feeding

It's no longer the hot balmy days of summer and the fishing is getting harder. When you feed little and often, let's say 4 maggots every minute to start, if the bites aren't forthcoming, how long do you give it before changing the pattern and what do you change it to?

Its the eternal question, how and when to feed, too much and you can overfeed them too little and they go elsewhere...

On rivers, my own strategy is to fish for bites, scaling tackle down whilst still remaining sensible and introducing a couple of small balls (golfball size) of groundbait from a of packet something with more attractant than feed plus a few hook bait samples at the start. If get bites then I try and increase the feed rate to suit.

It also sounds daft to say this but if you know there are fish around - ie from previous catches you may feed more from the off.

I keep tricking bait in - in colder months, I have found that there are feeding windows where, for a period where the fish will suddenly 'come on' to feed and equally suddenly stop - light levels, temperatures etc be damned.

I say this having spent two sessions at my local river over the weekend without a bite mg: I thought that I fished well, its just that the fish weren't in the mood - ever the optimist

I'm constantly working on accuracy of feeding, I remember Bob Nudd saying that feeding was the most important part of fishing and along side enjoying yourself, I believe this to be true.

On a stillwater I would fish two lines, one positive and one negative. 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. Same on my margins, feed one side and not the other.
ie feed one and not the other and get a feel for what the fish want on the day.

If i'm on the lake I usually use a 50/50 mix of Van Den Eynde Supercup and Supermatch that has been finely sieved and this seems to work well quite quicky as a kick start without giving them too much, if this doesn't work within an half an hour i'll try adding a little flavour.

Like bottle rocket I had a sparse spell on the river at the weekend and couldn't buy a bite despite running it through at different depths and different lines, like most i'll start off just trickling a few loose offerings in and build it up accordingly to the bites but I gave it a good couple of hours on each line and they still weren't having it.

This morning I fished 4 spots, 9,11,1 and 3 o'clock, feed 9 and 1, didn't feed 11 and 3. Fished sweetcorn or maggot, size 20 hook, .1 preston reflo hooklink, tried different depths.

Nothing, nada, zilch, zero, complete and utter mother of all royal blanks.

They were all shoaled up at 5 o'clock

What sort of Water is it that you fished?

Is it a large water, is it shallow or deep, does it have features (islands etc etc)

What is the main stock of fish for the water?

Sorry for all the questions but it might help others and myself to give a more accurate reply or at least a more relevant reply.

Mr Cholmondeley-Corker (PaSC) said:

They were all shoaled up at 5 o'clock

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Bvgger!

Steph, it is a 5ish acre pit with two islands and a good head of all the usual suspects, carp, tench, roach, rudd, perch pike, bream, cormorants, etc.

I chose today's swim because I have seen fish blowing in there a couple of times over the last 10 days but of course there was no sign of fish today.

It was a bright day with an easterly wind.

If you go to bing maps and search for "rydon industrial estate", select the aerial view, it is the first water on the right behind the car park, and I fished the bank furthest from the car park.

---------- Post added at 18:19 ---------- Previous post was at 17:36 ----------

The video I posted on the method feeder thread highlights the fact that if the fish ain't feeding then the feeding strategies we adopt make no difference. If the likes of Phil Ringer can't catch to order then there ain't much hope for the old duffers like me.

Other than Ringing the changes, i don't really see what much else you could have done. Perhaps fishing in the deepest part of the lake (if there is one) might have produced a few bites, or fishing on the side of the islands out of the cold winds breeze.

steph mckenzie said:

Perhaps fishing in the deepest part of the lake (if there is one) might have produced a few bites, or fishing on the side of the islands out of the cold winds breeze.

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Yeah, the best option (other than having a lie in and going to Wetherspoons for breakfast) would have been to choose a swim full of feeding fish