19 August, 2025 | Match & Coarse | Angler Blogs | Articles | News

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Joe Jaggar: Catfish on the Feeder at Albans Lakes

When you think of catfish – 3lb test curve rods, 10000-sized reels and 30lb lines spring to mind but at Albans Lakes, it’s possible to catch cats up to 40lb using conventional feeder gear and have great fun during the process! We recently joined Jo Jaggar on the banks of Willows Lake at Albans to take a closer look at how he targets catfish safely yet effectively. Here’s how Joe got on!

 

Joe says: Albans Lakes in St Albans, North London, is fast becoming one of my favourite UK venues. Despite the 280-mile drive (each way!), I find myself wanting to get down at every possible opportunity.

Willows Lake is the big draw for me due to the vast variation of species – from specimen bream and carp that will pull your arms off, to the impressive stock of catfish. There just aren’t many venues in the country where you can catch all three on match gear!

It’s also worth remembering that there’s two other lakes on the complex. the prolific Match lake and the Specimen-orientated Farm Lake.

At the time of our trip with Dynamite, I’d never fished the other two lakes, but that was soon to take an ironic twist, which we’ll come to towards the end…

When I joined Dynamite and was given a requirement of filming days etc to fulfil, I wanted to take Ian to places that are perhaps “off the beaten track” and not the usual generic venues that we see all the time in the press, meaning Albans was top of the list.

Catfish on the method feeder isn’t exactly your every day piece is it?!

So we timed going to Albans for the week of a Feedermasters qualifier on the Sunday, with the plan being to have a content day with Ian on the Wednesday which in turn would help me refine a few bits of bait and tackle so i would be bang at it for the Sunday. I just needed to draw on the Willows Lake for the qualifier and it would be game on!

My tactic for Willows is always to try and find some gravel on the bottom, which isn’t too hard, especially on the early numbered pegs where we sat as you can literally follow the island out parallel from the bank and that’s where it’ll be. It’s highly likely that there was an old road there that the trucks used when digging the lake back in the day.

Once I’m happy with a spot to fish on, I bait heavily at the start, hoping to draw big fish of all species in.

The mix is mainly Marine Halibut pellets of varying sizes, but chopped Peppered Squid boilies and XL Sweetcorn are used to offer different size and shaped food items to hopefully keep the fish in the peg. Over this concoction I then drizzle a load of Liver Liquid Carp Food, which the cats love but it doesn’t seem to deter any other fish either.

 

Onto the business end – 10lb mainline down to a 30g Preston Extra Large ICS Flatbed Method Feeder that I load with pre-soaked 3mm Marine Halibut Pellets. The hooklength is a short section of braid tied to a size 10 barbless Grappler hook, a bait spike and a 7mm Hi-Bridz Wowsers in Orange and Yellow.

I also double coat the feeder – the first layer obviously being the pellets but then i cap this off with a layer of GLM Groundbait for added attraction.

 

Last but no means least, i give the feeder EVEN MORE attraction by giving the whole thing a big dunk in some Catfish Squid Liver Hookbait Dip. You really can’t have too much attraction when it comes to catfish!

 

One major advantage on the Willows Lake is to use a line marker to enable you to fish without a line clip, some of the runs that these fish go on are absolutely unstoppable and not being able to get your clip off in time only results in one winner…

Overall we had a really steady day with several cats to 24lb, carp to 18lb and some big bream for good measure!

 

It was always worth topping the spot after each fish with a couple of feeding feeders. Some of the fish were taking 10-15 minutes to get to the net, so if you hadn’t been cleaned out by the time you received the bite, I’m fairly certain you would’ve been by the time you were ready to fish again…

So, we left Albans Lakes on the Wednesday evening relatively confident that, should I draw on Willows on Sunday, I’d have a really good chance of getting through to the Feedermasters final with the plan I had in place.

Come Sunday, disaster struck, or at least I thought, when I drew peg 16 on the Match Lake. I’d never fished this lake before but tried to keep an open mind.

There are absolutely loads of fish in this lake and with a bit of room, I felt my margins would be strong in the second half of the match, but would I catch enough first half to make it count?

With having all of the Halibut pellets etc in the van anyway, I decided to use them to feed down my edges, a very strong mix, but perhaps that was needed to give myself a chance…

It worked a treat, I had a slow start as expected due to the depth, but second half of the match was ridiculous and by rotating each edge line, keeping the one I wasn’t fishing topped up, it was almost as if the fish were queueing up to compete for the feed.

I’ve ended the match on 22 carp for 159lb which narrowly won the entire match and qualified for the Feedermaster final in September.

An ironic twist after drawing on the lake I’d been wanting to avoid!

None the less – hopefully there’s a few tips there to help you catch some cats the next time you visit Willows Lake at Albans!