Watched a top match angler catch 190lb of fish, at two metres.
He says we complicate things by fishing too far out.
Has anyone ever caught well fishing close in between two keepnets?

Terry,

Short whip fishing can be very produictive on the right venue, on the right day.

Personally speaking I would never set up for a match without a selection of whips from 2m to 6/7m

The key to this type of fishing is to feed regularly, get into a good rhythm (not speed, but rhythm) use simple rigs and to take fish from say 10 o clock to 2 o clock rotating after every 2 or 3 fish.

I did an article for FM some time back on short whip fishing that you might search out.

Once you master the technique you can easily catch at 3 or 4 fish per minute, and a few years ago I had 42 kilos of Bleak and Roach in a 4 hour practice match.

they say fish are attracted to features, well the biggest feature on any water is the bank !

I've had a bit of success fishing a whip for bleak, on the Wye in winter, very close (2mtrs) just using sloppy groundbait and maggots, I used to amaze myself how close I could catch them to the keepnet head, of a keepnet that already contained 100's of them!
The match I watched last week, was on a heavily coloured commercial and the angler had formed his keepnets into a 'V' in front of the platform and caught 190lb of carp in the three metres of 18 inch deep water, between them!
DIY features!

2 metres - that's what, at least six and a half feet? Why cast so far out?

Thats right Fred, often you can fish much closer than that.
Watching the match anglers fish close on the commercial fishery, reminded me that in the 80's Pete Rice won a lot of money on the Warwickshire Avon, fishing a stick float against the bank side reeds, when everyone else was fishing at least a rod length out.
I must admit these days I think a lot of pole anglers fish at 12 metres, just because they own a pole that length!

I used to fish a small stream in Hertfordshire where, if you trotted maggot or caster on light tackle, there were plenty of dace, roach and small chub to be caught - but the bigger ones eluded me for years until an old fellow showed me what to do.

The river in question was only a couple of feet deep - three at most - and much of it was lined with floating mats of reeds. The trick was to fish very light float tackle, shotted with a couple of BB beneath the float and just two or three dust down the line. Set the float a foot or so overdepth and hold back so it swung up against the reeds, allowing the bait (caster, always a caster) to search even further under.

We would get several big chub, roach and perch like this almost every time. It was amazing how many fish lurked beneath those reedmats - I imaging they stayed there during daylight hours and only ventured out to feed in the open water at night.

One chap I knew took over a hundred pounds of chub from a swim barely fifteen inches deep - and this in the days when such heavyweight catches were only ever heard of in Ireland.

It was (and I think still is) free fishing too...

pah once had a mid double on a commercial suck the bread off the bank. i put it right in the edge and half the piece of crust was actually on dry land. now that's fishing close in.

That's nothing Captain, I left my peg to go to the toilet, a carp came out of the water, took my last two sandwiches and a packet of crisps out of my bag, and then slithered back into the water, two minutes later, it came out at my mates feet and dropped the empty crisp packet into his pocket, he told me he would'nt have believed it if he had'nt seen it with his own eye's, I have had several experiences happen to me similar to this, I must just be unlucky that I miss them !!!.

Hahahahaahaaaaa.

Merv - if the carp in your water have a taste for crisps, perhaps you should try slinging 'em a spud?