feeding off the fry

[sagalout]

The club I belong to has a small estate lake (originally the duck pond to supply the kitchen) that has no predators and the water turns black with 1 to 2 inch fry when you feed and some days you can watch you bait hang suspended in the water as the fry attack it.

Is it possible to feed this amount of fry off? Whenever I have tried to feed heavily I just get more and more fry in the swim. If I feed tightly packed balls of bait the swim just fizzes.

 

[robertroach]

I went to a club lake the other day with a view to fishing with maggot on the pole for roach/skimmers/hybrids. Unfortunately there were so many small rudd you couldn't get through them. Even if you dropped the bait a few inches from the edge it would be grabbed. More feeding = more small fish.
I think the only way in these circumstances is to fish a larger bait. I switched to sweetcorn and 8mm soft pellets and had some bigger ones.

 

[tikka]

Introduce a few pike or perch.mg:

 

[sagalout]

I have suggested that!

 

[seth49]

One of the ponds I fish is the same, have to fish large pellets or meat. The little devils even shove the baits underneath stones trying to eat them. There a right pest.

 

[Chefster]

When you say the swim fizzes,is that fish or active ingredients in the GB fizzing??If i was feeding off small fish,i would feed a lot of bait...If i were fishing for carp i would feed 5-6 pints of dead maggots,and a lot of hemp....I would fish bunches of 10 dead maggots on a 14 or 16 b911 xstrong hook..If i was fishing for skimmers i would feed balls of leam/GB with casters and worms in,to go straight to the bottom,then fish worm/caster on the hook...For tench i would feed a lot of hemp/corn....Once big fish move in they will bully the small fish out of the peg...just keep putting bait in and wait for them to move in.....but i dont really know your venue or target species..Gazza

 

[sagalout]

Cheers Gazza, thats really useful. The fizzing is fish, the groundbait (liquidised pellet) is inert. Target species? That's a bit grown up for me, in general I am targeting any crucian, tench or carp (the water in question only has small carp under 3lb, anything over is netted of and moved to other club waters) roach and rudd over 6oz.

Would pellet and corn be a good mix or does it need to be hemp?

 

[Chefster]

Cheers Gazza, thats really useful. The fizzing is fish, the groundbait (liquidised pellet) is inert. Target species? That's a bit grown up for me, in general I am targeting any crucian, tench or carp (the water in question only has small carp under 3lb, anything over is netted of and moved to other club waters) roach and rudd over 6oz.

Would pellet and corn be a good mix or does it need to be hemp?

Pellet and corn would be ok,but i always think that hemp is less attractive to small fish,and has better holding qualities when big fish move in.....If your after small carp though ,pellets are probably your best bet,3lb carp will soon bully small fish out of the peg..But its usually the activity from the small fish that draws them in to begin with..Gazza

 

[Alan Tyler]

I'd try wheat. Cheap, and not easy for really tiny fish to take unless you really over-cook it.

 

[john step]

I'd try wheat. Cheap, and not easy for really tiny fish to take unless you really over-cook it.

This seems a good cost effective thing to try. You could also put hard 8ml pellets amongst the wheat and use a banded one on the hook until the bullies arrive. The fry would find it hard to get them in their gobs.

It seems strange there is a water without perch in it? Why would there be resistance to their introduction?

 

[Chefster]

It puzzles me why people are more obsessed with penny pinching and saving money,than actual results that would be achievable ,by spending a bit of cash,just my opinion though..Gazza

 

[sagalout]

It seems strange there is a water without perch in it? Why would there be resistance to their introduction?

I don't think there is any resistance it's just the bailiff/club getting roun'tuit. Presumably they need EA approval to move the perch from other waters. I don't really know, every time I talk to the bailiff he says he is going to get some perch, but it never happens.

---------- Post added at 21:34 ---------- Previous post was at 21:27 ----------

use a banded one on the hook

Trouble with 8mm pellets it stops the crucian, roach and rudd most of the time as well. I am liking the pellets and sweetcorn approach. I will try it out when it warms up a bit, this pond is the coldest place in south devon, it is in a valley that lies north to south, it doesn't matter what direction the prevailing winds is it comes from the north down the valley and hits the unsheltered pond with a vegeance. I live very close to the coast and it has been +8c when I left home and -3 at this pond.

 

[flightliner]

The only time these days when I have to avoid hordes of annoying nuisance fish is on the Trent float fishing amongst bleak, only thing I ve found that works is to keep feeding your original line then go out further with a waggler for your intended species.

 

[Alan Tyler]

Chefster, the reason is Pensions. We oldies are happier putting time into preparing a cheap (but good) bait than slinging a week's disposable income in the lake to save a few minutes.
I'll try the cheapest likely option first.

---------- Post added at 00:38 ---------- Previous post was at 00:35 ----------

Flight, how I wish I'd known/thought of that when the Thames was stiff with bleak.
(That was in the days when I could afford maggots!)

 

[flightliner]

Chefster, the reason is Pensions. We oldies are happier putting time into preparing a cheap (but good) bait than slinging a week's disposable income in the lake to save a few minutes.
I'll try the cheapest likely option first.

---------- Post added at 00:38 ---------- Previous post was at 00:35 ----------

Flight, how I wish I'd known/thought of that when the Thames was stiff with bleak.
(That was in the days when I could afford maggots!)

Alan, it's a popular misconception that it's possible to "feed off" fish like bleak or the just as persistant hordes of tiny rudd on a stillwater, If it were it would be to expensive in most popular baits but more importantly time as in my experience a session on the trent would be over before any satisfactory conclusion was achieved ---

 

[rayner]

It puzzles me why people are more obsessed with penny pinching and saving money,than actual results that would be achievable ,by spending a bit of cash,just my opinion though..Gazza

I agree Chefster, I spend a limited amount of time on the bank and a couple of quid on bait pays for it's self with results.
Being an oldie myself I don't see why some folk think we or they should compromise on their sport.
I mean come on, we pay into pension all our working lives with the hope of being more comfortable in later life. And a few quid on bait will break the bank!

 

[laguna]

I now use a little invention of mine, a 4" x 2" permeable bag of ground bait tethered to the bank in the form of a 'chum bag' full of attractants to 'attract' the little fish - which invariably draws in the bigger fish.

It can be chucked out, floated out, popped up or sunk depending on the depth your fishing.

Its made with rip-proof kiddie fishing net material and has an inline float marker as optional.

It keeps then occupied all day long with absolutely no risk of over feeding. In fact the only thing they get to eat is my hook bait and the emptied bag at the end of a session!