Which feeder to use for pellets?

alex laurie · Aug 30, 2006

Before the pellet revolution in barbelling, I would have used cage feeders with corn or meat and blockends for maggots or caster with hemp.

I have had 4 days on the Ribble recently.
Caught on 3 out of the 4 so I can't be doing anything drastically wrong.
I have used PVA mesh on 3 out of the 4 days and on one day cage feeders with 2mm dry pellet and also pellet sludge.

I felt that while the pellet sludge was acting as a scent trail effectively, it was not putting a carpet of loose pellets down, which is what I would prefer to do.

With the dry pellets, I think but couldn't be certain, that the dry pellets were coming out as the feeder hit the surface. I tried to remedy this by introducing more white crumb to my groundbait to plug the feeder more effectively.
The feeding in this instance was not critical as the swim was relatively slow and only around 4 feet deep, so the pellets were not going to be swept downstream to any degree. But it would be a different situation in a fast swim.

I thought of damping the pellets and squeezing them around a method feeder, but never got round to trying it, as I was catching fish anyway. It also occurred to me that I could widen the holes considerably on a big blockend to lay down a thinly spread carpet.

What do you guys do when you are on feeders?

Gary Knowles · Aug 30, 2006

Cage feeders are fine for this, as are open end feeders if the pellets are slighlty damped or mixed with a coarse feed.

you'll be surprised at how well it holds the feed.

njb51 · Aug 30, 2006

I use blockend feeders with whole hard pellet. The pellets start to break down and release the oil, which creates a scent trail going past your hookbait. This has worked well on the Thames recently.

If i were using groundbait, I would use a cage/open end feeder, plug one end with groundbait, fill the feeder with pellets and then block them in the groundbait at the otherend of the feeder.

Alternatively, you could try scalding the pellets, leaving them for a bit and moudling them against a method feeder as you said, although i've never tried this approach on the river.

Nigel Connor(ACA ,SAA) · Aug 30, 2006

I'd vouch for what Jonny says re the blockend feeder.

I go for a combination of trigga specialist carpet feed to plug the feeder and trigga pellets/broken boily inside of varying sizes with a trigga pellet/boily on the hook.Any pellet/fismeal groundbait would be fine.Lots of nice attaction there.

Dont see the point of a scalded pellets and a method feeder as I doubt you would get a method type reseponse from barbel but have never tried it so who knows.

chris calvert · Aug 30, 2006

If its of any benifit to you I shall tell you what I do.

I fish the Severn a lot with mixed pellets of 4 and 6 mm being fed through a drennan large blockend feeder with the holes enlarged with a scalpel. In fact once they have been cut out of the feeder they barbely resemble holes at all more like large elongated slots. for feeding a few larger pellets try making up a small pva bag of larger sized pellets and piggy back this to the feeder by attatching via the clip swivel on the feeder.

Maybe not the most highly technical solution but it works once you have the correct sized hole/slot for the conditions that you face on any particular day. It certainly catches me plenty of barbel (50 in the last two sessions) and will allow you to feed large quantities of bait if needed (I get through a gallon a day on average).

alex laurie · Aug 30, 2006

Looks like we have various solutions.

Gary,
I agree that the scent trail in a cage feeder will be excellent. As you say, it holds the feed well. But I would prefer to get a scattered bed of bait down, similar to what I would have done with hemp or corn. I feel that rather than just picking off the odd fish, I really can let them get their heads down and feed confidently before chucking a hookbait at them.

I do have a hankering after trying a method-type feeder though. I don't really anticipate a "method type response" as Nigel puts it (although in the "old days" on the Royalty, the fish used to grab baitdroppers and feeders).
Using a method feeder I should imagine the pellets would separate fairly quickly in the water and give much the same effect as PVA without the hassle.

On balance it looks like blockends so far...

chavender · Aug 30, 2006

a mate uses big cage type feeders just for the scent trail and not feed the swim
Barbel Feeders he does quite well with this method
check out his gallery (i was there for the top one,we were fishing on the club stretch)

alex laurie · Aug 30, 2006

Thanks Chavender,

I'm happy enough with my own tactic of tightly packing my cage or blockend feeders with pellet sludge/paste if all I want is to I want to leave a scent trail. If that was the objective, I dont really see why a simple blockend (with standard size holes) wouldn't do the job.

What I do want is to leave some pellets scattered within a reasonably confined area of say, 12 feet by 12 feet.

As I said earlier, looks like the consensus is for blockends with enlarged holes. This will do fine for me and confirms what I had been thinking myself.
It is after all a halfway house, as, if all of the feed does not wash out as the feeder settles (I am convinced most comes out on the retrieve), there will still be some left in there as a scent trail.

Maybe in winter and in high coloured water I will give the pure scent trail/no food method a go. After all in these conditions, we are fishing for each bite rather than expecting to catch a few fish.

fred hall · Aug 30, 2006

I just use a Kamasan blackcap blockend feeder and fill it with small,dry pellets. Quickly dunk the feeder before casting out so that the pellets don't fly everywhere. I can vouch for this being very effective on the Ribble.

sash · Aug 30, 2006

Summer / Autumn - Open ended Thamesley feeders reinforced with electrical tape with holes enlarged or wire cage open feeders. Pellet mix presoaked and hard mixed with hemp, crumbed boilies and various groundbait goodies and all fished over the top of hemp and pellet introduced via a baitdropper or monster feeder.

Winter - Block end feeder with slightly enlarged holes unless flood conditions.

alex laurie · Aug 31, 2006

Chris,

I think you have a problem!

I just noticed this in your reply..... "they barbely resemble holes at all".

You are obviously as obsessed with fishing as me...

Thanks for the reply. I think your approach is along the same lines as I was thinking of. Can't argue with 50 fish in two days.

John McLaren · Aug 31, 2006

Like Fred I have recently used Kamasan Black caps to good effect. The pellets I have used for feed are 3mm and on most occasions they seem to empty out quite readily even if they flow is as gentle as it has been in the past couple of months, I find with that size there is no need to dunk them before casting.

Graham Whatmore · Aug 31, 2006

"I get through a gallon a day on average" says Chris. That sounds like an awful lot of pellets to me and if thats your average then that means you sometimes use more, eck!

I often use a block end feeder to feed pellets but I always put some in that are too big to escape, this leaves the smell but only the bait on the hook to eat, this works fine on all the rivers I fish. Never ever used as many pellets as you though Chris but everyone has their own approach and what works for you is the best approach I suppose.

Nigel Connor(ACA ,SAA) · Aug 31, 2006

I think Trefor West uses 6 - 6 pellets that is!

Graham, as you say, whatever works for you!

chris 2 · Aug 31, 2006

I use a drennan block end feeder but i take the top of,remove the stem,drill a small hole in the enclosed bottom of the feeder.Push the stem through the hole and fix to the lead strip.This gives you a upside down block/open end feeder.I find it best then to wrap electircal tape around the open end for added strength,it stops the feeder splitting.For my feed i use scallded pellets mixed with mixture of hard pellets.You dont want the scallded pellets to damp so keep adding the hard pellets until you get a crumbly mix.The trick then is not to squezze the mix to tight in the feeder.I hope this makes sense,i wish i could draw you a diagrame.

Graham Whatmore · Aug 31, 2006

It never ceases to amaze me when I read the mags how many contributors use a variety of methods to achieve the same end, catch a barbel using pellets.

You get the little and often approach, the lay down a carpet approach, some use as little as Trevor West a dozen a day, some swear by hemp others say its unnecessary, bags are the best method to introduce feed, open feeder is the best, loose feed is better.

All would have you believe that their method is the only successful one after much observation and testing and is guaranteed to succeed.

All these methods I have read about in CF over the recent months, sometimes even in the same issue but I suspect that we all use different methods on different days and different venues, its a bit like the short or long hooklink argument I guess.

John McLaren · Aug 31, 2006

You're quite right Graham - prior to my recent successful use of a block-end feeder I have usually used a cage feeder with a meaty or fishy groundbait mix and a good dash of micro pellets and hemp (covering every option). One session last year I was getting nothing on that approach so switched to pva "sausages" filled with pellets and had fish after fish immediately - but had they come onto the feed anyway? Would I have caught had I just stuck with the previous approach?

Just one more of the mysteries of angling!

It does amuse me, when I read some of the articles you refer to, how certain the writers are that this is THE method when in all probability it will be replaced by something else in a few months but will as likely as not still be a catching method anyway.

alex laurie · Aug 31, 2006

Lads,

Very interesting ideas there.
There are definitely a lot of solutions to the same problems.
One point in favour of a blockend approach is that you don't have to carry groundbait as well!

I liked Graham's idea of putting some captive big pellets in the feeder to keep the scent trail going.
I'll also check out the kamasan black caps.

Thanks for giving me food for thought.

p.s. those pellets don't half pong. My car smells like a trawler - and this is 4 days after my last trip. My better half prefers it when I go fly fishing. At least only my net smells.

rob d · Aug 31, 2006

i use open ended feeders home made golf club tube cut down , filled with a heavy mix of brown crumb and a lot of pellets
works well on the severn yet to try it un the ribble yet
i used to use the black caps with micro pellets
always wonder wether the flow emptied the feeder or the retrive

John McLaren · Sep 1, 2006

I did wonder about that also but fishing in fairly shallow water where the feeder pops to the top very quickly and is obviously empty has reassured me that the flow is emptying the feeder. But then the scent trail would come into play if the pellets stayed in the feeder.

Which feeder to use for pellets?

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