tufty (diving) ducks!!

while fishing on various lakes and meres in the past, i've baited a swim and settled down for a days fishing. at some point during odd sessions the tufty ducks appear from nowhere over your baited area and up and down they go!! i've had some cracking runs off them in the past, but there not my intended foe! what i'd like to know is if these birds diving up and down on your baited area would deter any approaching or feeding fish from your swim??

i don't know about them detering any fish from your swim Kev, but I don't think ther ewould be much bait left in the area.

how I get around the problem of ducks or coots diving on my bait is to fish a deeper part of the water. I don't know how far down the tuftys can dive to.

i've been informed in the past baz that they can dive up to 50feet or so? weather theres any truth in that or not baz i don't know, what i do know is that they can be a pain in the arse, and leave me pulling out what hair i've got left!!

Arrr the ubiquitous Tweety Bream!
Yes they can get down to about 50 ft.
They give cracking bites and love to feed on balled in grounbait.

I?ve actually had takes off bream when they?ve been diving in my swim.
So I don?t think they put feeding fish off. Whether they put off approaching fish is an unanswerable question because you?d never know they were approaching in most circumstance.

What I can say form observations is that they stir the bait up on the bottom, taking some, but can and have done on many occasions stimulated bites not long after they?ve been buggered off??wink, wink, nudge, nudge!

If they really are being a pain you can lead them away from you baited area buy pulting out balls of bait well away from where you?re fishing.

One day I was board and wondered how many balls it would take to fill each bird, so I did a little test and lead them away from my baited area. Once I got them away, I deliberately pulted balls of bait (golfball size) 10 yards in front of them. Each bird, and there were 3, managed 4 balls each and then they swam off full.

I wondered if swans could achieve the same effect, but when I dropped some groundbait into a shallow canal, they cleared up every crumb without stirring the bottom up. I don't much like them, but I was impressed!
Feeding ducks just above your swim can be a smart move - fish don't associate feeding ducks with danger; the reverse if anything-they'll help groundbait your swim, and all the other anglers assume you're the village idiot and give you a wide berth. All for 15p a loaf, if you watch the sell-by dates carefully.

I'm not sure I like who I'm turning into...

Years ago I was fishing Rutland Water from a boat. I was using a very fast sinking line and a booby.

I got a pull and struck.

I wondered what I had hooked as the fight seemed very strange. Suddenly this "thing" shot out of the water and began flying.

The fly fell from it's mouth - yes it was a tufty.

The silly bird circled around and landed not 10 yards from my boat. It sort of gave me an old fashioned look that said: "Come on cast that thing out again and let's see if I can't get it a second time."

And that must have been over at least 30 feet of water.

Similar problem on Throop this summer though had the last laugh when one dived then came back up incredibly fast quacking like crazy - a 12lb pike had taken a pop at it - feathers everywhere. I landed the pike later.

Laser pen works.

a laser pen you say deecy, i'll have to try that one mate how did you find that one out then? oh and where can i get my hands on one?

Caught a tufty when legering once, strangest fight I've ever had. Took two of us to land and unhook it. Nevr caught anyuthing else that day. Good laugh in strange way.

hey ged, prey you never hook a coot mate! now they are a nasty piece of work, you wanna see he claws on them??