the baits in the feeder<br />
that bit better, so if there are a few wary carp<br />
feeding, the chances of one making a mistake<br />
are a lot higher.<br />
My back-up hookbait is a single grain of corn.<br />
This works very differently to the hard pellets<br />
as it stands out and gives the carp something<br />
they can home in on.<br />
Normally I will just alternate the two baits to<br />
see what gets the better response on the day.<br />
As a rule, though, the harder the fishing, the<br />
more effective the corn is. I believe in the cold<br />
carp feed on sight a lot more, and therefore<br />
highly visible hookbaits come into their own.<br />
BAIT AND WAIT<br />
With the water being cold and clear, regular<br />
casting is very much a no-no as far as I’m<br />
concerned. Even a pellet feeder as small as this<br />
one going in can spook fish by repeated casting,<br />
so realistically it’s all about making every cast<br />
count and only reeling in when a carp is on!<br />
Of course, in practice that isn’t always<br />
possible but to kick off I would be looking to<br />
fish each cast for between 10 and 15 minutes<br />
unless I saw something that made me think I<br />
needed to cast more regularly.<br />
As the session or match progresses I might<br />
work out a bite time, for example between five<br />
and six minutes, and work around this but until<br />
I do I will keep any potential disturbance to a<br />
minimum by only recasting when I need to.<br />
Of course, being super-accurate is also vital as<br />
just one misplaced cast can spook the fish.<br />
Keep the feed amount<br />
minimal and the tip<br />
will keep going round!<br />
64
MICRO FEEDER FOR QUICK RESULTS<br />
STEVE’S MICRO PELLET FEEDER SET-UP<br />
MAINLINE<br />
I use 8lb Daiwa Hyper<br />
Sensor. That might<br />
sound heavy for<br />
short-range work but<br />
with it being a low<br />
diameter line I find<br />
this negates any loss<br />
in presentation that<br />
8lb line might bring<br />
and gives you extra<br />
security for bigger fish.<br />
FEEDER SIZE<br />
The feeders come in just<br />
one size and weight – 24g<br />
– which is ideal for shortrange<br />
work, casting either<br />
tight to islands or into open<br />
water on smaller fisheries.<br />
1<br />
MICRO<br />
FEEDER<br />
HOW TO LOAD<br />
THE MICRO FEEDER<br />
Fill the feeder with pellets before<br />
compressing them with your<br />
finger. That way, not only do they<br />
stay in the feeder but at the same time a<br />
flattish area is created on which to place<br />
the hookbait.<br />
2<br />
Position the hookbait at the back<br />
of the feeder before adding<br />
another covering of pellets to<br />
keep it enclosed.<br />
3<br />
Once the second lot of pellets are<br />
compressed into place the feeder<br />
is ready for casting.<br />
HOOKLENGTH<br />
This depends on the size of<br />
fish I’m looking to catch. If<br />
the fish are predominantly<br />
2lb-4lb I’ll opt for 4ins of<br />
0.15mm Guru N-Gauge to a<br />
size 18 Super MWG hook.<br />
This is tied using the<br />
knotless knot, with a micro<br />
bait band replacing the<br />
conventional hair. If the fish<br />
were 4lb-8lb I’d step up to a<br />
0.17mm hooklength.<br />
ELASTICATED/INLINE<br />
Pellet feeders come inline<br />
but where allowed I prefer to<br />
fish them elasticated with a<br />
short stem pushed through<br />
the feeder with light white<br />
or heavy black elastic. The<br />
white elastic is spot-on for<br />
F1s and carp to 5lb, while<br />
for anything bigger I use the<br />
black elasticated version.<br />
The great thing about the X-Safe<br />
4<br />
elasticated system I use is that it<br />
features a clip at the top. This<br />
allows me to prepare feeders in<br />
between bites. It’s simply a case of<br />
reeling in and clipping on a new<br />
pre-loaded feeder to save time. The<br />
more time I can spend with bait in the<br />
water, the more fish I can catch!<br />
65
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
GROUNDBAIT<br />
FEEDER<br />
66
BIG BREAM RIG<br />
Gear up with Steve’s<br />
distance feeder rig that’s<br />
won him lots of matches.<br />
PAGES 68 - 69<br />
FEEDERLINKS<br />
Create the ultimate<br />
anti-tangle set-up with<br />
these clever links.<br />
PAGES 70 -71<br />
ON THE BANK<br />
See how Steve does it on<br />
a bream-packed day at<br />
Ferry Meadows.<br />
PAGES 72 - 75<br />
BEST BAITS<br />
What to put on the<br />
hook to catch slabs and<br />
skimmers on the feeder.<br />
PAGES 76 - 77<br />
CAST FURTHER<br />
Simple advice to help<br />
you chuck further and<br />
more accurately.<br />
PAGES 78 - 79<br />
GROUNDBAIT MIXES<br />
When to use fishmeal<br />
over traditional sweet<br />
groundbaits for bream.<br />
PAGES 80 - 81<br />
CAGE FEEDER<br />
Keep catching in winter<br />
by scaling down with this<br />
‘scratching’ approach.<br />
PAGES 82 - 85<br />
67
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
BREAM<br />
FEEDER<br />
SET-UP<br />
Shockleader<br />
Essential when using<br />
braided mainline and<br />
casting a long way.<br />
This line acts as a<br />
shock-absorber.<br />
Get on Steve’s no-tangle big slab rig<br />
OF ALL the different types of feeder<br />
fishing that I do, I’d have to say that<br />
groundbait feeder work for bream<br />
has changed the most down the<br />
years, both in terms of the rig and<br />
the way that it is fished.<br />
Twenty years ago, this would have<br />
involved using target boards and striking at<br />
tiny knocks on the quivertip with light lines<br />
and small hooks, but bream, especially big fish<br />
today, are very aggressive feeders that produce<br />
positive bites and which will take big hookbaits<br />
with complete ease.<br />
This now means fishing large hair-rigged baits<br />
alongside regular feed, fishmeal as opposed<br />
to sweet groundbaits, braided mainlines to<br />
help casting and bite registration, and weightforward<br />
‘rocket’ feeders that will cast up to 80<br />
yards whatever the conditions.<br />
All that said, my rig isn’t hard to tie and, more<br />
importantly, it is also very hard to tangle.<br />
This means that I can be confident that it will<br />
be fishing properly and not lying in a tangled<br />
heap after casting!<br />
Feederlink<br />
This prevents the<br />
feeder from tangling<br />
around the hooklink<br />
during casting. See<br />
p66/67<br />
Feeder<br />
For long casts nothing<br />
can beat a rocket or<br />
distance-style feeder<br />
with the weight built<br />
into one end.<br />
W H E N T O U S E I T<br />
For bream and skimmers that require<br />
plenty of feed at long distances<br />
throughout the year.<br />
W H Y U S E I T ?<br />
Groundbait and bream are perfect<br />
partners so you need a big feeder to<br />
build up a fed area over which a shoal<br />
of fish can graze for hours.<br />
H O W T O T I E I T<br />
1 Once your shockleader is tied to the<br />
braid mainline (see page 17), slide<br />
feeder and feederlink on to the line.<br />
2 Now slide a float stop on to the line<br />
below the feeder.<br />
3 Take the line and create a tightlytwisted<br />
loop of around six inches.<br />
4 Slide the float stop down to rest<br />
above the twisted section.<br />
5 Attach the hooklink to the twisted<br />
loop via the loop-to-loop method.<br />
Feed<br />
A mix of fishmeal<br />
groundbait, micro<br />
pellets, casters,<br />
chopped worm and a<br />
few pieces of corn.<br />
68
THE RELIABLE GROUNDBAIT FEEDER<br />
GROUNDBAIT<br />
FEEDER RIG<br />
Twizzled loop<br />
Six inches of<br />
shockleader twizzled<br />
tightly creates a stiff<br />
boom so the hooklink<br />
stands clear.<br />
Hooklink<br />
Because big bream<br />
are the target, don’t<br />
go light – 0.17mm<br />
Guru N-Gauge is spot<br />
on for fish to 8lb.<br />
Hook<br />
I like to hair-rig baits<br />
and so I pick a size 14<br />
Guru MWG Barbed<br />
pattern used with the<br />
knotless knot.<br />
69
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
KISS GOODBYE TO<br />
RIG T<strong>ANG</strong>LES!<br />
How to create my feeder link. You’ll wish you’d done it years ago!<br />
AKEY component of my bream and<br />
silverfish feeder rigs is the use of<br />
a feeder link – a short, stiff length<br />
of line that runs off the mainline<br />
with the feeder attached at the<br />
opposite end.<br />
The benefits of using a link are many<br />
and for me, it cuts down on tangles that can<br />
often happen when fishing with a paternoster.<br />
I also think that it results in a neater overall<br />
set-up and better presentation.<br />
Making your own links is very quick and<br />
easy - here’s how I do mine.<br />
STEP-BY-STEP – HOW TO TIE MY FEEDER LINK<br />
1<br />
Take the length of line – I use 0.47mm<br />
Korda Mouthtrap – and thread a 0.6mm<br />
small double-barrelled crimp on to it.<br />
2<br />
Now pop a small plastic bead on to the<br />
line behind the crimp. Mine are from<br />
Hobbycraft and cost pennies.<br />
3<br />
The line is doubled back and passed<br />
through the crimp. Everything is pulled<br />
tight to leave the bead at one end.<br />
4<br />
Take a pair of pliers and firmly crush the<br />
crimp to trap the line, ensuring the bead<br />
is sitting snugly against the crimp.<br />
5<br />
This is how one end of the link should<br />
look. Try not to leave a gap that will<br />
allow the bead to move freely.<br />
6<br />
At the opposite end of the link thread<br />
on another crimp and then a snaplink<br />
swivel to attach the feeder to.<br />
7<br />
Repeat step 3, doubling the line back<br />
through the crimp and leaving the<br />
snaplink trapped tightly in place.<br />
8<br />
Crush the crimp with the pliers, being<br />
sure to hold the line tight so that a stiff<br />
boom is created to form the link.<br />
9<br />
And that’s it! The finished feeder link<br />
should have no movement in the bead<br />
or snaplink at either end.<br />
70
TIE STEVE’S E S FEEDER E E LINK<br />
FEEDER<br />
E E LINKS<br />
A very short link of around 2ins-3ins<br />
is good for days when the fish are<br />
coming to the feeder to get at the<br />
bait. This link then puts the feeder<br />
very close to the hookbait and should<br />
result in a quicker bite.<br />
A very long link comes in handy for<br />
days when I want to put the feeder<br />
well away from the hookbait. In this<br />
instance, the link could be 10ins long<br />
– just make sure that it is not longer<br />
than your hooklength!<br />
This is a standard feeder link of<br />
around 6ins, and would be the one<br />
I’d use for most situations. The key<br />
here is to try and work out how<br />
positively the fish are approaching<br />
the feeder before making changes.<br />
“ A FEEDER LINK WILL CUT DOWN ON T<strong>ANG</strong>LES<br />
AND MAKES FOR A NEATER OVERALL SET-UP”<br />
71
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
GO LONG<br />
FOR BIG<br />
BREAM<br />
SUCCESS<br />
Reach for the horizon with Steve’s<br />
distance attack that’s seen him<br />
break records on a favourite venue<br />
I’VE always had something of a love<br />
affair with Ferry Meadows Lakes near<br />
Peterborough ever since I was a kid.<br />
These vast gravel pits hold lots of big<br />
bream that don’t give themselves<br />
up easily, but they offer a handsome<br />
reward to the angler who gets their<br />
approach right.<br />
Thankfully, the lakes are now holding<br />
regular open matches, and these are among<br />
the highlights of my fishing year. Combine<br />
them with two-day mini festivals and big<br />
memorial matches and it’s no surprise that<br />
I’m a regular there throughout the spring<br />
and summer.<br />
One of my favourite feeder matches of all<br />
time was when I broke the match record<br />
for the lakes in a Steel City two-day event<br />
in 2016, a benchmark that has since gone<br />
again but which lives long in the memory as<br />
a special match to treasure.<br />
As a result, I get asked a lot both on<br />
the bank and on social media about my<br />
approach for fishing Ferry, where long and<br />
accurate casting is needed but where the<br />
bream can reach double figures.<br />
I could spend all day talking about this, but<br />
I reckoned it would be quicker if I boiled it<br />
all down to the six key things that form the<br />
bedrock of my bream attack at Ferry.<br />
BRAID<br />
If you’d have asked me five years ago about<br />
using braid for bream then my answer<br />
would have been very different – back then<br />
I never used it, whereas now I wouldn’t fish<br />
without it!<br />
In case you are wondering why I rate braid<br />
so highly there are two real benefits as far as<br />
I can see. First, and perhaps most obviously,<br />
bite detection is massively enhanced. With<br />
braid having literally zero stretch, any<br />
72
DISTANCE FISHING FOR BREAM<br />
GROUNDBAIT<br />
FEEDER<br />
73
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
Kev Leach’s feeders make short work of a<br />
long cast or an awkward cross wind!<br />
indication on the tip is magnified, meaning that<br />
even when fishing at distance bites tend to be<br />
very positive and as a result are far easier to hit.<br />
Second, braid is very low in diameter<br />
compared to nylon which makes a big<br />
difference in terms of casting distance. Because<br />
braid is so fine I use 0.10mm Pulse8. This flies<br />
through the rod rings and makes fishing at long<br />
range a whole lot easier.<br />
CHOOSE THE RIGHT FEEDERS<br />
Most of my bream fishing at Ferry is done at<br />
distances in excess of 55m, so choosing the<br />
right feeder is vital.<br />
Of course, you can cast 55m with a normal<br />
open-end feeder but I’m a big believer in<br />
making things easier for myself.<br />
I tend to use a Kevin Leach feeder in either<br />
30g or 40g. In case you don’t know what a Kevin<br />
Leach feeder is, basically it’s a weight-forward<br />
cage feeder. The advantage with this type of<br />
feeder is that it flies a lot straighter and a lot<br />
truer, improving my accuracy no end. Guru is<br />
due to bring out its own range in the not too<br />
distance future.<br />
I always kick off on a big six-hole feeder with<br />
a view to getting a bit of bait down, and as for<br />
weight, I stick to either 30g or 40g - which one I<br />
choose depends on the conditions.<br />
If the wind is kind I will stick to 30g, but if I<br />
have an awkward cross wind then 40g is ideal<br />
for punching through it and making sure the<br />
braid is straightened on the cast.<br />
HAIR-RIG YOUR WORMS<br />
If I had to pick just one bait for bream fishing<br />
then without doubt it would have to be worms.<br />
To put it quite simply they have caught me<br />
more bream than I care to remember, and in<br />
years to come I have no doubt they will catch<br />
me a lot more!<br />
The only downside to fishing worms is<br />
that they have a tendency to either spin your<br />
hooklength up on the retrieve or, alternatively<br />
and without doubt more annoyingly, they have<br />
a tendency to go over the hookpoint and mask<br />
it, leading to lost fish.<br />
This used to be a real bugbear of mine, but<br />
that all changed when I started hair-rigging my<br />
worms. The advantage of hair-rigging is that<br />
the hook is left totally free, with little risk of the<br />
worm being anywhere near the hookpoint.<br />
On top of that the worm sits a lot straighter<br />
when hair-rigged so you don’t get anywhere<br />
near the amount of line twist when reeling in.<br />
One point regarding my hookbait is that<br />
I always like to fish two pieces of worm as<br />
opposed to one. I feel it makes the hookbait<br />
stand out that little bit better.<br />
It also means that it looks just like a couple of<br />
Dyeing<br />
your micro<br />
pellets<br />
yellow<br />
makes them<br />
stand out<br />
to fish.<br />
Dead reds aren’t such a<br />
good bait as worms.<br />
You can<br />
get away<br />
with big<br />
hooks when<br />
fishing<br />
worms.<br />
74
DISTANCE FISHING FOR BREAM<br />
GROUNDBAIT<br />
FEEDER<br />
CHOP YOUR WORMS<br />
Whenever the fishing is hard, the bait I<br />
always turn to is chopped worm.<br />
It gives out loads of fish-attracting<br />
scent which bream love, so if I’m<br />
struggling I will take the other loose<br />
offerings out of the feeder and pile in<br />
chopped worm.<br />
To keep the food value down I chop<br />
the worms into a very fine mush so I<br />
don’t overfeed any bream in the peg.<br />
That said, if I get the bream really<br />
feeding in the swim I will put more solid<br />
food offerings on the bottom.<br />
That means roughly chopped worm<br />
pieces of around an inch long. These are<br />
very similar in appearance to what I am<br />
fishing on the hook.<br />
pieces of chopped worm on the bottom, which<br />
arguably is even more important.<br />
COLOUR YOUR PELLETS<br />
I have always been a great believer in the fact<br />
that bream love bright colours, yellow in<br />
particular. If you think about it, some of the<br />
best bream groundbaits are yellow and corn,<br />
another bait that bream love, is yellow too!<br />
I think this all boils down to visibility, in that<br />
yellow baits give the bream something they can<br />
see and then drop down on. With this in mind<br />
I like to dye my feed pellets yellow, just to give<br />
them a boost in terms of colour.<br />
The way I like to do this is to take a mixture<br />
of 2mm and 4mm coarse pellets and then soak<br />
them in the normal manner. I cover them in<br />
cold water for 30 seconds, then drain the water<br />
off and leave them to stand overnight.<br />
Then, to add the colour, I just sprinkle on a<br />
little yellow Mainline Baits boilie dye and give<br />
the pellets a shake until they all turn yellow.<br />
GO LONG<br />
Like most match anglers I am always looking<br />
for an edge when bream fishing on big waters,<br />
and one such edge is to fish at distance so you<br />
are out past those around you.<br />
This way I will have my own water to pull fish<br />
from, as opposed to sharing it with the anglers<br />
around me.<br />
If you think about it, if I’m in a line of anglers<br />
all clipped up at 50m then it’s going to be hard<br />
to draw any fish in. If, however, I fish at 60m in<br />
that line then not only am I pulling fish from<br />
further out but from the left and right too.<br />
This might not seem that significant but at<br />
times it can make a massive difference, and<br />
turn a peg worth maybe 25lb into one that’s<br />
capable of 50lb-plus.<br />
To try and gain this edge, what I like to do is<br />
keep an eye on the anglers around me when<br />
they are clipping up before the start and then<br />
try and fish 5m-10m past them.<br />
How finely<br />
I chop the<br />
worms will<br />
depend on<br />
how the<br />
fishing is<br />
progressing.<br />
Hair-rigging<br />
pieces of<br />
worm has<br />
been a bit of<br />
a revelation<br />
to me.<br />
75
STEVE E RINGER’S R ULTIMATE FEEDER E E GUIDE<br />
PERFECT<br />
RECIPE<br />
FOR BIG<br />
WEIGHTS<br />
Set the table for a big net of slabs<br />
with my spread of brilliant baits<br />
THE old adage of giving bream<br />
enough bait to keep them feeding<br />
still rings true, and on venues like<br />
Ferry Meadows my mix is made up<br />
of several ingredients.<br />
Chopped worm, corn, pellets, casters<br />
and, of course, groundbait all play their<br />
part, while for the hook I swear by hair-rigging<br />
two pieces of worm for catching really big<br />
bream. However, dead maggots are still good<br />
for smaller fish or when the going is tough.<br />
Even two bits of corn or a small yellow boilie<br />
can have their day – experimentation is key!<br />
1<br />
2<br />
1<br />
GROUNDBAIT<br />
This is a simple 50/50<br />
split of Ringers Original and<br />
Dark. The Dark helps in clearer<br />
water and the mix should be on<br />
the damp side – not dry!<br />
2<br />
FISHMEAL IS KING<br />
Even on big natural waters<br />
like Ferry Meadows, fishmeal<br />
rules! That means a groundbait<br />
to suit, plus the addition of<br />
micro pellets into the mix.<br />
76
FEEDER E E BAITS FOR BREAM<br />
BREAM<br />
BAITS<br />
STEP-BY-STEP<br />
- S T E P<br />
HAIR-RIGGING<br />
R I G I G<br />
WORMS<br />
4<br />
5<br />
CHOPPED P WORM<br />
I’ll chop my worms<br />
relatively fine to give off<br />
maximum leakage and scent.<br />
This works particularly well in<br />
clear water conditions.<br />
3<br />
5<br />
A<br />
Using a Speed Stop will not only anchor<br />
the worms on the hair for casting but<br />
also make getting them into position in<br />
the first place so much easier.<br />
4<br />
SWEETCORN<br />
Only a sprinkling of corn is<br />
fed, simply to give the bream a<br />
taster. On the hook, I’ll fish two<br />
grains on a hair rig and always<br />
use the natural yellow colour.<br />
B<br />
Using the Speed Stop Needle, pierce the<br />
first worm through the top. I use around<br />
a third of a normal worm to make it look<br />
similar to the chopped worm feed.<br />
3<br />
MAGGOTS AND CASTERS<br />
Casters are used as a feed<br />
only and I add plenty of them.<br />
Dead maggots come into play<br />
for the hook when smaller<br />
skimmers are the target.<br />
C<br />
With worm number one in place on the<br />
hair, the second is pierced and threaded<br />
up into place. The stop can now be<br />
folded over to hold the bait securely.<br />
77
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
H I T T H E S P O T :<br />
ADDING<br />
YARDS<br />
TO YOUR<br />
CAST!<br />
Blast a feeder to the horizon with<br />
Steve’s six top tips for casting.<br />
THERE’S little point in having the<br />
correct rig, lovingly-prepared bait<br />
and groundbait and a good peg to<br />
fish if you can’t cast your feeder far<br />
enough in the first place.<br />
You may think that you can cast well<br />
and put a feeder out a long way but, trust<br />
me, there are always a few little things that can<br />
be added to your technique that’ll put 10 or 20<br />
more yards on the cast.<br />
On big waters where casting further than the<br />
anglers around you might be important, these<br />
little improvements will mean more fish.<br />
My casting has certainly improved since<br />
regularly fishing places like Ferry Meadows and<br />
Boddington Reservoir, where up to 90 yards is<br />
the required range.<br />
But even on fisheries where a more moderate<br />
one is required, casting correctly will not<br />
only mean greater accuracy but also a lot less<br />
pressure on your body.<br />
Think about it. Trying to force a feeder a<br />
long way with a bad technique will put undue<br />
strain on your back, shoulders and arms and<br />
inevitably lead to you casting all over the place.<br />
Do it right, and the process will be smooth<br />
and the feeder will land in the same spot each<br />
time. You’ll also get fewer tangles and a reduced<br />
chance of an embarrassing crack-off.<br />
The six tips on the opposite page are the key<br />
points that I recommend to anyone who asks<br />
me about casting further - and they don’t need a<br />
mega-expensive rod or a physique like Charles<br />
Atlas to achieve!<br />
“ CAST CORRECTLY AND THE<br />
PROCESS WILL BE SMOOTH<br />
AND ACCURATE”<br />
78
DISTANCE FEEDER CASTING<br />
CASTING<br />
TIPS<br />
Get the<br />
basics right<br />
and you’ll<br />
be surprised<br />
how far you<br />
can cast.<br />
GET THE RIGHT ‘DROP’<br />
This is the length of line between<br />
feeder and rod-tip before you<br />
1<br />
cast. If it is too short then you<br />
won’t achieve the force to cast far<br />
enough – around 5ft of line is ideal,<br />
allowing you to really compress the rod.<br />
USE YOUR OTHER HAND<br />
I see too many anglers casting<br />
using just the hand and arm<br />
2<br />
holding the rod around the reel.<br />
This is wrong. Your other hand that’s on<br />
the bottom of the handle is just as<br />
important, as this should ‘pull’ on the<br />
rod as you cast, creating speed on the<br />
cast to propel the feeder further.<br />
POINTING THE ROD<br />
When the cast is finished, the rod<br />
should be pointing directly to the<br />
3<br />
spot where the feeder has gone<br />
into the water. This will tell you that<br />
you’ve been accurate, and is achieved<br />
by following through with the rod in a<br />
straight line as the feeder flies through<br />
the air.<br />
RELEASE AT THE RIGHT POINT<br />
When to release line from the<br />
spool mid-cast makes a big<br />
4<br />
difference. It should happen<br />
when the rod is roughly pointing to<br />
11 o’clock on an imaginary clock –<br />
12 o’clock will be the point immediately<br />
above your head. Let go too early and<br />
the feeder will go in a more upward<br />
direction, while too late and it’ll crash<br />
into the water 20 yards out!<br />
STAND TO ATTENTION<br />
For really long casts you’ll have<br />
to stand up. This creates more<br />
5<br />
clearance behind you to get the<br />
right ‘drop’ between feeder and rod,<br />
and also allows you to use the weight of<br />
your body to propel the cast.<br />
GIVE THE ROD A WORKOUT<br />
Modern feeder rods are designed<br />
for casting a long way, so don’t<br />
6<br />
be afraid to put a lot of force into<br />
the chuck and fully compress the rod. It<br />
might look as though it’s bending<br />
alarmingly but that’s what it’s built to<br />
do – the rod won’t break!<br />
79
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
G R O U N D B A I T S<br />
IT’S ALL<br />
IN THE<br />
BLEND<br />
Use my fantastic four and bag up!<br />
GROUNDBAITS – now there’s a topic<br />
that could keep anglers talking for<br />
ages! From whether to use fishmeal,<br />
to how wet to make the mix or<br />
whether bream really need brown<br />
crumb, the options and possibilities<br />
as to what your pour into your<br />
bucket are virtually endless.<br />
We all have our own mix; the one we get on<br />
well with every time we go fishing. There’s<br />
nothing wrong with that, but you have to be<br />
willing to change, depending on the species and<br />
the size of fish that you are targeting.<br />
In my experience, big bream need something<br />
totally different from skimmers, while a roach<br />
mix won’t be right for catching F1s. On these<br />
two pages are the four mixes I most commonly<br />
use for feeder fishing. Many take in the same<br />
types of groundbait to help make your decision<br />
in the tackle shop that much easier.<br />
A fishmeal<br />
mix is used for<br />
bigger bream.<br />
B R E A M M I X<br />
YEARS ago you’d have taken<br />
nothing but a sweet groundbait<br />
plus brown crumb for bream<br />
fishing but now, even on natural<br />
waters, fishmeal is very much the<br />
order of the day.<br />
When fishing for big bream, my<br />
standard mix is a 50/50 blend of<br />
Ringers Original and Ringers Dark,<br />
resulting in a fishy groundbait with<br />
a darker edge that helps in clear<br />
water.<br />
This is mixed the night before to<br />
fully absorb the water, and should<br />
end up being on the wet side.<br />
80
GROUNDBAIT MIXES<br />
TOP FEEDER<br />
MIXES<br />
M E T H O D M I X<br />
IF I’M being honest, groundbait<br />
doesn’t play much of a part in my<br />
Method feeder fishing. The only<br />
time I’ll add some is when I may<br />
catch some skimmers in among<br />
the carp and F1s.<br />
In this instance I’ll add Dynamite<br />
Baits Swim Stim Match Sweet<br />
Fishmeal in a ratio of 95 per cent<br />
pellets to 5 per cent groundbait.<br />
This should be mixed wet so that<br />
it binds the pellets around the<br />
feeder. Too dry and it’ll absorb<br />
moisture from the micros and it<br />
won’t stick to the feeder.<br />
S I L V E R F I S H M I X<br />
WHEN faced with a venue holding<br />
skimmers and roach in the UK, I’ll<br />
fish the cage feeder. This demands<br />
something different to my big<br />
bream or Irish silverfish mix.<br />
I go for 70 per cent Ringers<br />
Original for a fishmeal<br />
hit to 30 per cent Van<br />
Den Dynde G5, a sweet<br />
traditional silverfish<br />
groundbait. The G5 is<br />
added with an eye on<br />
catching those roach as<br />
they aren’t always keen<br />
on a full-on fishmeal mix.<br />
I R I S H R O A C H M I X<br />
IRELAND is stuffed with roach and<br />
my feeder mix is made up three core<br />
ingredients to suit the deep water that<br />
you’re often faced with.<br />
I use brown crumb, Dynamite Baits<br />
Silver X Bream and Frenzied Hemp Black<br />
Split in equal parts, to create a dark mix.<br />
This is mixed to end up being sticky so it<br />
gets down to the bottom without spilling out<br />
of the feeder too early.<br />
81
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
TURN ON TO THE<br />
CAGE IN WINTER<br />
Keep on catching in the cold with this brilliant ‘scratching’ approach<br />
82
WINTER FEEDER TACTICS<br />
C A G E<br />
FEEDER<br />
THERE will be times in winter when<br />
water temperatures are low and<br />
the fish really aren’t in the mood<br />
to feed, but this doesn’t mean you<br />
have to wave the white flag and<br />
wait for things to warm up – all you<br />
need to do is rethink your approach<br />
and develop what match anglers call a<br />
‘scratching’ mentality.<br />
Combining smaller baits, less feed, light<br />
hooks and lines and a smaller feeder all add up<br />
to a method that will wring out a few fish from<br />
the peg in the most desperate of conditions. In<br />
this instance, catching anything that swims is a<br />
real bonus.<br />
For me, there’s nothing to beat the cage<br />
feeder if the venue I am fishing holds skimmers,<br />
roach, perch and the odd carp or F1. Silver fish,<br />
provided they are big enough, can soon make<br />
a decent net at the end of the day but landing<br />
a big feeder and large hookbaits that you’d<br />
normally use in summer on top of the fish will<br />
only result in a motionless quivertip.<br />
Decision-making is important too, and by<br />
this, I mean working out when to change the<br />
distance you are fishing at or what freebies you<br />
can or can’t introduce through the feeder.<br />
Put simply, there will be some fish in front<br />
of you on well-stocked fisheries such as<br />
Meadowlands near Coventry and they will<br />
want to feed at some point. It’s down to the<br />
angler to work out what’s right, and the cage<br />
feeder will give you the best chance of success.<br />
But why is the cage so good? Read on...<br />
83
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
Steve is a big fan of<br />
fluorocarbon hooklinks<br />
when the going is tough.<br />
Dead maggots and a few micro pellets<br />
are added to the groundbait.<br />
Changing<br />
feeder<br />
size can<br />
transform<br />
your catch<br />
rate.<br />
Lightly<br />
squeeze the<br />
feeder on<br />
hard days.<br />
WHY A CAGE FEEDER?<br />
The main difference between a cage feeder and<br />
an open-end version is that the cage has bigger<br />
holes from which the feed can exit. This is why<br />
it is so good in the cold.<br />
I know that before the feeder has hit bottom<br />
it will have begun to give off particles of<br />
groundbait and perhaps a few loose offerings<br />
into the water. This is useful, because in cold<br />
water the fish will be sitting just off the deck.<br />
They then see these bits coming off the feeder<br />
and follow the trail down to the lakebed where<br />
they will find the feeder and the hookbait. In a<br />
nutshell, the cage is all about putting attraction<br />
into the water.<br />
CH<strong>ANG</strong>ING FEEDER SIZE<br />
The cage feeders that I use are small Nisa<br />
models and despite their size, I can introduce<br />
more or less bait by picking a feeder with more<br />
or fewer holes. The four-hole model is my<br />
starter as this gets a reasonable dollop of bait<br />
down, but if I felt that the fish were backing<br />
off after I’d caught a few, this would tell me to<br />
change over to the smaller three-hole feeder.<br />
This not only lets me put less feed through it,<br />
but the smaller size will make less commotion<br />
when it enters the water, something that can<br />
spook roach and skimmers in clear water. A 22g<br />
model is heavy enough to cast where I want.<br />
PICKING THE RIGHT DISTANCE<br />
On a well-stocked fishery I don’t see the need<br />
to cast miles provided that there is a decent<br />
enough depth in the first place.<br />
Should your venue see a lot of pole fishing<br />
84
WINTER FEEDER TACTICS<br />
C A G E<br />
FEEDER<br />
take place, casting a few metres past this point<br />
– say 14.5m or 16m – can be a great place to start.<br />
I’m a big fan of beginning by casting shorter<br />
in winter as this gives me the option to move<br />
further out as the day goes on.<br />
However, I would also keep an eye on anglers<br />
around me and judge where those that are<br />
catching are casting to. If I was struggling, I<br />
would follow them out to the same distance.<br />
The most important thing for me, however, is<br />
to try and fish in my own bit of water.<br />
By that, I mean that I will cast past or<br />
sometimes shorter than anglers near me. This<br />
way, I know that I won’t be competing with the<br />
others in trying to draw fish into the area.<br />
LIGHT TACKLE IS A MUST<br />
Although you may catch the odd big fish, I’d<br />
bet that most bites in the cold will come from<br />
roach, perch and small skimmers so fishing<br />
heavy tackle has no value. It’ll also mean fewer<br />
bites in the first place, which defeats the point.<br />
My cage feeder rig uses 4lb Guru Pulse<br />
mainline with the feeder on a feeder link<br />
running on the mainline, featuring a 6ins<br />
twisted section above the hooklink.<br />
The 18ins hooklength is 0.12mm Guru<br />
Fluorocarbon, which is invisible, stiff to<br />
prevent tangles and heavy, so that it lies on the<br />
bottom properly.<br />
Hook choice might surprise you in that I pick<br />
a size 16 Guru F1 Pellet. This barbless hook is<br />
surprisingly strong, yet light and super-sharp,<br />
but more importantly its shape perfectly suits<br />
the hookbaits that I plan on using.<br />
GROUNDBAIT AND FEED<br />
The cage feeder mix is 70 per cent Ringers<br />
Original to 30 per cent Van Den Eynde G5 to<br />
add a little sweetness, mixed on the damp side<br />
to ensure it stays in the feeder on the cast.<br />
Crunch time comes when deciding what to<br />
put in the mix. Chopped worm is one obvious<br />
option but I would hold my horses with this<br />
and instead begin by adding a sprinkling of<br />
micro pellets, dead maggots and pinkies.<br />
Worm is left out initially until I can be certain<br />
that the fish want it. In cold water, chopped<br />
worm can be like poison if the fish aren’t in<br />
the mood and can kill a swim before it has got<br />
going. My plan is to see which anglers around<br />
me are chopping worms and then, if they are<br />
catching, I will begin to add some worm.<br />
However, if I know that the venue I’m fishing<br />
responds to worm I can be confident enough<br />
to begin by feeding it. The worms are chopped<br />
very finely into a mush to kick out as much<br />
attraction as possible.<br />
ACCURACY ISN’T THAT IMPORTANT<br />
I’m a big advocate of being deadly accurate with<br />
your casting but in winter, on the cage feeder,<br />
that’s only partically true.<br />
At the start I will be dead eye with my casting,<br />
especially with the opening three casts that see<br />
me using a slightly bigger feeder to get down an<br />
initial hit of groundbait and freebies before I<br />
then change back to a a smaller feeder.<br />
The early stages of a session demand accuracy<br />
using the reel’s line clip and a far-bank marker,<br />
but as the day goes on and the fish begin to<br />
show signs of moving about, being inaccurate<br />
can catch more fish.<br />
Often, a cast that is slid to the left or right of<br />
my main spot, only by a yard or two, can pick<br />
off a bigger fish that may have backed off the<br />
original area, so don’t be afraid to go off course.<br />
SIMPLE HOOKBAITS<br />
Silver fish are your main target in this situation<br />
and I’d pick three fluoro pinkies or double dead<br />
red maggot as my number one choices.<br />
The alternative would be a small segment<br />
of worm, but only if I was having success by<br />
feeding worm in the groundbait.<br />
GIVING IT A GOOD PLUG<br />
When every bite counts, the smallest things<br />
about your approach can make a big difference.<br />
That’s true with the cage feeder with regard<br />
to how hard you plug the groundbait into the<br />
When bites are at<br />
a premium, the<br />
cage feeder will<br />
produce.<br />
feeder before casting.<br />
Normally, I would squeeze the mix in with<br />
plenty of force so I know that it will get to the<br />
bottom, giving off a few bits and bobs on the<br />
way down.<br />
But if the fishing is very hard and I feel that<br />
I need to make something happen, gently<br />
plugging the feeder means that the mix will<br />
disperse quickly, creating a cloud in the water.<br />
CH<strong>ANG</strong>ING LINES<br />
So when do you make the switch to a longer or<br />
shorter cast? It is easy to sit and think ‘they’ll<br />
turn up soon’ but this isn’t the answer in cold<br />
weather. You have to find the fish.<br />
If I wasn’t catching then I’d pay close<br />
attention to anglers that are, see where they are<br />
casting to and join them at this range.<br />
On the flipside, if I caught a few fish and bites<br />
then stopped, I would take a few turns off my<br />
reel and cast a little longer to see if the fish had<br />
backed further out into the lake.<br />
85
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
MAGGOT<br />
FEEDER<br />
86
MAGGOT FEEDER RIG<br />
Light lines and small<br />
hooks and feeders are<br />
the key to this tactic.<br />
PAGES 88 - 89<br />
ON THE BANK<br />
A session at Packington<br />
Somers proves how good<br />
the maggot feeder is for<br />
cold-water F1s.<br />
PAGES 90 - 93<br />
87
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
NOT JUST<br />
FOR THE<br />
RIVER!<br />
Turn to the maggot feeder for F1s<br />
YOU may normally associate the<br />
maggot feeder with catching<br />
chub on a river rather than F1s on<br />
commercial fisheries, but when<br />
the cold weather bites hard and<br />
the name of the game is winkling<br />
out every fish that I possibly can,<br />
turning to a tiny maggot feeder will tip<br />
the balance in my favour.<br />
I know from fishing venues like Tunnel Barn<br />
Farm in winter on the pole, where F1s are the<br />
main species, that maggots are a million miles<br />
in front of pellets when it comes to catching<br />
consistently and so the same should ring true<br />
with a feeder rod in hand.<br />
Indeed, Packington Somers is one water I<br />
can think of where from November onwards<br />
the maggot feeder rules for catching F1s when<br />
casting to islands.<br />
I’ll also include a few of these in my bag on<br />
places like Tunnel Barn’s snake lakes, when I<br />
may need to cast a tiny maggot feeder across to<br />
pick off a few extra fish.<br />
Additionally, it comes in handy in very strong<br />
winds that can rule the pole out completely.<br />
W H E N T O U S E I T<br />
On waters with a good head of F1s<br />
and quality silverfish such as barbel,<br />
skimmers, roach and tench.<br />
W H Y U S E I T ?<br />
At certain times of the year, especially<br />
in cold weather, fish will turn on to<br />
maggots as opposed to pellets. In this<br />
instance, the maggot feeder offers<br />
them exactly what they want.<br />
H O W T O T I E I T<br />
1 Slide the maggot feeder and<br />
snaplink swivel on to the mainline.<br />
2 A float stop goes on to the line<br />
underneath the feeder.<br />
3 Six inches of mainline are then<br />
twizzled into a tight loop to create a<br />
stiff boom.<br />
4 Finally the hooklink is attached<br />
loop-to-loop style.<br />
Mainline<br />
This consists of Guru<br />
Pulse in 6lb breaking<br />
strain, as I wouldn’t<br />
expect to be catching<br />
many carp!<br />
Hook<br />
These should be on<br />
the fine side, and I<br />
can’t fault the Guru<br />
LWG in size 18 to take<br />
double maggot.<br />
Feeder<br />
Feeders range from<br />
large weight-forward<br />
models for long casts<br />
to tiny cut-down ones<br />
for use in the cold.<br />
Feed<br />
Not a tough one this –<br />
maggots! I’ll use reds<br />
and whites and go for<br />
the freshest bait that I<br />
can get hold of.<br />
88
MAGGOT FEEDER FOR WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH<br />
MAGGOT<br />
FEEDER RIG<br />
Twizzled loop<br />
As with most of my<br />
feeder rigs, a six-inch<br />
twizzled loop is used<br />
to prevent tangles<br />
when casting.<br />
Hooklink<br />
Don’t go too heavy,<br />
given that F1s are the<br />
target. Around 0.11mm<br />
N-Gauge will get the<br />
job done.
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
MAGIC<br />
OF THE<br />
MAGGOT<br />
FEEDER<br />
The old school tactic that works<br />
as well for a big net of commercial<br />
carp as it does for river chub!<br />
Seek out the<br />
deeper water just<br />
off an island and<br />
you’ll find the fish.<br />
EVERY now and again a longforgotten<br />
tactic comes back to<br />
the fore, and in recent winters<br />
that without a doubt has been the<br />
maggot feeder – it’s a real blast from<br />
the past!<br />
In the cold, maggots are the number one<br />
bait as far as F1s are concerned and so it really<br />
shouldn’t come as a surprise that on venues<br />
such as Packington Somers, where there<br />
are a lot of F1s, the maggot feeder proves so<br />
successful to match and pleasure anglers.<br />
It’s not only a match winner. On pegs where<br />
it’s a struggle to even get a bite on a pellet or<br />
Method feeder the maggot feeder sees the tip<br />
pulling round on a regular basis and turns a<br />
blank into at least a few fish on the bank.<br />
And if I’m being honest it’s actually a really<br />
nice way of fishing, and one that I’ve enjoyed<br />
getting back into fishing – although I have to<br />
admit I had to raid the back of the garage, it’s<br />
been that long since I used them!<br />
ADAPTING YOUR FEEDERS<br />
There are loads of blockend feeders on the<br />
market but many of them are simply too big<br />
for what I want, so I set about making a few<br />
alterations to tailor them perfectly to my F1<br />
fishing.<br />
To begin with I only want to feed 8-12<br />
maggots a cast so I take some of the original,<br />
green Drennan Feederlink feeders and cut<br />
them down with scissors to a size that allows<br />
them to take much less bait.<br />
I also make a change to the weights they carry.<br />
The original base weights just aren’t heavy<br />
enough, so I take the leads off the Drennan<br />
Carp Feeder models as these fit perfectly.<br />
This way I can have a tiny little maggot feeder<br />
that has as much as 25g of weight on it, so that<br />
in a nasty cross wind I can still cast accurately<br />
to keep the feed tight.<br />
Of course, 25g is the exception rather than the<br />
rule. If the wind is kind I find 15g is about right,<br />
as this ensures I can still be accurate with my<br />
casts and keep any disturbance to a minimum.<br />
If you haven’t got any of the original feeders<br />
knocking around then from what I’ve seen the<br />
smallest of the Drennan Carp Feeders is the<br />
next best thing.<br />
FINDING THE RIGHT SPOT<br />
Fishing a maggot feeder is all about building a<br />
peg rather than casting about looking for fish,<br />
so the line clip is key to ensuring that every cast<br />
lands on the same spot.<br />
Where to start? When the water temperature<br />
is low and I know the fish aren’t going to be<br />
too confident in the cold, clear conditions this<br />
means keeping away from any shallow water or<br />
islands and chucking into deeper water at the<br />
bottom of a far shelf on an island peg, which is<br />
probably 4m short of the island itself.<br />
In this deeper water carp and F1s are more<br />
likely to feel confident enough to feed, and if I<br />
need to chase them later on in the session I still<br />
have the room to do so.<br />
What normally happens is that I will catch<br />
a few before the fish back off. It can then be<br />
a case of simply taking a yard of line off and<br />
going further to keep in touch with the fish. in<br />
warmer weather I would chance casting up to<br />
the island where F1s, especially, may be but in<br />
this instance, a pellet feeder would be better.<br />
90
MAGGOT FEEDER FOR COMMERCIAL CARP<br />
MAGGOT<br />
FEEDER<br />
A spot of DIY soon produces a feeder heavy enough to hit<br />
the spot but small enough to take just a dozen maggots.<br />
91
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
Fish pellets<br />
and you<br />
wouldn’t<br />
catch F1s<br />
like this!<br />
HOW MANY MAGGOTS?<br />
As far as bait goes it’s all about maggots, and for<br />
a five-hour session or match I find a pint-and-ahalf<br />
to be more than enough.<br />
I like to have a mix of whites, reds and fluoros<br />
as this gives me more options in terms of<br />
hookbaits.<br />
On top of the maggots I also like to have a few<br />
pinkies with me. These are mainly for the hook,<br />
but if it’s really cold and the fishing is rock<br />
hard I will put a few in the feeder just to try and<br />
entice an F1 or two into feeding.<br />
REGULATE YOUR FEEDING<br />
The way you feed might seem very simple with<br />
this approach, as most anglers just keep filling<br />
the feeder up every cast with the same amount<br />
of maggots.<br />
However, I prefer to mix things up somewhat<br />
and will kick off my session by feeding around<br />
10-12 maggots every cast and then take things<br />
from there.<br />
If I’m getting lots of indications and bites<br />
then I will up the feed and put even more<br />
maggots in the feeder.<br />
However if bites are few and far between then<br />
I will cut right back and put just 4-6 maggots in<br />
the feeder every cast. After all, there is no point<br />
in doing the same thing every cast if you aren’t<br />
getting any bites!<br />
Basically, fishing a maggot feeder is just like<br />
any type of fishing, in that you have to think<br />
about what you are doing and react to the fish’s<br />
moods on the day.<br />
Just filling the feeder up every cast will, of<br />
course, work if you are on a pile of fish, but if<br />
you’re on an average peg it won’t allow you to<br />
get the best from it. Varying the quantity of<br />
maggots in the feeder will.<br />
SWITCHING HOOKBAITS<br />
As far as hookbaits go, in the main it’s all about<br />
double maggot. The only real variable would be<br />
a combination of a red and a white, two reds, or<br />
a red and a fluoro.<br />
I find it’s well worth experimenting with your<br />
hookbaits, as finding the right combination<br />
can make a massive difference. As a rule I find a<br />
red and a white or a red and a fluoro best, as the<br />
little bit of extra colour from a lighter-coloured<br />
maggot seems to result in quicker bites.<br />
The only exception to this is when it’s really<br />
cold and the fishing is rock hard. Under these<br />
conditions I tend to catch a lot of really big F1s<br />
fishing double pinkie. I can only think pinkies<br />
work better because they are small and brightly<br />
coloured stand-out hookbaits.<br />
GIVE IT A TWITCH<br />
If I’m not getting any bites, a great little edge is<br />
to give the maggot feeder a quick twitch around<br />
30 seconds before reeling in.<br />
Doing this has two benefits – it helps to fully<br />
empty the feeder and it gives the hookbait that<br />
little bit of movement which can be all that’s<br />
needed to induce a bite.<br />
To twitch the feeder all I do is turn the reel<br />
handle slowly until the tip winds right round<br />
and then slowly drops back again.<br />
I don’t want to make the feeder move too<br />
quickly as this could potentially spook any fish<br />
in the swim, so I do it nice and slowly.<br />
HOW MUCH TO FEED<br />
When it’s solid, you can<br />
cram the feeder, but on hard<br />
days Steve may only half-fill<br />
the feeder with maggots.<br />
Clip up to keep<br />
the feed in a<br />
tight area.<br />
92
MAGGOT FEEDER FOR COMMERCIAL CARP<br />
MAGGOT<br />
FEEDER<br />
TIE STEVE’S SIMPLE<br />
MAGGOT FEEDER RIG<br />
2<br />
3<br />
1<br />
TWISTED NAINLINE<br />
Many of my feeder rigs use a 6ins<br />
length of mainline that’s twisted<br />
1<br />
tightly to create a stiff piece of<br />
line. This doesn’t tangle and also helps<br />
to act with self-hooking as the feeder<br />
runs along it, hits the knot at the top<br />
and helps set the hook.<br />
4<br />
LIGHT HOOKLINK<br />
When the water is cold and clear,<br />
scaling down to a light hooklink<br />
2<br />
really does make a difference.<br />
That means 0.11mm N-Gauge matched<br />
to a size 18 LWG hook.<br />
FLOAT STOP<br />
To stop the feeder running down<br />
the hooklink I build a small float<br />
3<br />
stop into the rig, which offers<br />
minimal resistance to a fish taking the<br />
bait.<br />
FEEDER LINK<br />
My home-made feeder link<br />
prevents tangles by ‘kicking’ the<br />
4<br />
hooklink and hook away from the<br />
feeder. See pages ?? and ?? for how to<br />
tie these yourself.<br />
‘DIY’ FEEDER<br />
Taking a pair of scissors to the<br />
feeder body will reduce the<br />
5<br />
length and therefeore the<br />
bait-carrying capacity. I also remove the<br />
weight at the base and swap it for a<br />
heavier one, as found on the Drennan<br />
Carp Feeders.<br />
5<br />
Winter F1 fishing is all about<br />
light lines and small hooks.<br />
93
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
THE<br />
BOMB<br />
94
BOMB RIG<br />
Whether you fish inline<br />
or elasticated, this simple<br />
bomb rig is easy to tie.<br />
PAGES 96 -97<br />
MASTER THE BOMB<br />
Leger perfection with this<br />
feature that’s packed full<br />
of top advice and tips.<br />
PAGES 98 - 101<br />
IMPACT BOMB<br />
Steve lifts the lid on this<br />
brilliant new method for<br />
warmer weather.<br />
PAGES 102 - 105<br />
BOMB BAITS<br />
Learn why high-visibility<br />
hookbaits can’t be<br />
beaten on the bomb.<br />
PAGES 106 - 107<br />
95
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
BOMBING<br />
ALONG<br />
FOR CARP<br />
Mainline<br />
As big carp are the<br />
target, I take no<br />
prisoners with reliable<br />
and robust 8lb Guru<br />
Pulse.<br />
Turn to the lead when it gets cold<br />
THERE’S a lot of snobbery<br />
surrounding bomb fishing among<br />
anglers, as so many see it as a<br />
method that needs no skill. The<br />
angler simply slings out the rig and<br />
waits until the rod gets pulled off<br />
the rest – but as always, there’s a<br />
little bit more to it than that!<br />
In fact, fished correctly, the bomb can be<br />
every bit as effcient at catching carp as a feeder<br />
while enjoying the benefits of not introducing<br />
any bait into the swim. In unfavourable<br />
conditions this can wreck a swim before it’s had<br />
the chance to get going.<br />
Rightly, the bomb is seen as a winter method<br />
for presenting a single hookbait for the fish to<br />
find, and although that may seem like a massive<br />
leap of faith, there are plenty of things that you<br />
can do to get bites – as you’ll see in the features<br />
following these pages.<br />
But the bomb isn’t just for winter and I’ve<br />
had some big weights in August using the lead<br />
in conjunction with loosefeeding pellets over<br />
the top.<br />
So is the bomb really boring? Not a bit of it!<br />
W H E N T O U S E I T<br />
Although the bomb can work in<br />
summer, it is most effective in winter<br />
when fished with highly-visible single<br />
hookbaits for big carp.<br />
W H Y U S E I T ?<br />
Little, if any feed at all, is used with<br />
the bomb. The angler instead relies<br />
on that hookbait to be seen clearly by<br />
any fish swimming around.<br />
Feed<br />
Very occasionally I will<br />
fire out two or three<br />
6mm or 8mm hard<br />
pellets with a catapult<br />
over the top.<br />
H O W T O T I E I T<br />
1 If picking an elasticated set-up, the<br />
mainline is attached via a large loop<br />
to the top end of the stem.<br />
2 As the elastic runs through the<br />
stem, the lead is now slid into place.<br />
3 A Speed Bead is attached to the<br />
elasticated end.<br />
4 To finish, slide the hooklink over the<br />
crook of the bead.<br />
96
THE RELIABLE INLINE BOMB RIG<br />
BOMB<br />
RIG<br />
Bomb<br />
Guru’s X-Safe Lead<br />
lets me fish either<br />
inline or elasticated,<br />
if allowed. I’d pick the<br />
⅔oz size.<br />
Speed Bead<br />
This acts as a stopper<br />
if fishing an inline lead<br />
and it lets me change<br />
over hooks and<br />
hookbaits in seconds.<br />
Hooklink<br />
In keeping with the<br />
strong mainline and<br />
big hook in this rig<br />
I use 0.19mm Guru<br />
N-Gauge.<br />
Hook<br />
A size 12 Guru QM1 is<br />
used as this is ‘sit and<br />
wait’ fishing – you<br />
don’t want to lose<br />
what you hook!<br />
97
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
When the leaves fall<br />
from the trees it’s time<br />
to get on the bomb.<br />
98
CATCH ON THE BOMB IN WINTER<br />
BOMB<br />
FISHING<br />
CATCH IN<br />
WINTER<br />
ON THE<br />
BOMB!<br />
Master this winning cold-water<br />
method with Steve’s expert advice<br />
AS SOON as the temperature starts<br />
to drop there is one method that<br />
always seems to come to the fore<br />
on commercials across the country<br />
– bomb and pellet.<br />
I’m actually not sure why the bomb is<br />
so effective at this time of the year but<br />
results don’t lie, and from November until it<br />
warms up I wouldn’t mind betting that it will<br />
win more matches than any other tactic.<br />
If you look at the way it’s fished, the bomb<br />
is actually a very negative way of fishing and<br />
maybe that’s why it works so well in the cold.<br />
After all, the fish are beginning to slow up<br />
their feeding at this time of year so they don’t<br />
want loads of bait, and the bomb tends to work<br />
best with a relatively frugal feeding regime.<br />
With the water also being clear on a lot of<br />
commercials the carp have started to back away<br />
from the bank, yet with the lead they are always<br />
within reach – something that can’t be said<br />
about the pole on bigger waters.<br />
BOOSTED BAITS<br />
On the bait front it’s all about feeding and<br />
fishing with 8mm hard coarse pellets.<br />
Which brand you choose is up to you, but I’m<br />
a big fan of Dynamite XL carp pellets. These<br />
are a low oil coarse pellet and being relatively<br />
light in colour I find them perfect for this time<br />
of year.<br />
I do like to give them a boost, though, and<br />
this comes in the form of Mainline Baits’<br />
Meta-Mino, an amino-based compound<br />
that has a really meaty smell which, in my<br />
experience, carp love.<br />
To apply the Meta-Mino all I do is add a splash<br />
to the loose pellets in the bait tub, pop the lid<br />
on and give the whole lot a good shake to make<br />
sure they all come into contact with the liquid.<br />
Once this is done I leave the pellets to dry for<br />
30 minutes before feeding. This of course can<br />
be done the night before if you want to save<br />
time and make sure the Meta-Mino has been<br />
fully absorbed.<br />
99
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
BOMB FISHING BAITS<br />
10mm PUNCHED MEAT<br />
This offers me something<br />
different to the norm, and<br />
with meat I actually glug it<br />
in Mainline Cell liquid just<br />
to give it plenty of attraction<br />
in terms of smell. I find<br />
when the water is coloured<br />
and visibility is reduced that<br />
meat can outfish pellets, as<br />
carp find it easier to locate.<br />
ROBIN RED PELLETS<br />
These tend to work best as<br />
an impact bait, being red in<br />
colour with a strong aroma.<br />
A quick chuck when it’s gone<br />
quiet with the Robin Reds<br />
often produces an instant<br />
response, because I’m giving<br />
the carp something a little<br />
bit different to what they<br />
have grown used to seeing.<br />
8mm HARD PELLET<br />
It will come as no surprise to<br />
know that my starting bait<br />
will be a single 8mm hard<br />
pellet. After all, I’m feeding<br />
8mm pellets so it makes<br />
perfect sense to put the<br />
same on the hair.<br />
A good<br />
glug of<br />
Meta-Mino<br />
liquid will<br />
pep up plain<br />
pellets.<br />
Step up the<br />
feed if those<br />
around you<br />
are catching<br />
by pinging<br />
in more bait.<br />
FEEDING YOUR SWIM<br />
When it comes to feeding on the bomb I’m a big<br />
believer in feeling my way in, and this means<br />
I will kick off with just two pellets every 4-5<br />
minutes just to see what happens.<br />
I will also keep an eye on neighbouring<br />
anglers to see how they are feeding their swims<br />
and what sort of response they are getting.<br />
I learn a lot this way, and if the angler next<br />
door is feeding much more heavily than I am<br />
and catching then I can up my feed accordingly.<br />
If, however, he is struggling I can carry on<br />
feeding very little, safe in the knowledge that<br />
the fish aren’t coming to any amount of bait.<br />
I remember a day at Barston Lakes when I<br />
started off feeding just two pellets every five<br />
minutes, but after an hour I’d had just one bite.<br />
However, a carp angler on the opposite bank<br />
landed five carp in this time and after watching<br />
him for a bit it became apparent he was feeding<br />
heavily with boilies.<br />
As a result I upped my feed to 6-10 pellets<br />
every two or three minutes. That was enough<br />
to spur the fish into feeding and I caught almost<br />
straight away.<br />
The trick was to feed and then cast straight on<br />
top of the loose offerings. By doing it this way<br />
you know your hookbait will be right in amid<br />
the loosefeed rather than sat well away from it.<br />
This may seem obvious, but a lot of anglers do<br />
it the other way round – they cast out and then<br />
start feeding over the top, and as a result I feel<br />
accuracy is lost.<br />
GO PAST YOUR FEED<br />
It might seem obvious that you’ll be fishing<br />
on top of your loosefeed, as I have already<br />
mentioned – but if the fishing is rock hard I<br />
actually tend to find you’re better off fishing<br />
off the back of your feed, a little way past the<br />
area where most of the pellets are.<br />
Even when carp aren’t really feeding, they<br />
will still investigate bait small amounts of bait<br />
going in.<br />
They will then sit near the bait but not on it,<br />
and this is when fishing just past the loosefeed<br />
can produce when fishing on the bait doesn’t.<br />
Of course, if I start getting line bites I will<br />
drop back on to the feed to see if a few fish have<br />
settled on the bait. This will tell me that some<br />
carp are between me and the hookbait – with<br />
luck they’ll be over my original feed area!<br />
100
CATCH ON THE BOMB IN WINTER<br />
When<br />
you’re only<br />
fishing for<br />
a few bites,<br />
use tackle<br />
that’ll let<br />
you get the<br />
fish in!<br />
1<br />
4<br />
5<br />
2<br />
3<br />
STEVE’S BOMB SET-UP<br />
GO INLINE<br />
BOMB<br />
FISHING<br />
I always use inline leads for my<br />
bomb fishing, as they offer great<br />
1<br />
anti-tangle and self-hooking<br />
properties, they cast well, and I can add<br />
elasticated stems to give me security<br />
when playing fish too. For short-range<br />
work, anywhere between 15m and 35m,<br />
I use the ⅔oz Guru Square Pears, the<br />
thinking being that with the water so<br />
clear, the less disturbance I can make<br />
when casting the better.<br />
ELASTIC SAFETY<br />
Where fishery rules allow I<br />
remove the rubber insert that<br />
2<br />
comes in the leads and replace it<br />
with a small X-Safe Speed Stem so the<br />
lead is elasticated. Which elastic I<br />
choose depends on the venue, so where<br />
I’m looking to catch both carp and big<br />
F1s I opt for the heavy black elastic.<br />
The beauty of having an elasticated<br />
bomb is that it helps to prevent those<br />
annoying, and potentially costly,<br />
hook-pulls at the net.<br />
LONG HOOKLENGTHS<br />
I always tie my hooklengths 75cm<br />
long for bomb fishing but will<br />
3<br />
then adjust the length I use,<br />
depending on conditions on the day.<br />
I may start with a long hooklength, but<br />
if it becomes clear that the carp are<br />
right on the feed I will then shorten the<br />
link to just 30cm. This way I’m putting<br />
the hookbait closer to the feed. If the<br />
fishing was harder, though, I would stick<br />
with the longer hooklength as I feel this<br />
gives a slower fall of the hookbait. This<br />
in turn can lead to more bites when the<br />
water is clear.<br />
DON’T SCALE DOWN<br />
Line diameter is also worth a<br />
4<br />
mention. When targeting ‘proper’<br />
carp I’m not a believer in fining<br />
right down, so my hooklengths for<br />
bomb work will be either 0.19mm or<br />
0.22mm Guru N-Gauge, to size 12 or 14<br />
QM1 hooks respectively. Which of the<br />
two combos I choose depends on the<br />
size of the fish, and for big carp that<br />
would be 0.22mm to a size 12, lowered<br />
to 0.19mm and a size 14 for smaller carp<br />
and the odd big F1.<br />
5 CH<strong>ANG</strong>E HOOKBAITS<br />
I always begin with a single 8mm hard pellet fished in a band<br />
and often don’t change from this – but there will be times when<br />
offering the carp something bigger will pull the tip round rapidly.<br />
This often seems to happen when the weather is cold and the<br />
fishing hard. Then, changing to a couple of 8mm pellets squeezed<br />
into a band or even hair-rigged gives the carp a much bigger bait<br />
that grabs their attention.<br />
101
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
Is it a feeder or a<br />
bomb? Who cares as<br />
long as it catches fish?<br />
MAKING<br />
A REAL<br />
IMPACT!<br />
Get on this brilliant bomb that will<br />
take leger fishing to another level<br />
NOW and again an idea comes along<br />
which makes you say ‘why didn’t I<br />
think of that myself?’ Over the past<br />
few years I’ve been using Guru’s<br />
‘Impact Bombs and to be honest,<br />
as soon as I caught a few carp on<br />
them I secretly kicked myself that I<br />
hadn’t sussed this trick out sooner.<br />
The bombs are basically like a flat lead with<br />
mesh in the middle – I guess you could say they<br />
look like tiny tennis racket heads – and the idea<br />
is that the mesh offers grip so that a helping of<br />
2mm or 4mm pellets will stay in place during<br />
the cast.<br />
As the name suggests, the pellets are designed<br />
to come off on impact with the surface and then<br />
fall through the water, dragging fish down to<br />
where your hookbait is. What could be simpler<br />
than that?<br />
WHICH SIZE TO USE?<br />
There are five bombs to pick from, ranging<br />
from 2/3oz up to 2oz, so they can be fished at<br />
both long and short ranges. I have used them<br />
for short casts on snake-type lakes through to<br />
long 80m-plus chucks at Boddington Reservoir<br />
in the winter, so there really is nothing you can’t<br />
do with them!<br />
Impact bombs are at their best in what I<br />
would call ‘shallow’ water from 2ft to 8ft, due<br />
to the way they work in releasing the pellets on<br />
the surface. For deeper water I swap the 2mm<br />
pellets for the 4mm versions so that they fall<br />
that little bit quicker through the water and<br />
aren’t taken away by any tow.<br />
STICKING THE PELLETS<br />
I prefer to use 2mm coarse pellets as they stick<br />
to the bomb really easily, but wetted-down<br />
102
CUTTING-EDGE TACKLE<br />
BOMB<br />
FISHING<br />
3mm and 4mm baits will work too. The key<br />
is making sure that your pellets are properly<br />
soaked. If they’re too dry they’re likely to fly off<br />
on the cast.<br />
To prepare my pellets I pour them into a<br />
three-pint bait tub and cover them with cold<br />
water for around a minute. I then drain all the<br />
water off and pour the pellets into a big round<br />
tub so they are well spread out. The next step<br />
is to leave them to stand for a minimum of 30<br />
minutes, after which they should be ready.<br />
Some pellet brands stick better than others. If<br />
you are having problems with the stickiness of<br />
the pellets then add a squirt of Mainline’s Cell<br />
Stick Mix to the soaked pellets and that should<br />
solve the problem.<br />
The beauty of the Stick Mix is that not only<br />
does it help the pellets to bind, but it also gives<br />
them a great fish-attracting flavour.<br />
Another<br />
carp falls to<br />
the Impact!<br />
103
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
WHERE AND HOW TO FISH IT<br />
There are two ways to fish the Impact bomb.<br />
The first and most obvious is to just cast it out<br />
to the required spot and fish, treating it almost<br />
as you would a feeder. This can work very well<br />
when a full feeder load is a little too much to put<br />
in, but when the fish do want a little feed.<br />
While this works, and I have caught plenty of<br />
fish doing it, for me the bombs are at their best<br />
when fished just off the back of loosefed pellets<br />
pinged in over the top.<br />
What I like to do is loosefeed 8mm pellets via<br />
a catapult, and then fish the Impact bomb say<br />
5m past the line of the feed.<br />
The reason is that you’ll find a lot of carp sat<br />
off the back of the loosefed pellets, and by using<br />
the impact bomb I am able to pick these fish off.<br />
The extra bit of attraction of the micros<br />
falling through the water seems to help too, in<br />
effect giving the fish that little bit more in terms<br />
of attraction.<br />
I reckon that the Impact bomb comes into its own when carp are<br />
sitting off the back of an area that I’ve been loosefeeding.<br />
104
CUTTING-EDGE TACKLE<br />
STEP-BY-STEP<br />
HOW TO LOAD<br />
THE IMPACT BOMB<br />
1<br />
Take the bomb and drop it into a tub<br />
of loose pellets, then squeeze between<br />
thumb and forefinger until the mesh on<br />
both sides is covered. I don’t mind if the<br />
bomb looks a little rough around the<br />
edges either!<br />
TIE MY IMPACT BOMB RIG<br />
HOOKLENGTHS<br />
My choice depends on the<br />
size of carp I’m targeting.<br />
On lakes like Lambsdown<br />
at Meadowlands, the carp<br />
average around 6lb and<br />
doubles are common, so<br />
I use an 8ins hooklength<br />
of 0.19mm N-Gauge to<br />
a size 12 QM1 hook. The<br />
short hooklength gives a<br />
better bolt effect when<br />
a fish picks the hookbait<br />
up – the fish can’t move far<br />
before it feels the weight<br />
of the lead and hooks itself<br />
against it.<br />
BOMB<br />
FISHING<br />
SAFE RIG<br />
The bombs feature an<br />
oversized swivel on the<br />
top so they fit into a mini<br />
lead clip to allow them to<br />
be fished semi-fixed. You<br />
get the benefit of a bolt<br />
rig with the assurance that<br />
the lead will pull free if<br />
your line breaks.I swap the<br />
swivel that comes with the<br />
lead clips for a size 11 snap<br />
link swivel so I can clip<br />
hooklengths on and off<br />
when the need arises.<br />
2<br />
Bear in mind that the harder you<br />
squeeze the pellets, the longer they will<br />
take to come off. For short-range work<br />
I always find a light squeeze best to<br />
ensure a good proportion of the pellets<br />
come off straight away.<br />
3<br />
I sometimes put a little blob of Power<br />
Smoke Goo on the bomb mesh and then<br />
seal it in with wetted-down pellets. This<br />
way the Goo is only released once the<br />
pellets fall off, thereby introducing a<br />
lovely cloud into the swim.<br />
HOOKBAITS<br />
There are loads of different<br />
hookbaits you can use, but<br />
my favourites are 8mm hard<br />
pellets and punched meat<br />
in 8mm or 10mm sizes. Hard<br />
pellets are a great bait on most<br />
commercials – the carp see<br />
so many of them and they’re<br />
also relatively small fish-proof,<br />
which is better if silvers are a<br />
problem. Meat is a bait I love<br />
fishing with, as it has the habit<br />
of picking out the bigger carp.<br />
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STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
COLOUR RULES<br />
ON THE BOMB!<br />
In clear water, pick a hookbait that the carp can’t fail to spot<br />
THE nature of fishing the bomb, or<br />
straight lead as some call it, means<br />
that a single hookbait can be fished<br />
without any additional feed, relying<br />
on the curiosity of a carp to seek it<br />
out and wolf it down.<br />
While the bomb can work in summer,<br />
I think it really comes into its own in winter<br />
when the fish don’t want any feed, instead<br />
picking off a stand-alone hookbait when the<br />
mood takes them.<br />
For that reason, you have to offer the fish<br />
something that’s highly visual to grab their<br />
attention in clearish water. It can be a fluoro<br />
pink, yellow or orange boilie or Wafter, a couple<br />
of pieces of yellow corn or five discs of white<br />
bread punched out and fished as a stack.<br />
Regularly changing the bait colour is<br />
important. Something as minor as changing<br />
from a yellow mini boilie to a pink Wafter can<br />
trigger the feeding switch in those carp.<br />
Pick a bright yellow or pink colour<br />
if you plan on going down the<br />
boilie route on the bomb. An 8mm<br />
or 10mm bait is perfect.<br />
106
HOOKBAITS WITH VISUAL APPEAL<br />
BOMB<br />
BAITS<br />
STEP-BY-STEP HAIR-RIGGING BREAD<br />
1<br />
Sliced medium white bread<br />
(Warburton’s is a good brand) can be<br />
used straight from the bag. No rolling<br />
or microwaving needed here!<br />
2<br />
Guru’s punches mean that you can cut<br />
out four or five discs and store them<br />
inside the cylinder. In terms of size,<br />
6mm or 8mm is about right.<br />
A banded 6mm or 8mm hard<br />
pellet would be a bomb bait I’d<br />
pick in warmer weather when I<br />
was loosefeeding over the top.<br />
3<br />
Take a baiting needle and pierce the<br />
bread discs on to it, pushing them well<br />
down. Now slot the needle’s hook on to<br />
the loop at the end of the hair rig.<br />
4<br />
Gently slide the discs off the needle<br />
and on to the hair. They can be slightly<br />
compressed to help. A bait stop is then<br />
added to hold things in place.<br />
Meat is overlooked for winter<br />
bomb work, but when dyed yellow<br />
and flavoured with Mainline’s<br />
Activ-8 it really stands out!<br />
5<br />
Bread will sit off bottom naturally but to<br />
make it pop up even more, swap one of<br />
the discs for a bright pink or white mini<br />
pop-up boilie that’s been cut in half.<br />
6<br />
I’d have two or three hooklinks on my<br />
side tray set up and ready to go with<br />
different ways of fishing bread. That<br />
way I can change over in seconds.<br />
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STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
MY BEST<br />
FEEDER<br />
MATCHES<br />
FERRY RECORD<br />
100lb of big bream<br />
and a new match best -<br />
what could be better?<br />
PAGE 109<br />
WORLD PAIRS<br />
Battling the weather in<br />
the wilds of Ireland for<br />
roach and hybrids.<br />
PAGES 110-113<br />
FEEDER FEST<br />
A roach a cast for five<br />
hours over five days - I<br />
was shattered!<br />
PAGE 114<br />
FISH O’ GLORY<br />
Third time lucky at<br />
Hayfield as the Method<br />
feeder came good.<br />
PAGE 115<br />
WORLD CHAMPION<br />
A weekend I’ll never<br />
forget - double gold<br />
on Inniscarra.<br />
PAGES 116-119<br />
108
MY FAVOURITE FEEDER MATCHES<br />
FAVOURITE<br />
MATCHES<br />
BREAKING<br />
RECORDS!<br />
Two-day festival is the pick of my Ferry Meadows matches<br />
OF ALL the venues I’ve written about<br />
in my Angling Times columns down<br />
the years, Ferry Meadows Lakes<br />
near Peterborough have probably<br />
grabbed more of the headlines than<br />
anywhere else.<br />
It’s a water I’ve fished since I was a<br />
lad with my dad Geoff and brother Phil and<br />
comfortably makes the top spot as my favourite<br />
feeder venue of all time. They’re big lakes that<br />
need long casts and plenty of patience, and<br />
while some pegs can be a guaranteed blank,<br />
when the venue is in form you can catch some<br />
huge bream and plenty of them.<br />
You need to get out into the water and do<br />
battle with the elements. You also have to gear<br />
up with the right rods and tackle to be able to<br />
cast 60 or 70 yards, so it’s not a venue for the<br />
faint-hearted.<br />
It’s been very kind to me in matches, with<br />
plenty of wins, but one stands out above all<br />
others – my win in the Steel City AC two-day<br />
festival in the summer of 2013 when I broke the<br />
match record with over 130lb of big bream.<br />
That record has since gone but at the time<br />
100lb was a massive weight from the lakes.<br />
The run-up to this match hinted that a big<br />
weight was on the cards as I’d caught over 100lb<br />
in an open a few weeks beforehand from a peg<br />
near the river mouth on Gunwade Lake. The<br />
bream were in the mood and I was confident in<br />
FAVOURITE<br />
FEEDER MATCHES<br />
STEEL CITY FESTIVAL<br />
2013, FERRY MEADOWS<br />
Who can<br />
argue with<br />
a big net of<br />
slabs like this?<br />
my fishing, knowing that with a good draw and<br />
ideal conditions I could be looking at a very big<br />
net of fish indeed.<br />
The day of my record put me on the middle<br />
of the monument bank of Gunwade a couple<br />
of dozen pegs to the left of the river mouth, so<br />
in the right area – although I was aware that<br />
it could be a case of feast or famine. The good<br />
news was that if the bream were at home, there<br />
would be a good few of them to catch. The<br />
stamp of fish in this spot on the lake always<br />
tends to be bigger – you’re looking at an average<br />
of 7lb to 8lb!<br />
Bream of this size<br />
mean that not<br />
many are needed<br />
for a big weight.<br />
Conditions were bang on. In fact, you<br />
couldn’t ask for better bream fishing weather<br />
with a warm overcast day and a good wind<br />
rippling the surface. It all looked ideal.<br />
Now, if you’ve read my columns about fishing<br />
at Ferry you’ll know that I don’t like to catch<br />
in the first hour of a match and things went to<br />
plan on that front. Using the old favourite of<br />
hair-rigged worms on a Kev Leach distance<br />
feeder at around 50m where the water was at its<br />
deepest, I went an hour and 15 minutes before<br />
my first bite from a big bream.<br />
From that point it was, looking back, an<br />
easy match because I’d done the groundwork<br />
of getting some feed down without spooking<br />
the fish. The job would now be to keep the feed<br />
going in to keep the bream feeding.<br />
I even foul-hooked an 8lb bream in the tail<br />
that I swore was a carp, such was the way it<br />
fought on braid. I finished with 16 proper<br />
bream, the biggest weighing 8lb 9oz plus a rake<br />
of smaller fish, but at 3lb each I don’t think you<br />
could really call them small!<br />
I’d like to say that the fishing was technical<br />
with lots of clever changes and tweaks made to<br />
the rig and feeding, but that wouldn’t be true.<br />
All I needed to do was to keep my casting<br />
accurate and hold my patience when waiting<br />
for a bite. Often at Ferry you can go from<br />
catching to not getting a bite for half-an-hour or<br />
so and then, out of the blue, you’ll net another<br />
half-a-dozen fish in as many casts.<br />
I’ve caught bigger weights at Ferry since then,<br />
but breaking a record is always special – and<br />
made even better when you enjoy such an easy<br />
match into the bargain.<br />
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STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
FAVOURITE<br />
FEEDER MATCHES<br />
WORLD <strong>ANG</strong>LING PAIRS<br />
IRELAND 2015<br />
It might look bang<br />
on for bream, but so<br />
many Irish waters<br />
are now full of roach<br />
and small hybrids.<br />
RAPID<br />
FIRE<br />
ROACH<br />
Irish feeder fishing isn’t all about<br />
bream – brush up on your roach<br />
fishing with Steve’s tips and tricks...<br />
IF THERE’S a week that I really look<br />
forward to in my crowded fishing<br />
calendar then it has to be the trip<br />
across the Irish Sea to take part in the<br />
World Pairs competition.<br />
Myself and brother Phil have fished this<br />
week-long extravaganza every year since<br />
Kevin Locke created it a while back, and were<br />
fortunate enough to win it in 2015, despite my<br />
van being written off and me ending up at the<br />
hospital after a road accident on the way to the<br />
fishing on the final day!<br />
But enough about that - what about the<br />
fishing? The beauty of the World Pairs is that<br />
because it is based around weight you never<br />
feel like you’re out of it and it’s even possible<br />
to win the whole thing in a day. That keeps<br />
everyone interested compared to a festival<br />
decided on overall points.<br />
The first-time Irish visitor may daydream<br />
about bagging 100lb of bream on the feeder,<br />
and while that’s still more than possible on<br />
some venues, for match anglers like myself<br />
a more viable and match-winning target are<br />
small hybrids and roach. Every lake in the<br />
country seems to be rammed with these.<br />
Because the Pairs is a weight match, every<br />
kilo counts, so getting an extra kilo or two out<br />
of a swim can make a huge difference come<br />
the Friday night presentation. When these fish<br />
are small, there’s certainly a way of fishing the<br />
feeder at speed and in such a way that you can<br />
catch enough of these tiddlers to compete.<br />
The pole does catch a lot of fish in this event,<br />
but with the weather in Ireland famed for<br />
being a bit ‘blowy’, you need to be a good feeder<br />
angler too. Here are the things that I believe<br />
have made a big difference to my Irish fishing...<br />
110
IRISH ROACH, BREAM AND HYBRIDS<br />
FISHING<br />
IRELAND<br />
The window feeder comes into play later in the match.<br />
FINE CHOP<br />
Something that’s always been apparent<br />
throughout the week of the Pairs is the<br />
importance of chopped worms. If the fishing is<br />
hard – and when I say ‘hard’ I’m talking about<br />
trying to catch 20lb of roach – then the best way<br />
to do it is to feed a lot of very finely chopped<br />
worms through the groundbait.<br />
This puts a lot of scent and cloud in the water,<br />
which in turn draws in lots of small roach and<br />
the odd big hybrid. So effective are worms in<br />
this situation that you can be biteless and then<br />
“ Putting in choppy can<br />
turn a lifeless swim into<br />
a bite a chuck!”<br />
within three casts of piling in fine choppy you’ll<br />
be getting bites again.<br />
This was never an opening gambit of our team<br />
but it was still a great way of getting a flagging<br />
swim going again and putting a few bonus fish<br />
in the net.<br />
WINDOW FEEDERS LATE ON<br />
Window feeders are very popular in Ireland<br />
but, unlike other anglers, Phil and I never<br />
started a match using them. Instead we found<br />
it better to bring them into play later in the<br />
contest when bites were starting to slow.<br />
Switching to a window feeder then would<br />
often produce an immediate response, mainly<br />
I believe because it went past where I had been<br />
fishing earlier in the day.<br />
You see, window feeders cast a lot better<br />
than a normal open-end feeder and this has<br />
the effect of making the braid between rod-tip<br />
and feeder that little bit straighter. In effect,<br />
this means I am fishing just past my feed. A lot<br />
of fish will sit just off the back of the feed as the<br />
match progresses, so a window feeder is a great<br />
way of picking them off.<br />
The other big benefit of window feeders is<br />
that they don’t give much off in terms of bait<br />
as they fall through the water. So if the swim is<br />
very deep and you want to keep the fish on the<br />
bottom they are a good option.<br />
CASTERS FOR HYBRIDS<br />
Effective as worms were at bringing in roach,<br />
when it came to hybrids it was all about casters.<br />
Therefore, we really attacked our pegs early<br />
with these to try and get off to a flying start.<br />
To give you an idea of how much we were<br />
attacking, early on we were looking to feed<br />
111
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
two pints of casters in the first hour if we got a<br />
quick response. From then on, though, if bites<br />
slowed we might only feed another two pints<br />
for the rest of the match.<br />
On several days this attacking start worked<br />
a treat but when bites eased off we cut down<br />
the amount of casters we fed to take that into<br />
account. It was very apparent you couldn’t<br />
just pile casters in all day. There is no doubt,<br />
though, that attacking the swim early with<br />
casters seemed to pull a lot of fish into the area<br />
immediately.<br />
DEPTH MAKES A DIFFERENCE<br />
When looking to catch hybrids on the feeder<br />
then depth is without doubt the key.<br />
Hybrids like the security of deep water, so this<br />
governs where I decide to fish. The first thing<br />
I do when I arrive at my peg is have a good<br />
plumb around with a 1oz bomb to check what<br />
sort of depths I have in front of me, and to<br />
check if there any drop-offs.<br />
If I find lots of deep water close in I will look<br />
to fish short, whereas if it’s shallow close in and<br />
I’m looking to catch hybrids I will go long.<br />
It’s also worth pointing out that on places<br />
like Lough Erne, 10ft-15ft is actually shallow<br />
whereas the hybrids prefer 25ft-30ft, in my<br />
experience at least!<br />
So the lesson here is to carefully plumb your<br />
peg so that you have an accurate picture in your<br />
head of what’s in front of you and where you are<br />
going to fish. You definitely can’t go to your peg<br />
with a preconceived idea of exactly where you<br />
are going to fish. Chances are it’ll be wrong.<br />
MISS FEWER BITES<br />
WITH BIGGER HOOKS<br />
One of the things you have to remember about<br />
Ireland is that not only are the surroundings<br />
wild but the fish are too!<br />
Therefore, chances are that most won’t have<br />
seen a hook so they aren’t hook or line-shy in<br />
the slightest. When it comes to roach fishing on<br />
Mincing<br />
worms to a<br />
pulp would<br />
crack a hard<br />
venue.<br />
the feeder I will think nothing of fishing a size<br />
10 hook to a 0.19mm hooklength.<br />
Better still, I will fish just a single maggot on<br />
the size 10. The best bit is that you also hit more<br />
bites when fishing a size 10 as opposed to a 12,<br />
as the fish find the 10 that little bit harder to<br />
deal with.<br />
A little tip for fishing a single maggot on a 10<br />
is to hook it either in the middle or thread it<br />
on. Both these ways will lead to an increase in<br />
your fish-to-bites ratio. If threading on a single<br />
maggot you can catch multiple fish on the<br />
At the weigh-in a<br />
dozen extra fish<br />
can make a huge<br />
difference.<br />
112
IRISH ROACH, BREAM AND HYBRIDS<br />
FISHING<br />
IRELAND<br />
Piling in the casters early<br />
worked a treat for hybrids.<br />
The window feeder is popular in Ireland.<br />
same hookbait, which helps a lot in terms of<br />
effciency and speed.<br />
REGULAR CASTING<br />
At times those hybrids would only feed<br />
for short spells, so it was important to cast<br />
regularly to keep some bait going into the swim<br />
and to ensure that something was there for the<br />
fish when they did arrive.<br />
By chucking every 90 seconds to two minutes,<br />
it was possible to keep a bit of a column of bait<br />
in the water close to the bottom.<br />
Speed is key<br />
to catching<br />
up to 20 kilos<br />
of these!<br />
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STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
MORE<br />
IRISH<br />
GLORY<br />
Skimmers were few<br />
and far between –<br />
this was an out-andout<br />
roach match.<br />
Inniscarra - a place I<br />
seem to get on with!<br />
O<br />
F ALL the venues<br />
I’ve fished in Ireland<br />
I’d have to say that<br />
Inniscarra Reservoir<br />
near Cork is the top of<br />
my list – It’s where I was<br />
crowned World Champion, and<br />
in the autumn of 2016 it saw me win the<br />
inaugural Sensas Feederfest event and<br />
the 10,000 Euro prize.<br />
This new event promised to be a real<br />
highlight of the calendar with that big prize,<br />
and English anglers travelled over to swell the<br />
attendance to over 100 – but If we thought<br />
FAVOURITE<br />
FEEDER MATCHES<br />
SENSAS FEEDER<br />
FEST, 2016<br />
Inniscarra was going to be like it<br />
was back in 2014 on the Feeder<br />
Champs, we were wrong.<br />
Skimmers had been a key fish<br />
on the Worlds but practice had<br />
suggested that fishing for them<br />
would be a real gamble. If you caught them in<br />
numbers you were guaranteed a good weight<br />
but they weren’t well spread like before and it<br />
quickly became apparent that roach would be<br />
the fish to exclusively target.<br />
What helped in this respect is that most areas<br />
on the match offered you the chance to catch<br />
10 kilos of roach on each day. Working things<br />
out, that would mean 50 kilos across the week<br />
which should be more than enough to get close<br />
to winning.<br />
I was helped by the fishing I’d experienced<br />
in the World Pairs a month before in Ireland,<br />
where I drew a number of pegs that needed a<br />
small-fish feeder approach.<br />
This meant that I was comfortable and up<br />
to speed with the methods and way of fishing<br />
required – it was very different to traditional<br />
feeder fishing where you gave the fish a bit of<br />
time to find and take the bait.<br />
Practice was simply going to be a case of<br />
refining what I already knew about speed<br />
fishing for roach on the feeder, and going into<br />
the five days I was pretty confident provided I<br />
With roach<br />
the target,<br />
speed was<br />
essential.<br />
got half decent draws and enough fish to catch!<br />
Tactics revolved around fishing a small cage<br />
feeder with braid mainline and a large size 10<br />
hook baited with a single maggot. This sounds<br />
very crude, but you have to appreciate that the<br />
fish in Ireland are wild and don’t see hooks<br />
that often. Therefore, you can get away with<br />
massive hooks and the bonus is that you don’t<br />
miss many bites into the bargain.<br />
The rod wasn’t placed on the rest. Instead, I<br />
would cast, let the feeder settle but hold the rod<br />
and almost ‘wind’ the fish on to the hook.<br />
This was achieved only because the roach<br />
would take the bait almost as soon as the feeder<br />
settled and by turning the reel handle, you’d set<br />
the hook. Braid helped immensely to do this.<br />
Nor was any distance chucking needed. This<br />
would take up too much time winding fish in<br />
and instead I settled on a 20m or 30m cast. Bad<br />
spells also needed to be avoided and that’s why<br />
waiting five minutes for a 1lb skimmer was no<br />
good. In that time you could easily have caught<br />
that weight and more in roach.<br />
I finished with around 52 kilos to win – so<br />
roughly 10 kilos per day, as was my target, but<br />
I found it mentally draining fishing and very<br />
mechanical. It’s a style of fishing that we never<br />
do in England and I can see why some people<br />
don’t like it – after that week, though, I’m not<br />
one of them!<br />
10,000<br />
Euros and<br />
an armful of<br />
trophies –<br />
thanks very<br />
much!<br />
114
WINNING FISH O’MANIA IN 1998<br />
FAVOURITE<br />
MATCHES<br />
FISH O’<br />
THIRD<br />
TIME<br />
LUCKY!<br />
The victory that put me on the map<br />
FAVOURITE<br />
FEEDER MATCHES<br />
FISH O’MANIA<br />
FINAL, 1998<br />
ITHINK that any top match angler<br />
will have a match that they can point<br />
to which acted as a stepping stone<br />
towards them going on to achieve<br />
bigger and better things – and mine<br />
without a shadow of a doubt was<br />
winning Fish O’Mania in 1998.<br />
Before this final I was known on the local<br />
scene around Northampton and had made<br />
the previous two finals without troubling the<br />
£25,000 prize, but all that changed in five hours<br />
on the Islands Lake at Hayfield near Doncaster.<br />
My first appearance in the final saw me lose<br />
out to Dave Pimlott at Hallcroft Fishery by<br />
just 4oz and the following year at Hayfield, the<br />
late great Steve Toone and a lot of beer had<br />
something to do with me not performing to my<br />
full potential.It was a year when the carp didn’t<br />
feed and Kev Rowles won fishing for silverfish.<br />
In 1998, though, I was determined not to<br />
miss out. It’s still the case in the final today<br />
that drawing a good peg helps and I got one<br />
at Hayfield, one of the few offering a cast to<br />
the island on the feeder. I think that after two<br />
hours, the match was effectively over as I’d<br />
caught really well and no one else had.<br />
The match was exactly how I’d wanted it to go<br />
– no tangles, no lost fish, no casting into trees.<br />
What I planned to do worked brilliantly and the<br />
pressure was off before we’d got to halfway.<br />
It was all distance casting as the island was<br />
a good 80 yards away. Back then, the Method<br />
feeders I used were original Kobra models with<br />
brass loading stems. I caught on meat and dead<br />
maggots and won by a long way in the end.<br />
At that point I was the youngest winner of<br />
Fish O’ at just 21 and £25,000 was a lot of cash<br />
,as I was working in the late Bob Church’s<br />
warehouse at that point.<br />
MORE importantly, the win acted as the<br />
kickstart for my career and ensured that my<br />
name started to become known.<br />
FAVOURITE<br />
FEEDER MATCHES<br />
EMBASSY PAIRS<br />
FINAL,2003<br />
E B R O B A G G I N G !<br />
I PARTNERED my dad Geoff in<br />
the last Embassy final on the<br />
River Ebro in Spain in 2003 and<br />
although we didn’t win, I did catch<br />
over 80 kilos of carp on feeder<br />
and corn on the opening day to<br />
win £2,000! I remember the river<br />
at Flix responding to sweet rather<br />
than fishmeal groundbait, and I<br />
also remember drawing a snag pit<br />
on day two and catching nothing!<br />
Little did I know<br />
where that Fish O’<br />
win would take me!<br />
115
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
Finding the right<br />
depth for those<br />
bonus skimmers was<br />
absolutely crucial.<br />
116
WORLD-LEVEL FEEDER FISHING<br />
WORLD<br />
CHAMPS<br />
FAVOURITE<br />
FEEDER MATCHES<br />
WORLD FEEDER CHAMPS<br />
IRELAND 2014<br />
HOW I<br />
WON THE<br />
WORLD<br />
CHAMPS<br />
Join Steve as he recalls the match<br />
that left him on top of the world!<br />
THERE’S no higher accolade you can<br />
achieve in any sport than being a<br />
world champion, and across one<br />
magical weekend in the summer of<br />
2014 I achieved just that by lifting<br />
the World Feeder Champs title.<br />
Twenty five teams took part in the<br />
event on Ireland’s Inniscarra Reservoir and the<br />
Preston Innovations England Feeder team ran<br />
wild as I took gold and Mick Vials the bronze<br />
medal, while the team of myself, brother Phil,<br />
Mick, Dean Barlow, Adam Wakelin and Rob<br />
Wootton scored an unbelievable 26 section<br />
points over the two days.<br />
It was a score which earned us a convincing<br />
team gold, and I was lucky enough to win my<br />
section on both days to claim the gold medal,<br />
but winning the World Champs isn’t just down<br />
to drawing well and having a bit of luck.<br />
Since I began my England career back in 2011,<br />
I’ve seen just how much goes into international<br />
fishing – from months of careful planning to<br />
logisitics, finding contacts, visiting the venue<br />
several times, and then spending days of hard<br />
practice to perfect our tactics.<br />
THE RIGHT DEPTH –<br />
OUR SECRET TRICK<br />
Communication between team members is<br />
essential to success, and this was especially<br />
the case in Ireland. We’d all made visits to<br />
the venue prior to the event and, pooling our<br />
knowledge, we discovered that fishing at the<br />
right depth was vital.<br />
Those who had caught the best had all fished<br />
at the same depth, which was a count of 12 on a<br />
one-ounce bomb.<br />
This depth never changed throughout the<br />
time we spent on the offcial practice week,<br />
and the great thing about it was that the right<br />
depth was at different distances from the bank,<br />
depending on where you sat.<br />
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STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
Practice showed us that joker rather than chopped worm should be the main feed.<br />
The reason the depth was so important was<br />
that it allowed us to catch all three key species –<br />
skimmers, roach and hybrids.<br />
We found that if we came short of the magic<br />
count and into shallower water the fish became<br />
smaller, and we couldn’t catch skimmers.<br />
Equally, if we went deeper (to a higher count)<br />
and the small-fish action dried up, all we could<br />
catch was skimmers and eels – and the eels<br />
didn’t count!<br />
None of the other teams cottoned on to our<br />
depth secret, even though we had dozens of<br />
people watching us during practice. We even<br />
stopped fishing this spot on several occasions<br />
so we didn’t give anything away.<br />
FILLING IN THE GAPS!<br />
A lot of teams went down the route of targeting<br />
the skimmers after catching decent weights of<br />
them in practice. We found, though, that the<br />
Champion<br />
of the world<br />
– what a<br />
weekend!<br />
skimmers tended to drift in and out of the swim<br />
which meant long periods putting nothing in<br />
the net if you targeted these fish alone.<br />
Therefore we came up with a plan to fill in the<br />
gaps. Quite simply, when the skimmers were<br />
there we fished for them with baits such as<br />
bunches of bloodworm or redworms.<br />
When they weren’t about, rather than sitting<br />
and waiting we switched to a single maggot<br />
hookbait in order to catch hybrids and roach.<br />
It seemed<br />
wrong but a<br />
heavy, inert<br />
mix was<br />
ideal for the<br />
skimmers.<br />
118
WORLD-LEVEL FEEDER FISHING<br />
WORLD<br />
CHAMPS<br />
It might sound simple, but it was a tactic that<br />
gave us a real edge. Come the weigh-in we had<br />
our skimmers plus 3-4 kilos of other fish on top.<br />
THE RIGHT GROUNDBAIT<br />
After a lot of experimentation we came up with<br />
a 50-50 mix of brown crumb and Sensas Magic,<br />
to which we added a little Sensas Pastoncino to<br />
give the skimmers something to home in on. To<br />
finish, a little black dye was added to take the<br />
edge off the colour of the mix.<br />
How the groundbait was mixed was also<br />
extrewmely important. If it was too dry you<br />
attracted too many small fish into the swim.<br />
For this reason we mixed our groundbait very<br />
wet so that when particles were added it was<br />
best described as being heavy and inert.<br />
This felt wrong, but was actually perfect as<br />
it allowed us to catch a much better stamp<br />
of roach and hybrids in comparison to other<br />
teams on the bank.<br />
BAIT MANAGEMENT<br />
In the World Championships you are limited to<br />
2.5 litres of bait, of which only half-a-litre can be<br />
bloodworm and joker.<br />
At the start of the offcial practice week<br />
chopped worm was key, but as the week<br />
progressed we as a team found that the<br />
skimmers, in particular, seemed to go off it.<br />
As a consequence of this, joker came to the<br />
fore and by the two match days we found there<br />
was nothing else the skimmers wanted to eat.<br />
The problem was, we only had half-a-litre so it<br />
was crucial to feed the joker at the right times –<br />
only when the skimmers were in the area.<br />
It was all too easy to keep piling the joker in<br />
and find that late in the match you had nothing<br />
left to feed.<br />
FEEDER CHOICE<br />
With the water being so deep a lot of teams<br />
went down the solid plastic feeder route,<br />
whereas we found a cage was best as it allowed<br />
the fish to actually see the bait inside the feeder.<br />
I used four- and five-hole Nisa plastic cages in<br />
either 28g or 44g. If there were a lot of fish in the<br />
swim we fished 44g but when they backed off<br />
28g was better, as it seemed the bigger feeder<br />
going in could spook fish.<br />
TACKLE<br />
Bearing in mind we were fishing at short range<br />
there was no need for long rods. As a result of<br />
this I settled on using 11ft Daiwa Tournaments<br />
with the power to chuck a heavy feeder but still<br />
soft enough to prevent hook-pulls.<br />
The rods were teamed up with 4000 TDR<br />
reels loaded with 0.10mm Matrix Submerge<br />
braid and 8lb Tournament ST shockleaders.<br />
In Ireland the fish you are targeting are wild<br />
and haven’t seen hooks and line before, so you<br />
can fish a lot heavier in terms of both hook size<br />
and line diameter. After practice I eventually<br />
settled on a 50cm hooklength of 0.148mm to a<br />
size 10 Kamasan B512 hook.<br />
This might seem a massive hook but it meant<br />
a lot fewer bites were missed, and fewer missed<br />
bites means more fish in the net.<br />
Although those skimmers were important, small<br />
roach were our bread and butter fish.<br />
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STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
W H A T I T T A K E S T O<br />
FISH FOR<br />
ENGLAND<br />
Think you could make the England<br />
team? There’s more to wearing the<br />
three lions shirt than meets the eye!<br />
IGUESS that fishing for England is an<br />
ambition that all young match anglers<br />
harbour at one time or another, but<br />
the reality is that for all but a small<br />
percentage, it will remain nothing<br />
more than a pipe dream.<br />
Up until 2011 I would have been in that<br />
category. True, I’d won some big matches<br />
and was a ‘name’ but much of my fishing took<br />
place on commercials, so actually fishing at<br />
international level was many, many miles away<br />
from becoming a reality.<br />
That was until the World Feeder Champs<br />
event was created. Tommy Pickering was put<br />
in charge of forming and leading a team and I<br />
was deeply honoured to be picked to fish the<br />
inaugural event in Italy the same year.<br />
If I’m being frank, it was all very sudden.<br />
No trials were held and I guess most of us<br />
were plunged in at the deep end with having<br />
to get our heads around the requirements of<br />
international fishing. I’d like to think that six<br />
years on, and with a load of medals under my<br />
belt, I’ve mastered it and World Champs week<br />
is now the absolute highlight of my fishing year.<br />
But what does it take to make the grade?<br />
Although I had done some team fishing<br />
before getting the call, it was nothing like<br />
I’d experienced before. At England level,<br />
everything we do is disciplined and regimented,<br />
with a chain of command that everyone<br />
adheres to. Every little aspect is pored over<br />
time and time again until we get it right.<br />
I suppose that this was the biggest eye-opener<br />
for me – the degree of detail applied to ther<br />
fishing. Whereas is the UK it would be easy to<br />
say ‘that’ll do’, this isn’t good enough when<br />
fishing against the rest of the world. There are<br />
meetings on top of meetings that leave nothing<br />
left to chance, and I think that professionalism<br />
is reflected in the medals that we’ve won.<br />
Being part of a team begins at the top with<br />
the boss. That’s Tommy Pickering, with Glenn<br />
Lawrence as his second-in-command. The<br />
buck stops with these two and they’re the men<br />
who make the tough decisions, pick the teams<br />
and dictate how practice sessions run – and, of<br />
course, make judgements in the heat of battle<br />
when the two matches take place. Managing a<br />
team is certainly something that I doubt I could<br />
do, so I take my hat off to Tommy and Glenn.<br />
Team boss<br />
Tommy<br />
Pickering<br />
has the final<br />
say in all<br />
decisions.<br />
From a fishing point of view, when the<br />
championships actually take place, you are<br />
kind of in your own bubble, concentrating<br />
on the water in front of you, so pressure as<br />
such doesn’t exist. This is where the man<br />
management qualities of the bosses kick in.<br />
I can remember day two in Holland on 2015<br />
when we won gold. I hadn’t caught after 90<br />
minutes but Tommy came to see me, he said: “I<br />
know you can catch a fish, you’ve been the best<br />
angler on the bank this week,” and left.<br />
That confidence from him, I think worked<br />
better than having him hanging around behind<br />
me waiting for the tip to go round.<br />
Of course, being part of a team means that<br />
you have to get on with the other lads. Any ego<br />
or prima donna behaviour is soon stamped out<br />
because to work successfully as a team you have<br />
to pull together as a team. We’re also a young<br />
team, and that’s good for the future.<br />
The days are long, often beginning at 6am<br />
and finishing with a meeting at 10pm, and in<br />
practice you may be told to fish a tactic that<br />
you know isn’t going to work. It’s only by this<br />
process of elimination that Tommy and Glenn<br />
can work out what to do.<br />
When we began as a team, Tommy said that<br />
we were fishing for gold, and no other medal<br />
was worthwhile. I didn’t agree, but having<br />
tasted gold I can see what he means!<br />
You have to go out with the aim of winning,<br />
otherwise why go through all that effort?<br />
120
WHAT MAKES AN ENGLAND <strong>ANG</strong>LER<br />
ENGLAND<br />
DUTY<br />
Teamwork is<br />
vital – there’s no<br />
room for egos!<br />
World Champs days can be long, with bait<br />
prep often beginning well before breakfast.<br />
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STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
BARSTON LAKES<br />
SOLIHULL, WEST MIDLANDS<br />
1<br />
This is a real mixed fishery in<br />
every sense of the word as<br />
there are so many species that<br />
you can target, from monster carp to<br />
a big net of quality skimmers.<br />
As far as the feeder is concerned,<br />
long range fishing with either a<br />
Hybrid feeder in summer or bomb<br />
and PVA bags in winter will catch<br />
carp and F1s using high-visibility<br />
hookbaits such as Wafters.<br />
Bream anglers will find plenty of<br />
fish on a shorter cast using a cage or<br />
open-end feeder and dead maggots,<br />
or even a grain of corn.<br />
FAVOURITE PEGS: The point on the<br />
river bank (pegs 52 to 54), pegs 13 to<br />
20 on the same bank or peg 124 on<br />
the golf course bank.<br />
TOP 10<br />
FEEDER<br />
VENUES<br />
The waters that get Steve’s vote for<br />
brilliant fishing on the tip<br />
FERRY MEADOWS LAKES<br />
PETERBOROUGH, CAMBS<br />
2<br />
Without a doubt my favourite<br />
bream water in the UK. These two<br />
lakes are massive gravel pits that<br />
reward the angler who can cast a fair<br />
distance – although in summer, a short<br />
cast will still catch plenty of skimmers,<br />
roach and hybrids.<br />
For those big bream, though, you’ll<br />
need to go the distance with a rocket<br />
feeder or big open-ender. My top<br />
hookbait is hair-rigged worms but<br />
maggots will catch plenty. If you want<br />
to go for quality, try a mini boilie or a<br />
couple of pieces of corn on a hair rig.<br />
FAVOURITE PEGS: On Gunwade Lake I’d<br />
go for 52 or 53, while on Overton, head<br />
for pegs 113 to 115.<br />
122
FAVOURITE FEEDER VENUES<br />
WHERE TO<br />
FISH<br />
Barston’s mixed<br />
fishing makes it a<br />
winner for me.<br />
Bream<br />
fans will<br />
love Ferry<br />
Meadows.<br />
INNISCARRA RESERVOIR<br />
CO CORK, IRELAND<br />
3<br />
Arguably the highlight of any trip<br />
to Ireland is the chance to fish<br />
this massive water near Cork. It is<br />
very deep, but long casting is not<br />
needed on many of the sections.<br />
Fish in summer and you can expect<br />
skimmers and even some proper bream<br />
on the cage feeder with maggots and<br />
worms, but when the weather cools<br />
down, roach take over.<br />
Speed fishing with maggots then<br />
becomes the tactic and it can be a<br />
bite a chuck – hectic fishing but really<br />
rewarding when 20lb is on the cards.<br />
FAVOURITE PEGS: I can’t really pinpoint<br />
one area, but the Garden Centre and<br />
Greenway sections are always good.<br />
SOUTHFIELD RESERVOIR<br />
DONCASTER, SOUTH YORKS<br />
4<br />
I first fished here in a Feeder<br />
Masters Qualifier when I was as<br />
death’s door following a bout of<br />
food poisoning, but I still caught plenty<br />
of fish and one thing I did notice is that<br />
the bream and skimmers here are<br />
always on the move.<br />
That means that you can get bites on<br />
most pegs in the summer. The water is<br />
very shallow and coloured, so a cage<br />
feeder with plenty of chopped worm is a<br />
must to get some scent into the water.<br />
There are some big bream here, as well<br />
as lots and lots of smaller skimmers.<br />
FAVOURITE PEGS: The best advice I can<br />
give here is to keep an eye on match<br />
results and fish the winning pegs!<br />
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STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
GURU MAKINS FISHERY<br />
WOLVEY, LEICS<br />
5<br />
PACKINGTON SOMERS<br />
MERIDEN, WARKS<br />
6<br />
One of the original commercial<br />
fisheries in the UK and still hugely<br />
popular with match and pleasure<br />
anglers, especially Phase One.<br />
These six lakes are not much to look at<br />
but all offer open-water chucks on the<br />
feeder and some have an island too.<br />
Many of these need a reasonably long<br />
It dosn’t matter whether you fish<br />
here in summer or winter, there<br />
are always bites to be had thanks<br />
to the big head of F1s in most lakes.<br />
For feeder fishing I would pick<br />
Molands Mere or Little Geary’s Pools.<br />
Both have an island cast on every peg,<br />
as well as open water. You don’t need<br />
to throw a long way, and the maggot<br />
feeder works well in winter, switching to<br />
the pellet feeder in warmer weather.<br />
Molands is home to some big carp<br />
and these can be caught on the bomb,<br />
fishing with large hookbaits.<br />
FAVOURITE PEGS: Scarecrow Point on<br />
Molands (pegs 43 to 48), while on Little<br />
Geary’s, go for pegs 7 to 12.<br />
cast on the Method feeder or bomb with<br />
pellets or corn. The carp are old and<br />
wise fish, and as a result are big.<br />
You can also expect lots of skimmers<br />
and some big bream in the summer on<br />
maggots or pellets.<br />
FAVOURITE PEGS: On Lake 2, peg A20<br />
is the flyer while I’d also pick pegs 5 and<br />
25 on Lake 4 for plenty of bites.<br />
MEADOWLANDS FISHERY<br />
RYTON-UPON-DUNSMORE, WARKS<br />
7<br />
You’re looking at carp or bream<br />
here with the Lambsdown Lake<br />
offering more water to attack.<br />
The road bank offers deeper water<br />
at short range and, for bream and<br />
skimmers, a cage feeder with dead<br />
maggots at around 30m will do fine.<br />
If you want carp, though, you’ll need<br />
to cast further with Method or Hybrid<br />
feeder and pellets or Wafters, changing<br />
to a bomb in cold weather.<br />
FAVOURITE PEGS: Pegs 17 to 21 outside<br />
the car park are the most consistent for<br />
carp. For skimmers, try pegs 10 to 15.<br />
WHITE ACRES FISHERY<br />
NEWQUAY, CORNWALL<br />
8<br />
I regularly make the trip down<br />
to Cornwall to fish the festivals<br />
at White Acres and of all the<br />
lakes on this massive site, the best<br />
for fishing the feeder is Twin Oaks.<br />
If you can get on the hot pegs<br />
then you’ll never stop catching carp,<br />
chucking tight up to the far bank with<br />
pellet or Method feeder and banded<br />
pellets or hair-rigged meat from<br />
spring through until autumn.<br />
However, for a pleasure session I’d<br />
say that you can expect a few pulls<br />
on any swim, especially if you fish<br />
later in the day when the fish will be<br />
at their most active.<br />
FAVOURITE PEGS: That’s easy! Twin<br />
Oaks pegs 14 to 17 are absolutely<br />
solid and have won loads of matches.<br />
124
FAVOURITE FEEDER VENUES<br />
WHERE TO<br />
FISH<br />
EARLSWOOD LAKES<br />
SOLIHULL, WEST MIDLANDS<br />
9<br />
The Carp Lake once held the UK<br />
match recod but now is all about<br />
catching big fish, and I mean big!<br />
You’ll be unlucky to catch a fish under<br />
10lb! In fact, I’d say that they are the<br />
hardest-fighting carp I’ve ever caught.<br />
With plenty of open water to go at,<br />
the Method or Hybrid feeder with big<br />
baits is very much the order of the day.<br />
In winter, I would change this to a more<br />
cautious approach with a bomb.<br />
There’s also a big head of bream in the<br />
lake that respond to cage feeder tactics<br />
with maggots or pellets.<br />
FAVOURITE PEGS: I’d always try to<br />
get on pegs 21 to 26 or 73 to 78 for<br />
guaranteed action in summer.<br />
BODDINGTON RESERVOIR<br />
BYFIELD, NORTHANTS<br />
10<br />
Big carp from a big water – what<br />
could be more exciting? ‘Boddy’<br />
is now an out-and-out big carp<br />
match and pleasure water with fish to<br />
15lb not uncommon, and I love fishing<br />
matches here in summer or winter.<br />
Distance casting is a must on the<br />
Hybrid or Method feeder or bomb, and<br />
chocolate orange Wafters are very much<br />
the bait of the moment.<br />
FAVOURITE PEGS: High numbers from<br />
peg 80 onwards are very consistent, as<br />
is the middle of the dam wall.<br />
125
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
ESSENTIAL<br />
KNOTS<br />
The top three that Steve uses for<br />
his feeder rigs, and how to tie them<br />
FOR all the love and attention that you<br />
may lavish on your bait and tackle,<br />
not to mention the time spent getting<br />
the fish on the feed, it will all amount<br />
to nothing if you can’t tie the right<br />
knots to construct your rigs.<br />
You’ll end up with a parted hooklink or,<br />
worse still, a broken mainline.<br />
Knots are always the difference between<br />
landing and losing a fish and on the feeder,<br />
when you are fishing at long range on big lakes<br />
or experiencing fierce bites from carp and F1s<br />
on commercials, what you tie has to be up to<br />
the job.<br />
Thinking about it, my feeder fishing tends to<br />
involve very few knots but each one is tried and<br />
tested, meaning that I have full confidence in<br />
them every time that tip flies round. They’re<br />
also easy to tie, even with cold hands.<br />
On these pages you’ll see how to tie the<br />
knotless knot for hair-rigging, a tucked halfblood<br />
for attaching swivels and snaplinks, and<br />
my twizzled loop that I use for most of my rigs<br />
on both commercial and natural fisheries.<br />
When you hook a<br />
big fish you must be<br />
confident in your knots!<br />
T U C K E D H A L F - B L O O D K N O T<br />
A<br />
B<br />
Thread the line through the eye of the swivel or hook.<br />
Make five to seven turns with the tag end around the mainline.<br />
C<br />
D<br />
Take the tag back to the turn nearest to the eye.<br />
Pass the tag through the loop, moisten and pull tight. Then pull<br />
the whole knot tight and trim the tag end.<br />
HALF-BLOOD KNOT<br />
This is the knot I use for attaching snaplink<br />
swivels when fishing the mini lead clip. It’s the<br />
first knot my dad ever taught me!<br />
126
KNOTS YOU SHOULD KNOW<br />
TYING<br />
KNOTS<br />
K N O T L E S S K N O T<br />
T W I Z Z L E D L O O P<br />
A<br />
Tie a bait band or loop for your hair rig at one end of<br />
the line. The knot shown above is best for fishing with<br />
a pellet band.<br />
A<br />
First create the length of the loop that you require.<br />
B<br />
Pass the opposite end of the line through the back of<br />
the hook’s eye and out the front. A small piece of rig<br />
tubing can go on the shank to keep the hair straight.<br />
C<br />
Take the loose end and make several wraps around the<br />
hook shank. WInd the end over the shank and poke it<br />
through the eye.<br />
B<br />
With the two lengths of line in between the finger and<br />
thumb of each hand, twist the line clockwise with the<br />
right hand and anti-clockwise with the left hand.<br />
D<br />
While holding the loop end in its desired position, pull<br />
the free end tight while working the wraps up to the<br />
eye of the hook through the back of the eye.<br />
C<br />
When you have around<br />
six inches of doubled line,<br />
tie it off with a normal<br />
overhand knot and trim<br />
off the excess.<br />
E<br />
Pull the end of the line to tighten the knot fully.<br />
KNOTLESS KNOT<br />
For all my hair-rigging I use the knotless knot. The<br />
beauty of this knot is that it not only is it simple to<br />
tie but it also makes getting the hair length correct<br />
far easier. A little tip when tying is to always whip<br />
away from the eye closure to make sure there is no<br />
chance of damaging the line. Also, the line should<br />
exit the eye from the point side of the hook.<br />
TWIZZLED LOOP<br />
This is a version of the standard loop but with a<br />
difference, as it’s twizzled! The twizzled loop is<br />
a favourite of mine for use on bream and Method<br />
or Hybrid feeder rigs. The main benefit of the<br />
twizzle is that it makes the loop stiffer and helps to<br />
prevent tangles. Some also say it’s stronger than a<br />
conventional loop.<br />
127
STEVE RINGER’S ULTIMATE FEEDER GUIDE<br />
GLOSSARY<br />
OF FEEDER<br />
FISHING<br />
TERMS<br />
Make sense of common terms that<br />
you might hear on the bank but not<br />
have a clue what they mean!<br />
Action – Description of the<br />
A<br />
flexibility of a rod. Rods have a<br />
fast or slow action. Fast actioned<br />
rods are generally stiffer overall but<br />
bend more at the tip. Slow actioned<br />
rods are more flexible, with some<br />
flexing along their entire length<br />
Additive – Flavouring added to bait<br />
to increase its attraction, usually in a<br />
powder or liquid form<br />
Anti-reverse – Mechanism on a<br />
fixed-spool reel that prevents the reel<br />
from turning backwards<br />
Arlesey bomb – A pear-shaped leger<br />
weight available in a range of sizes<br />
Bail-arm – The wire part of a<br />
fixed-spool reel that guides the<br />
B<br />
line on the spool<br />
Baiting needle – Device used to mount<br />
baits on to a hair rig. It has a small hook<br />
on the end and a plastic handle<br />
Bankstick – A metal stick with a screw<br />
thread at the top, on to which rod rests,<br />
keepnets and pole grips can be fixed.<br />
Barbed hook – Hook with a small ‘barb’<br />
protruding on the inside of the point to<br />
penetrate a fish’s mouth. Barbless hooks<br />
have no barb, while some hooks have a<br />
tiny ‘micro barb’<br />
Big pit – A scaled-down version of a big<br />
carp reel used for casting feeders long<br />
distances<br />
Blend in – Hookbaits that are picked<br />
to merge in with the colour of the feed<br />
being introduced via a feeder<br />
Blood knot - Basic knot for attaching<br />
hooks and swivels<br />
Boilies – Round hookbaits made from a<br />
paste and boiled to harden them off. In<br />
dozens of colours, flavours and sizes<br />
Braid – A synthetic woven material used<br />
for mainline when bream and skimmer<br />
fishing<br />
C<br />
Caster – The chrysalis formed<br />
from a maggot<br />
Chopped worm – Worms that have<br />
been chopped with scissors to create<br />
hundreds of tiny pieces. A great<br />
additive to groundbait for bream and<br />
roach (pic below)<br />
Chuck – Colloquial term for a cast<br />
Cocktail – A hookbait comprising two<br />
or more different baits – especially<br />
good when targeting bream<br />
Commercial fishery – A stillwater which<br />
is well stocked with a mix of species and<br />
is used by day anglers and for matches.<br />
Most feature a range of on-site facilities<br />
such as a café, tackle shop and toilets<br />
Corn – Grains of sweetcorn for hookbait<br />
or feed. Natural yellow is best but other<br />
colours are available too<br />
Crack-off – Accidentally snapping off<br />
the rig when casting. Occurs mainly<br />
when feeder fishing at distance<br />
Dendrobaena – A commonlyused<br />
worm for hookbait and<br />
D<br />
chopping for feed. Commerciallybred,<br />
‘dendras’ are tough and will keep<br />
active for a long time<br />
Diameter – The measurement of the<br />
cross-section of line or braid. These<br />
commonly range from 0.10mm to<br />
0.20mm for feeder work, and the<br />
smaller the diameter, the finer<br />
the line<br />
Disgorger – Small plastic<br />
device used to safely remove<br />
a hook from a fish’s mouth<br />
or throat<br />
Drag – Device on a reel<br />
that regulates how easily<br />
the line can be pulled<br />
from the spool<br />
Drop – Another term for the<br />
distance between feeder and<br />
rod-tip before casting. The<br />
longer the drop, the further you<br />
will be able to cast<br />
Drop-back – Term used to describe<br />
a bite that causes the line to fall<br />
slack, such as when a fish picks up the<br />
hookbait and runs towards the angler<br />
Elastic – The shock-absorber<br />
fitted to the top section(s) of a<br />
E<br />
pole which is used to play fish.<br />
Elastic is also used in the stems of<br />
in-line feeders such as Guru’s Method,<br />
Pellet and Hybrid feeders<br />
Eyed hook – Hooks with an eye at the<br />
end of the shank, used for hair-rigging<br />
and also with thick lines in specimen<br />
angling<br />
Fast action – Rods which bend<br />
mainly in the top third, nearest<br />
F<br />
the tip. Applicable mainly to float<br />
rods<br />
Feathering the line – The act of placing<br />
your index finger on the lip of the reel’s<br />
spool during the cast to slow the exit of<br />
line and stop the rig from going too far<br />
Feeder arm – A solid attachment that’s<br />
fixed to your seatbox leg with a rod rest<br />
head at the other end. This creates a<br />
stable platform to rest the rod on at any<br />
angle you choose<br />
Fixed rig – When a feeder or bomb is<br />
fixed in place on the line – for example,<br />
an elasticated Method feeder<br />
Fluorocarbon – A fishing line often<br />
used for hooklengths (and mainlines in<br />
specimen carp fishing) which is heavier<br />
and slightly stiffer than standard<br />
monofilament and is invisible under<br />
water<br />
Freebies – Particles that are either<br />
loosefed or added to groundbait.<br />
Casters, pellets, chopped worm, corn<br />
and hemp are common examples<br />
F1 hybrid – Popular modern fish stocked<br />
into many commercial fisheries, which<br />
is produced by crossing a crucian carp<br />
with a common carp<br />
G<br />
Gape – The gap between the<br />
point of the hook and the longest<br />
part (the shank)<br />
Goo – Sticky additives in a range of<br />
colours and flavours. These give off<br />
a great cloud in clear water and are<br />
brilliant in winter<br />
Grinner - A very strong knot often used<br />
in rig tying<br />
Groundbait – Used as an attractor or<br />
a carrier of loosefeed, groundbaits are<br />
often fishmeal or breadcrumb-based<br />
Hair rig – A method of attaching<br />
hookbaits where the bait is<br />
H<br />
threaded on to a short thin<br />
section of line (the hair) which then<br />
hangs clear of the hook<br />
Hemp – The seed of a cannabis plant,<br />
sterilised so it won’t grow. When<br />
cooked it is especially good for roach<br />
and skimmers<br />
High-visibility – Boilie or pellet<br />
hookbaits in lurid yellow, pink, orange<br />
and green colours that can be easily<br />
seen by fish<br />
Hooklink/Hooklength – The trace of<br />
line tied to the hook at one end and<br />
connected to the mainline at the other<br />
Hook tyer – This is a small tool with<br />
wooden and metal prongs that is used<br />
to tie a spade-end hook on to the line<br />
Hybrid feeder – A new type of feeder<br />
for commercial carp that’s a cross<br />
128
L<strong>ANG</strong>UAGE OF FEEDER FISHING<br />
GLOSSARY<br />
between a Method and pellet version<br />
Impact bomb – A bomb with a<br />
I<br />
small mesh section in the middle<br />
into which a few pellets can be<br />
added before casting<br />
Inline – A feeder, bomb or float with a<br />
central tube for the line to run freely<br />
through<br />
J<br />
Joker – Bright red larvae which<br />
are used mainly as a feed for<br />
small fish and can also be hooked<br />
Keepnet – A long fish-friendly net<br />
K<br />
2m-3m long, usually rectangular<br />
in shape, which is put in the water<br />
to temporarily retain the catch<br />
Knot picker – Metal tool with a narrow<br />
pointed end, which is useful for opening<br />
up a knot in the line or a tangle<br />
Knotless knot – As the name suggests,<br />
this knot doesn’t actually involve any<br />
tying as such and is used with eyed<br />
hooks for hair-rigging baits<br />
Lead clip – A device on carp rigs<br />
to hold the lead but release safely<br />
L<br />
it if it becomes snagged<br />
Line bite – A false indication on the float<br />
or quivertip caused by a fish brushing<br />
into the line<br />
Line clip – Clip on a reel spool used to<br />
hold the mainline, ensuring the rig can<br />
be cast to the<br />
same spot every<br />
time (pic right)<br />
Link legering –<br />
Legering method<br />
using large shot<br />
fixed on to a<br />
small paternoster<br />
instead of a bomb<br />
Loosefeed – Individual loose items of<br />
bait which are fed on their own<br />
Marker – Far-bank target you can<br />
M<br />
aim at when fishing the feeder to<br />
ensure repeated accuracy<br />
Method Feeder – A type of feeder with a<br />
frame for moulding bait around. Comes<br />
in either an inline or elasticated/fixed<br />
format<br />
Monofilament – A standard nylon<br />
fishing line. Some modern pre-stretched<br />
monofilaments are available in lower<br />
diameters for the given breaking strains<br />
and are ideal for pole fishing<br />
N<br />
No-knot – Another term for the<br />
highly popular knotless knot used<br />
when hair-rigging baits<br />
Peg – A numbered platform or<br />
swim on a fishery. Before a<br />
P<br />
match, the competitors ‘draw<br />
pegs’ to decide who fishes where<br />
Pellet – Small cylinders made from<br />
fishmeals that are compacted into a<br />
hard bait. Brilliant as a feed or hookbait<br />
in bigger sizes for carp<br />
Pinkies – Grubs which are slightly<br />
smaller than maggots and are used<br />
as hookbaits for small species.<br />
Often coloured<br />
fluorescent pink<br />
or red (pic right)<br />
Pop-up – A buoyant<br />
bait which is<br />
‘popped up’ off the<br />
bottom, anywhere<br />
from an inch to a<br />
couple of feet, when using a feeder or<br />
a leger<br />
Presentation – The art of offering the<br />
bait and the rig to the fish correctly and<br />
as naturally as possible<br />
Pull round – A positive bite on the<br />
feeder that causes the quivertip to<br />
lurch all the way round in an aggressive<br />
manner<br />
Punch – A device for making cylindrical<br />
hookbaits by punching out a section<br />
from a larger piece of bait, such as a<br />
bread or luncheon meat<br />
PVA (Poly Vinyl Alcohol) – A watersoluble<br />
material that comes in mesh<br />
or sheet form and is used to present<br />
a small parcel of loosefeed next to a<br />
hookbait<br />
Q<br />
Quivertip – Sensitive, painted<br />
end section of a feeder or bomb<br />
rod, used for bite detection<br />
Redworm – Tiny worms found in<br />
the top layer of animal waste<br />
R<br />
which make a great bait for<br />
skimmer bream<br />
Riddle – A mesh sieve which is used for<br />
tasks such as removing sawdust from<br />
maggots or draining water from soaked<br />
pellets<br />
Rocket feeder – With the weight built<br />
into one end, this feeder can be cast a<br />
lot further than a standard feeder and is<br />
very popular on bream lakes<br />
Running rig – The term for a fishfriendly<br />
leger rig which allows the bomb<br />
or feeder to run freely up the mainline<br />
with nothing obstructing it above<br />
Shockleader – A section of heavy<br />
S<br />
mono line used at the rig end of<br />
the mono or braid mainline to<br />
absorb the pressure of a long cast<br />
Silicone tubing – Hollow tubing which<br />
is threaded on to the shank of a hook to<br />
ensure a hair-rigged bait is presented<br />
properly<br />
Skimmer – A small bream of between a<br />
few ounces and 2lb<br />
Slab – The nickname given to a large<br />
bream<br />
Spade end – Standard hook for hooking<br />
soft baits and natural baits, which<br />
features a flat spade shape at the end of<br />
the shank<br />
Speed bead – A soft rubber bead<br />
that stops the feeder sliding on to<br />
the hooklink and allows the angler<br />
to change hook and hoolink sizes in<br />
seconds<br />
Stand out – Hookbaits that are coloured<br />
differently to what’s being fed, making<br />
them easy for fish to see and pick up<br />
Swingtip – A special kind of bite<br />
indicator which is rarely used these<br />
days. The tip is set to hang down from<br />
the rod end and when a bite occurs it<br />
rises upwards<br />
Swivel - Two tiny metal rings attached<br />
to a small metal body. Used as a<br />
connection for lines and feeders in rigs<br />
Target board – Square black<br />
board which is attached to a<br />
T<br />
bank stick and placed just past a<br />
rod-tip. Used to help the angler spot<br />
shy bites when using the quivertip<br />
Test curve – Rating given to a rod’s<br />
strength, particularly in big-carp<br />
fishing. It suggests the weight required<br />
to bend the rod-tip by 90 degrees from<br />
the blank<br />
Through action – A rod with a constant,<br />
forgiving bend throughout the blank,<br />
such as a feeder or specialist rod<br />
Turn – The distance taken up by one<br />
full rotation of the reel handle. Anglers<br />
often use ‘turns’ to describe the<br />
distance that they are fishing at on the<br />
feeder<br />
Venue – The generic term given<br />
to a fishing<br />
V<br />
location – a<br />
stillwater, canal or<br />
river<br />
W Wafter – A<br />
neutral<br />
buoyancy<br />
dumbell or boilie<br />
hookbait that when<br />
fished on a hair rig will<br />
‘waft’ just off the<br />
bottom (pic right)<br />
Watercraft –<br />
Common term for<br />
the ability to read<br />
a swim or venue, its<br />
features and weather<br />
conditions, and then<br />
apply it to where, how and<br />
when you are going to fish. Considered<br />
to be an important skill<br />
Window feeder – Popular in Ireland,<br />
this feeder has the weight at one end<br />
and a window slot in the side – great for<br />
fishing in deep water without releasing<br />
the bait early<br />
Zig rig – Another term for a<br />
pop-up presentation, where the<br />
Z<br />
bait is presented off bottom in<br />
conjunction with a simple bomb rig<br />
129