Priming the swim

I see a lot of successful commercial match anglers on you tube who advocate feeding a swim ideally for a couple of hours before fishing it, usually they start on the method and fish that until the method stops working and then switch to the primed swim.

It obviously works , at least on a typical commercial , but I cant understand why it isn't a waste of bait i.e. the fish eat their fill and then go off somewhere else.

Maybe it only works on commercials where there are so many fish , but if that is the case then you only need to feed for maybe 10 minutes and you will soon amass a group of fish.

Do fish spend hours in a swim feeding ?
I assume some fish are attracted to the fact that other fish are feeding.

That brings me to the other , related , question where are the fish ?
Do carp on a commie just swim round and round looking for food ?
I have watched a large carp in a natural pool just sit there all the time I was fishing for roach , in fact at one point a cast a piece of floating bread and dropped it right in front of him and he never moved ( was a tense ten minutes for me though ) [ I think i have learn't since that with floating baits you have to get them feeding first )

bennygesserit said:

I think i have learn't since that with floating baits you have to get them feeding first

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Or time it so they are feeding and not sunbathing...................(Can't speak for Commercials though as I don't fish them)

In hot weather when the oxygen levels have dropped because of the heat (warm water doesn't hold as much oxygen as colder water) a lot of the carp often just lie near the surface sunning themselves with no appetite for feeding at all.
You can still catch the occasional one sunning itself but if you fish deeper or in the weedier parts where there's a little shade you would stand a little more chance.

Wait till the sun starts to fall near the horizon or get there really early before the heat of the day arrives and you will have more of a chance to catch them.

The smaller shoal fish often feed all day and if you get your feed rate just right you can have them queing up for your bait. You can even control the level in the water that they will be feeding by adjusting your feed rate if the temperature isn't too hot.

Like barbelboi I hardly ever fish hungry commercials so I can't really comment on them.

Keith

I've often whacked a floating bait right on a passing carp's nose and it's been taken without hesitation, almost feel guilty doing it, I think that's an ambush tactic match anglers often use on pools if they see a passing carp. I'd get used to the idea of most fish being transient in almost every swim on a pool, but favouring certain areas to feed, any static carp are usually sunning themselves

As for the feeding I think it's often wrongly thought you can over feed the fish but that takes a lot of doing even with baits like bread or pellets, even roach and gudgeon are hoovering that up so when you think theres bream and carp or barbel and chub if a river then that's one whole lot of competition. The key here is the classic 'little and often' maybe tailored to the perceived stock levels and the temperature though, as if you whack out say a two pints of bait in one go they are going to get full quicker plus they will take much longer to find your hookbait.

I cant ever recall thinking I've overfed them(in summer) but many a times thought that not enough feed is going in at times looking at other anglers sitting there doing nowt, I've also experienced scenes on clear waters where getting the small fish competing in the upper layers had drawn the larger fish out below, also too many a time have I dropped in above an angler on a river ledgering for his fish to suddenly come on as a result of my constant loosefeeding working it's way down, I know a few guys who feed well upstream with a catty whilst they sit their ledgering and they do really well as a result. I not sure if you can actually overfeed fish when you know they are competing even my dad's pond fish would just keep eating and eating all day long if they could.

It definitely is a good thing to feed and not fish a spot,that's particularly true in better sized fish,on all venues,normally spooky fish get confident after being left for an hour or two,it's a common ploy for barbel,feeding a swim and leaving it for an hour or two before putting a line in...it certainly is not a waste of bait,on the method it often dies a death after the first few hours,or the skimmers move in making building a weight less easy...

My take on this is, generally if fish are swimming close to the surface they are looking for food. stationary fish just basking in the sun are not feeding.
My take on feeding in commercials is.
Feeding other swims before fishing them is to promote confidence in the fish that the area is safe, it works most times. Just trickling a few pellets or any other bait you are using is the way to go in my experience. Over feeding kills most swims or can get too many fish in the swim.
For an example I was fishing yesterday with pellet waggler; I was throwing a couple of pellets half a rod length out in the place I dropped my float every time just before I cast, IE drop the float feed then cast,
on the odd occasion I have caught a fish in the spot.
Feeding the margin is closer to the time you're going to fish it. Feeding it all day is a waste of bait.
A bit of thought in where to feed and when is the key, just throwing bait in a random fashion is probably a bad move.
Like I said just my take on a bit of feeding

Cant speak for commercials but on some of the waters I fish putting a bit of feed in first seems to work. If the stock levels are that bit lower and the fish move about a bit then you need ( I think) a bit of bait to stop them and encourage them to get their heads down on it. In my limited experience of commercials thats less of an issue...the fish are probably there already and its more a question of what range and depth they are at.

I can be a bit timid when it comes to feeding ( I served my apprenticeship on small rivers and canals) but my mate Big Dave ladles the feed in and usually does better than me. Its him that got me thinking about putting enough in to stop them and how much bait a few decent sized fish can trough if they've a mind too. I often now spomb a fair bit of bait out before tackling up so that by the time I'm ready the swim has settled and ( maybe) the fish have found it and started to have a peck.

I would hardly feed at all on commercials, maybe just a little bit but the fish are often so wary of bait going in its better to just fish your bait on its own, there's often loads of feed in ther anyway-with bread- it will slowly build up with bits coming off the hook and will be more natural than lumps going in,. However, I noticed on one or two commercials I fished the owners feed bread when things are quiet and the fish need feeding.
On rivers I stick to the little and often or not often depending, I think the bigger fish do not dive in with the smaller fish when they are feeding; difficult for them to compete being slower and less agile and pick off morsels round the edge or further downstream so, I will try those areas during a session and pick up a big fish that way, well; sometimes! A walk 30 or 50 yds downstream or a few cast round the outer edges of the feed area can pay off sometimes on a commercial or a river.
Just my take on it as a plain pleasure angler but match anglers probably have it's measure better than me and, it's all horses for courses; whatever works on any given day or venue is the art of it.