When to use ground bait

I was fishing a club stillwater yesterday,the water was gin clear at about 8/9 mts.
so i fished at around 12/13mts in approx 5ft of water, because the water was clear i decided to loose feed caster and hemp alternating hook bait of casters,mags, bread and 4mm pellet,not feeding any g/bait at all, main fish i was after were silvers, started to catch after around 30 minutes,all small roach on caster and mag,none of the better stamp of roach seemed to want to know, after a couple of hours the bites stopped, i'm pretty sure i hadn't over fed,i had another 30minutes bites, altering depth etc,then decided to give them some g/bait [sensas roach] within 20 minutes or so i was hooking a much better stamp of fish, all these years i have not fed g/bait in clear water thinking it would spook anything in my swim,
Do any of you guys regularly feed g/bait in clear conditions

It's one of those stripey, some days it works and others it doesn't.

(possible myth alert)
In gin clear water, the groundbait can give them some form of cover or can create a situation where it seems as though other fish are feeding so they don't want to miss out. Dark groundbait is/was considered to give fish cover overhead from birds since they don't show up as much as over lighter groundbait - although in 5ft of water???

I think that you did the right thing by trying loose feed first. As a thought for the future it might be worth having two swims, one at 10 O'clock and one at 2 O'clock (or one near and one far etc.. sky's the limit) so that you can try one with some groundbait and one with loose feed.

As long as they are in a feeding mood and not spooked too much I often find a cloud effect with just a few food particles suspended in it can get nervous shoal fish feeding and have always put it down to them feeling a little more secure from predators inside the cloud plus they will be searching for morsels and feeding by smell/taste more than by sight which is not too bad a thing for us.

Keith

I personally never use GB in winter,i prefer to feed 2-6 maggots or micro pellets,and i,ll up the feed if i get more bites,but i fish predominately F1/carp/silvers commercials,Gazza

It appears you were using a pole? Clear/shallow water with a pole wafting over their heads isn't always the best option. A waggler type set up often outfishes the pole in those kind of conditions.

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Yes but it depends upon what you want to do. Do you want to use gbait to feed the fish, as a carrier for other food or to make a bed of something for them to sit/graze over ???? Do you want it active or inert ??

It's not uncommon to feed a lot at the start (10, 15 even 20 balls) when just targetting a handful of fish. It depends what you feed and what's in it. If it's rich (so just gbait like Roach, Gros Gardons etc) then you will over feed on a cold winter's day in clear water. If it's 90% soil then you won't.

For a silver fish session in Clearwater I would be tempted to use a cloud-type of ground bait, but really prefer (at this time of the year) to use it very sparingly and to add a good amount of pinkie, if using maggot as hook bait.

Relatively small fish are quite easily fed-off in winter time so I opt for a cloud type of ground bait as it contains a lot less feed than, for example the Gardons you used.

Many top match anglers say that it pays to use a ground bait of a contrasting colour to the bed of the venue as well, and I have had a fair bit of success following that line of thinking.

Winter silver fishing can often be a case of "fishing for bites" so offer more attraction andthe least amount of feed is the rule of thumb.

I never use groundbait in cold weather, I don't use so much when it's warm either.
I much prefer loose feed as most of my fishing is up in the water.
When I fish on bottom I normally feed through a catapult or cup, more pellets than groundbait. I do use it on the odd day I use worm but not often.

The only time I use GB is in the margin or on the method, and only in summer in shallow water. Something I have steered away from through all this year.

Always use groundbait even in winter and usually d ok.
Commercials especially can take it because of their high stocking levels.
Usually kick of a session by chopping in a large pot and then loose feed over it.