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Keep moving or sit it out?

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Dan Whitelock

Senior Member
Couldn't decide whether to post this on the Ouse thread or on here. I'm guessing on here I'd get a varied response as the Upper Ouse is similar to places such as the Kennet, Loddon, W.Avon etc.
I find myself at bit of a crossroads here and wondered if I could hear some different viewpoints:
I fish a very hard bit of river - 3 or 4 fish a season is good going! Until now I've been adamant that the Trefor West approach would nail it, 20 minutes in each swim then move on. However, I'm starting to question this and after speaking to another chap on the bank and reading an article about a hard stretch of the Loddon I'm starting to wonder whether or not it'd be best to sit it out for longer in a swim - say 4 hours or so before moving as sooner or later Barbel will swim past and find the bait?

My thinking is that the bit I fish is pretty much one long Barbel swim of 3 miles. They literally could be anywhere. I worry that by rotating around 12 or so accessible different swims I'm often bypassing or leapfrogging the fish, or passing them on the way up as I'm on my way down. Or I could be wrongly placing a bait tight in to the near bank when they could be sat under the far bank or mid river! It's not really a suitable stretch for rolling a bait around given the weed and snags and lack of flow in places.

Has anyone else faced a similar quandary? In the past I've had most fish within 40 minutes of fishing but that was when there were an awful lot more fish in the Ouse! I've also had it when I've been sat in a swim with no indications, staring at a motionless rod and then 2 hours later it slams over!

I fear I'm going to have to spend longer on the banks which will mean night fishing and that is something I really don't enjoy! 99% of my Barbel have been caught in the daylight and that's when I'm happiest fishing. Plus the crayfish really do go mental once it gets dark :mad:

I'm only on my 8th blank this season though so no need to panic just yet Mr Mainwaring :eek:
 
I fish a section of the Loddon which is just before the one I think that you refer to in the article. Having come from the Kennet where I moved every 30-45 mins in general I'm in the same boat. It worked fine on the Kennet but on the Loddon it seems casting out once and staying there until you either go or catch is what's called for. Not sure I like that approach.

I'm thinking maybe choosing 3 or 4 nice looking swims and rotating them every 30 mins. The theory being that I'm sure if a barbel finds food it'll stay there for a while so hopefully it will still be there when I come back. Haven't tried the approach yet but in my head it works.
 
That sounds like a sensible compromise Ben. I don't really like the whole sitting it out thing as I'm constantly thinking where the fish could be holding. I think what I'm going to try this week is set up camp in a swim I have in mind where they have to run through from two main bits of river and sit it out throughout the night. I'll have the option of dropping into a couple of other swims further upstream while I wait for dark and again in the morning before I go home. It's got to be worth a try!
 
Eight blanks...try a two-rod approach with upstream and downstream rods. This doesn't answer your question about moving but does enable you to cover near/far banks and also to try out different baits. Once you've found the fish, revert to one rod. Just a suggestion.
 
Eight blanks is nothing - like I say if you get 3 or 4 fish all season then it's not been a bad one, I think my best run of blanks is 21/22!

Two rods is only possible in very few swims, it's not something I like doing really but you never know, a change from what everyone else has been trying and failing for the last few seasons may just work.
I often wonder that one of the reasons behind the Ouse downfall is not the otters eating all the Barbel, or the crayfish dominating the bottom or any one of the number of theories often suggested, but maybe us small handful of locals who still actually fish this river are all stuck in a rut fishing the same old tactics and baits that we have done for years and it just doesn't work anymore?!
There's hell of a lot of river, like I say it's one huge Barbel swim and there's not many people at all fish it. Even if there is/was/could be say 200 Barbel in the 7 mile of river between weirs that's still a thin spread of fish with very few people trying to catch them. Even on that distance you could say that 70% gets fished. If there's only 100 then the odds are looking grim. Now if the same handful of chaps are fishing the same tactics, rotating the swims and leapfrogging the Barbel every week then it's no wonder they don't get caught!?
 
I suppose you also have to consider the amount of bait going in for such a few fish? maybe try a single hook bait approach to increase the chances of the fish picking up your bait, if a lot of or fair amount of bait is going in then there is a consistent food supply the chances of a pick up are fewer?
 
Is float fishing a reasonable size bait an option ?
i can see a lot of advantages to it particularly searching the stretch,moving bait,less cray friendly,prob doing something different than others.
If you get any results dedicate more time in that area.

I know absolutley nothing about this river however so may not be much use.
 
Dan i would say the best way would be the 20 minute approach,but you must pick say 4 to 6 swims and prebait them,for days before fishing, with a selective good quality,proven bait.1 hour a day feeding will mean you should have fish looking for the next freebee. Pick what you would say were your best swims,possibly where you have caught barbel before or depressions.Think of all those hours wasted for those 3 or 4 fish, 21 blanks is a hell of a lot of wasted hours.It does not have to be too much bait, but it needs to go in often.If lots of other anglers are on the section try very large baits.And the obvious thing is be very quiet and put that lead in without a noise,otherwise feed it and walk away to the next baited swim.Try to pick your week to feed, if the weather at the end of the week is going to be wet and wild all the better.It will take dedication but it sounds like you are used to a struggle.
 
Hi Dan, just go very mobile mate, 1 rod, gear and a drink and bait in a shoulder bag and a landing net, just walk and walk and walk until you spot a barbel, preferably flashing or rolling but object is to find em 1st, if that fails then pick a spot bait it and sit back and wait it out mate, you can spot so much better looking and not wetting a line until the quarry shows mate, personally i would use a baiting program if spotting fails, with such few number of barbel in there then just create a larder for them, it may take week it may take months of regular baiting but it will take effect eventually ;):)
 
Ricky Middleton said:
I suppose you also have to consider the amount of bait going in for such a few fish? maybe try a single hook bait approach to increase the chances of the fish picking up your bait, if a lot of or fair amount of bait is going in then there is a consistent food supply the chances of a pick up are fewer?
Click to expand...

I do wonder if Ricky raises a key point in relation to this subject. I have seen two approaches work well on a small river such as the Kennet. I know anglers that fish a focused bait and wait approach and typically it's with hemp and caster or maggots. Technique generally seems to be based on baiting a near-side area for 2 maybe 3 hours. Typically the opposite bank will contain a mass of cover so the idea is that eventually the fish will wander across and get their heads down and tuck in. It's then a question of lightly placing the hook bait in the baited area and off you go. Using a back lead can be key too. Clearly this works well when you are confident the opposite bank cover actually contains fish and hopefully more than 1!

The other approach is the 20-30 minutes per swim approach when I guess boilies/pellets are more likely to be the bait of choice. I imagine that increasingly, this is a good approach on a river such as the Kennet because it doesn't, in general, contain large shoals of fish. Perhaps small groups or individual (and large) fish. You get to cover a lot of water but you probably get one cast in each swim. If you are a clumsy caster like me, it can make for a tricky session. It's very difficult I think to spot barbel now on the Kennet and so you are relying on watercraft and experience of the river. Cover remains hugely critical I think especially during the day. I wonder if sometimes people fish too heavy. I have certainly been guilty of that. Right now, half an ounce is enough. Which is clearly helpful if you are looking for minimal disturbance.

Pre-baiting would be ideal I guess but I don't know about others, I just couldn't find the time meaning I just need to take my chances on the day.

The question I grapple with in relation to the roving approach, is how much bait to use when you are really fishing for one bite, one fish? I would typically use a small boilie hookbait (say 10-12mm) or a couple of 8/10mm pellets. I would then thread a pva bag down the hook length (stopping on a sinker) and this might contain 5-8 broken boilies or a handful of pellets. I might also have scolded pellets moulded onto the lead. Ricky's comment above has made me think that I'm putting in way too much feed if, in reality, there is either no fish or one fish in the swim. The freebies could quite simply be quite adequate for the fish, leaving a lonely hookbairt. Different with hemp and casters etc because barbel seem to be able to work their way through pints of the stuff quite comfortably.

Thoughts?
 
This is the dilemma I have been having for some time.

I think both approaches can work......

Last season I pretty much just used the bait and wait approach - yeah I had a few fish including my pb but had many more blanks.

This season I've had a couple of good fish already within an hour of moving/casting out using the roving method. Just last night on the Loddon I was fishing a swim for a few hours with no luck and decided to try a couple of swims on the way back to the car. After about an hour in the first swim I tried the rod wrapped round and a 9lb 5oz barbel was in the net. No loose feed - just boilie and paste.

On the other hand - my mate fished last Friday and left his rod out for about 4 hours before it went off for an 11lb 14oz.

I tried the same tactic the following week and never had a sniff.

I will carry on with the roving approach - an hour or so in each swim and see how it goes because so far it is working better for me.
 
This sounds alot like a section I use to fish, a very hard featureless section with virtually no flow. Do you ever get any slow suspicious pulls of the rod tip?
 
As I say it's a very lightly fished stretch of river. I've tried the mobile approach and have walked miles and put a bait everywhere I can. The problem is there literally is too many features and they could be anywhere! Basically there's a very small head of fish on a very long, lightly fished stretch of river.
It used to be hammered almost daily up until about 5 years ago however I don't think the fish can remember that far back and they're very thin on the ground now. Unfortunately there's very few swims that are practical to fish moving baits under a float or rolling - maybe half a dozen I suppose but that leaves a lot of river still not being fished.

There's a couple of areas where you can see the bottom, I saw two fish in the close season and that was it!
I'm going to have a couple of trips sitting it out, I tried pre baiting before and had no different results than roving around. She's a tough nut to crack nowadays!
 
I prefer roving in the winter, it seems to work much better when the chub and barbel are likely to be spread out. Im sure a trundled bait would score brillaintly at this time of year but like you say the make up of the river doesnt really lend it self to that approach.

Most of my better summer days have come when baiting and waiting in 1 swim. Obviously the lack of numbers of barbel around these days doesnt make that much of a viable option but a slightly tweaked version of it would be my prefered approach. I still bait a few swims, maybe 3 about 50 metres from each other. I will pick a banker, but keep visiting the other 2 areas to keep putting bait in- kind of a bait and wait roving approach I guess. Bites often take an hour even when you know there are fish in the swim. I have bites after 2andhalf hours but have also not had a bite after waiting for a couple of hours, so it is a bit of a gamble (that is if wasting an hour or 2 can be seen as such). As you know, if you bait and wait AND have numbers of fish present you can get a bite as soon as the lead touches down (those were the days!).

Seeing fish raises the confidence, but when you cant, relying on previous experience in swims where you have caught before really helps.

Night fishing, although not my preference, really is the best chance these days. They are naturally out and about so a bit of a prebait combined with a sit and wait approach is spot on.

Having a set of golden appendiges will help you no end n'all. Its much better to be lucky than good these days!
 
Howard Cooke said:
Yes Stuart, and it's typically crayfish.
Click to expand...

You may well be right, but not on the section I angled. It was just a thought but one of the anglers on this section had a hell of alot of fish from it and he use to fish with bobbins on a very long drop, food for thought. When I finally had success on this section it was on a big lead 4 inch hooklink approach, making the fish bolt to give proper indication. Another slow water situation was in probably 6 inchs of water at my feet after dark on another river. I could see their backs out of the water as they fed. It took more than two hours to get a bite as they fed,pulled , bolted come back and feed again over and over again. I think slow water can scupper the bite sometimes as when I have watched fish take the bait in normal flow conditions they will turn into the flow and almost let the momentum of the flow take them resulting in a savage bite.
 
That's pretty much the same approach that has always done it for me Ash. I guess I'm just trying to think a little outside the box and look for something different than the few others that still fish the river! I do know that I'm itching to get back out there but can't do so until Friday.
 
On the Loddon, I've found for me personally bait-and-wait has worked best, although if I was restricted to daytime-only fishing I might revise that.

I can only think of two or three fish I've caught in the last couple of years that came in the first 20 minutes after casting in. They were daylight fish. Otherwise, if I'd been roving, I'm sure I would have missed out on a lot of fish by wandering.

The overwhelming majority have come in the first two hours after sunset, when it seems the barbel go on their travels as opposed to simply going on the feed. In which case, it seems to make sense to stay put and regard your swim as a service station on a motorway on which the barbel travel up and down. You just hope they need filling up when they drive through your "station".
 
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I tried roving on the Loddon when I first fished it, after having come from the Kennet where it worked a treat, but reverted to bait and wait after results continually disappointed. Nowadays on the Trent, I bait and wait when I'm tired (most of the time)and rove when I have a spring in my stride.

Nick C
 
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