Practice Makes Perfect

If you want to try something different, it’s always best to pick a venue and a day when the fish are feeding freely, as Cam Hughes demonstrates.

- Cam Hughes

Over the winter months there is a great silver-fish league on a venue local to me, living in Derby, called Rycroft Fisheries. Now, obviously, the weather dictates how good the fishing is through the colder months, but generally you will need a 20lb-plus weight to win. Today I have come for a little practice before the league starts; the weather is still warm so I expect it to be better than it will be later in the year, but still a good chance to sort a few things out.

I have sat on Peg 2 on the carp lake – anyone who knows the venue will know it is a really good area; it’s also a peg I have only ever drawn once (we can’t all be as lucky as Andy Taft, Sean Ashby or Darran Bickerton now, can we?).

I am going to keep things simple today by fishing casters out of my hand at around seven metres as this is where the lake bed starts to flatten out properly. I’m also fishing a line at 13 metres straight in front of me with worms and ground bait, where I will hopefully be able to catch some skimmers.

Among the rigs for fishing on the bottom I have also set up a couple of shallow rigs, as there are a lot of fish showing. These rigs can also double up for fishing down the edges for perch; this is a great tactic for the winter months as they can be up to 3lb, which soon boost your weight. On the longer line I am using the ever-faithful Gloucester float in 4x16. As I am getting a lot of bites on the drop I have set this up as a double-bulk rig so it passes through the smaller fish quickly, and hopefully once a skimmer picks the bait up the float will lift instead of going under.