Wintle's World of Angling - Chopped worm and lollipop floats
ONE METHOD I'VE known about for several years yet never got around to trying is chopped worm. A couple of recent trips gave me the opportunity to give it a go, and the results were promising.
At one time I had a successful wormery but laziness and always using other baits have meant that I've no longer any ready supply of worms. That meant that the first purchase was ¼ kilo of dendrabenas at £6.25. That would easily be sufficient for what I intended which was to demonstrate the method in a photo session fishing with Graham. The tackle part of the equation was pole gear and flat 'Lollipop' float rigs. The venue was the Upper Thames near Oxford.
The Thames was in good order in early November, a brisk but fishable flow and good tinge of colour as it fined down from a flood the previous week. Initially I concentrated on conventional pole tactics, loose feeder maggots and casters with a catapult and fishing with a conventional 1.5 gram pole float. It wasn't long before a succession of small roach were taking the bait, and it was easy to control the float in the calm conditions. Graham concentrated on taking plenty of photos until lunch time when I let him have a go. He inched the bait through and hit a better fish, possibly a chub that came adrift soon after hooking. But up until that point neither of us had caught a perch.
Time to bring out the lollipop float
After trying some more variations of standard pole fishing and getting a load more shots it was time to try the lollipop float. The one I'd rigged up was 2 gram and given the flow it turned out to be just about right. The shot load was bulked well down and there were just a couple of no. 8 droppers with a size 18 hook. Before sorting out the worms I spent twenty minutes or so fishing with the flat float to get a feel for it. I needed to add more shot to get it to hold right in the current so that three quarters of the bristle was showing but once I'd got it right it was easy to fish. I'd also made the rig with too long a length of line so once I knew the depth I was able to shorten it and get it just right.
I don't like to fish too short a line on the river but there has to be a compromise between control and being able to have a short trot. It was simply a matter of laying the rig into the water in a line downstream and holding the pole steady. The roach continued to bite and I had one or two better ones on caster where the still presentation improved the way the bait was presented. But it was time to switch to worms so I changed the hook to a size 14.
And chop the worms
I chopped up a couple of handfuls of worms with some old scissors and filled up a medium bait dropper, adding a few casters. My first attempt to get the dropper into position on the 11 metre line went horribly wrong and the dropper hit bottom only half way out to the main fishing line. The next two dropper loads were successfully droppered into place though, once I realised that the pole needed to be held much higher, something that Graham was able to help with being at the top of the bank.
Baiting with a section of worm around an inch long it was time to see what had come onto the bait. The response to the chopped worm was instant and the perch (remember we hadn't seen one up until now) were queuing up to take the bait. The perch were in two sizes; around an ounce and five or six ounces, and there were plenty of them. After getting some more shots Graham had a go while I tackled up a five metre whip to try the inside line, and he was equally impressed with the method.
When I did fish the whip I started getting perch as well that had been attracted by the misplaced dropper-load.
With plenty of worms left over, and eager to try the method again, I decided to have a go on the upper Dorset Stour two days later. Again I started on conventional pole tactics, getting a few small roach despite the fourth heavy frost in a row. After a couple of hours I switched to the flat float and droppered in three loads of worms. The upper Stour had much less flow although it was about three feet deeper than the Thames swim. Once again the response was almost instant and a succession of perch of similar size to the Thames fish soon turned up together with some dace, small chub and the odd small roach. It was clear that the 2 gram float was too heavy in the more gentle current, although still effective.
A deadly method on many waters
In this short article I hope I've conveyed some of the advantages of this method. The bait is deadly on many waters and I need to use it more widely. On the Thames Graham and I agreed that if we'd used it all day there is a possibility that some much better fish may have shown for we did not fish it for very long at all, and the swim was also subjected to a wide variety of feeding patterns for photography rather than effective fishing. On the nearby Medley reach some tremendous catches of perch and tench (plus bream) have been caught with the method. Nearer to home I need to find a stretch of water with bigger perch to try it again.
As for the flat 'lollipop' float it offers a way of presenting a still bait with precision and sensitivity that is unmatched, and can be applied to other methods like bread flake or caster as well as to chopped worm. I may give it a go over balled-in groundbait sometime during the winter as well. A vital tip is that matching the size of float to the conditions is vital; as I found out the 2 gram float in a gentle current didn't work as well as a smaller float, and conversely it is important to recognise when a bigger float is needed. I shall have to rig up a set of these floats in preparation. You can tell you've got the right size float when it sits so that the bristle is vertical - it's as simple as that.
After our day on the Thames one of our conclusions was that despite far more years angling experience between us than we care to admit (not that far off 100 years combined!) here we were still learning new methods, and enjoying it. So if you fancy a new method why not give this one a try; lollipop floats and chopped worms don't have to be fished with a pole although this is one of the better ways to do it, and who knows what you might catch!
Evan
