Learn How To Bag-Up At 5m

Don’t fall into the trap of automatically fishing the long pole in winter. There’s still lots of action to be had close in, says Frenzee’s Jon Whincup.

- Tony Grigorjevs

YOU put together every section of your pole, ship out and almost instantly begin to wince at the weight of the carbon in your hands.

With everyone else on the lake fishing at their limit, you feel compelled to do the same, sucked into thinking that doing so is your only chance of getting bites.

“Why everyone insists on fishing a long pole in winter is beyond me. I fish as short as 4m much of the time and you’d be amazed at what you can catch,” asserts Jon Whincup.

The Bait-Tech and Frenzee star will rarely be seen wielding the pole at full length having proven time and time again that you can bag-up at close range.

Deadly bait

Jon’s success is built on catching everything that swims. This means using a bait that appeals to a wide variety of species. Pellets and corn are too selective so the obvious choice is maggots.

“My approach revolves around getting a bitee very chuck and to do that you need to use maggots. One drop-in could be a small roach, the next could be a hand-sized skimmer and then you could hook a double-figure carp. Maggots will be taken by all species and they are all you need on your sidetray.”

There’s no place for negative feeding, and every minute or two Jon will feed 30 maggots by hand.

“If the fish are sat there and aren’t interested in feeding then you can trigger a response by pretty much irritating them into having a go.