Fishing shallow in deep water.

[peter crabtree]

Yesterday's match was held on a deep lake and the winner caught most of his fish just 2' deep in 10' of water. Mainly good roach along with chub, skimmers and a barbel. Obviously this method is best suited to pole tactics as bites are generally lightning fast, especially from roach.
One can however have success on a light waggler set up or a whip for example. You need a fair amount of bait to get the fish going, usually maggots, casters or/and hemp.
On those days where your on the deck tactics simply won't produce bites do you or have you given it a go?

Not talking about zig rigs or floating baits here btw....

 

[tigger]

I've fished as shallow as several inches below my float in 30 plus foot of water on numerous occasions. I used a self cocker or float shotted directly below it and no shot down the line whatsoever. I would spray maggots and cast directly among them sometimes cattying out more maggots and casters as my float hit the water so my bait was in the mix so to speak. It worked great for chub, roach, dace, rudd, orf, carp etc etc. I've never had barbel fishing like that but have had tench. I found that once they where up in the water you had to constantly feed to keep catching and you can go through quite a bit of bait!

Forgot to say I was using a rod and reel .

 

[rubio]

Maybe consider bread punch in very much the same way as you might think in winter. Personally I prefer to feed a pinch every cast and never stop, as opposed to the more usual pot in and fish it out.
Bread lots cheaper than casters and maggot. Half a handful of hemp in the mix leaves something more 'underneath' for them to hang around for.

 

[Tee-Cee]

I did in fact, fish this way this morning, and although I was fishing 3' deep in 8'+ of water it still suggests 'shallow' fishing...
I used a waggler with almost all the shot under the float and just a couple of 10's and 8's down the line. Bait was red maggots fished handlebar to sizes 22/20 and 18 for more than a single maggot which was cast into (mainly) max half dozen maggots and/or hemp every cast. I caught small roach but missed many bites by either striking too soon or too early and this with a vertical strike. Things improved when I tightened to the float (again with rod tip under the water) but my strike was then sideways and THROUGH the water rather than trying to lift the line OFF the water which sometimes resulted in a tangle with over excited strikes!!
I fished a 12' Matchpro with 2lb main line and although only at 3' (most of the time!) I still found bites came 'on the drop', but very tentative...

Not necessarily the answer to anyone's prayers, but this style of up in the water fishing works many times for me especially when I can see some surface activity/some sun on the water from roach, with decent fish up to a lb or so.

Nice way to fish and it certainly keeps you busy with rod in hand all the time!!

IMO the balance between force of strike (perhaps more a 'lift' than a strike) to distance fished needs thought............and yes, you can go through a ton of bait in a session, but I don't go OTT with feed - just a few mags each time!

 

[sam vimes]

I frequently fish well up the water column in a deep gravel pit. Most of the fish in the place are flighty and relatively thin on the ground. There are plenty of times when fishing on the deck, or close to it, is pointless. It's so deep and relatively cold, they take little encouragement to come up in the water to find the warmer layers. Most bit bashing sessions are spent chasing fish up and down the water column. I've occasionally caught fish at about a foot deep over thirty (+) feet of water.

In a similar vein, I've caught dace on the deeper stretches of the local rivers fishing no more than a foot or two deep. The trick here is to not feed too heavily or the fish disappear downstream and to greater depth. It can be quite a fine line between keeping fish in front of you and up in the water and screwing the pooch completely.

 

[Philip]

I've fished as shallow as several inches below my float in 30 plus foot of water on numerous occasions. I used a self cocker or float shotted directly below it and no shot down the line whatsoever. I would spray maggots and cast directly among them sometimes cattying out more maggots and casters as my float hit the water so my bait was in the mix so to speak. It worked great for chub, roach, dace, rudd, orf, carp etc etc. I've never had barbel fishing like that but have had tench. I found that once they where up in the water you had to constantly feed to keep catching and you can go through quite a bit of bait!

Forgot to say I was using a rod and reel .

I used to fish a deep clay pit that held some very big Roach the way Tigger describes above. The only difference was that I was not good enough to get the bait out quick enough after I cast so what I ended up doing was over casting then feeding and then drawing the float back into the feed so it sank at the same time.

The challenge at that water was that as well as the big ones there were literally thousands of small ones so I just tried to wade through the numbers and hoped a big one would slip up. It was always exciting when you used to see the big ones in the swim whizzing round to mop up the loose feed. It was very important to keep a stream of feed falling through the swim so as soon as the bait had reached the end of its drop I reeled in, cast, fed and drew it back in again. It was very "active" way of fishing..no sitting on your hands there.

Name drop time : I was sitting there fishing exactly like that when none other than Keith Arthur turned up with a mate and stood behind me. He asked me what was in the lake and we chit chatted for a few minutes and I was casting, feeding and pulling in roach after roach after roach as we spoke, he then turned to his mate and said "hes fishing like a goodun this one" ...I was still quite young back then so I was well chuffed

 

[laguna]

I would use a very slow sinking 'light' feed in those circumstances to draw them up and keep them into the top layers. Hemp sinks fast but crushed hemp sinks slower and especially good is a fine feedcrumb mixed in which sinks at the rate of about 1ft in 10secs - giving them plenty of opportunity to eat everything without it hitting bottom.

The trick is to feed the top layers only (if that's where they're at), not the whole water column.

 

[Tee-Cee]

Yes, I agree in that I have used a very,very light feed (more a 'cloud' than anything else) to bring them up in (still) waters and it can work until, in my case smallish carp move in, but that also goes for hemp, crushed or other wise...It's why I break my swim into areas and fish them for short spells. Doesn't always work, though..

If I fish (say) through the morning up in the water with maggots, I have found that dropping down to the bottom can bring instant results, probably because all the uneaten feed can only end up in one place!! (I'm talking 6 -10' deep swims, here..)

More annoying is the fact that no two days are the same............................as I find out every time I fish!!

 

[rayner]

Yesterday I fished in 9ft of water and caught all day on the deck. I cupped 10 balls loaded with crushed hemp and casters. The crushed hemp is put in water the night before to make it inert to keep fish on the deck.
Roach were all I caught ranging from 2oz to 10oz. if I had loose fed caster I would have had to chase fish up and down all day and needed at least two pints of caster normally 3 pints.

 

[laguna]

It can be very frustrating, sometimes baffling. Example I regularly fish two lakes, one 10 acres and the other around 3 acres similar depths of around 7-8ft plenty of cover in the margins with a steady drop off to the deeper parts. These two lakes have the same mixed stocks of fish, same water quality, and are connected by a narrow channel, yet the tactics and bait required are different and each day is different too. I does my head in!