Markus Billen: Slider Fishing Made Easy!

German match angler Markus Billen talks us through the effectiveness of the slider float and the fun you can have using it!

Slider Fishing in Deep Water

Fishing the slider is a very rewarding technique if you get everything right.

Most of the time the feeder dominates in open Matches that take place in big deep reservoirs or lakes, but if the fish like roach want to feed off the deck you get the perfect bait presentation in all layers with the slider, and this is the time when you often beat the feeder.

To do it perfectly you have to concentrate on 3 different disciplines, which I like to call the trinity of slider fishing.

The ground bait has to be right for the job, the rig has to be right, and of course, accuracy in feeding is as important as it is when you fish the feeder.

Get the Groundbait Right

The venues that I fish with the slider are nearly all the time big deep natural reservoirs or lakes.

The stamp of fish we are looking for are wild silvers that do not respond to fishmeal like the fish on commercials do where they get used to fishmeal mixes.

On these waters, I like to fish the mixes from the Silver X-range. They are sweet cereal mixes which contain no fishmeal, and they are designed for those natural venues.

I like to use the Silver X-Roach which has a nice smell of coriander which the roach love.

To get the best out of my mix I wet it 3 times with a whisk to make things easier, as you do not have to riddle it afterwards.

If the depth is more than 3 meters, I like to add up to 50% of Silver-X River to my mix.

That creates a heavier mix and makes the ball hit the deck where you want it to, even with a big undertow that often occurs on the big open waters.

The Anti-Tangle Slider Rig

Fishing big wagglers in a crosswind can be very frustrating as you can easily get a lot of tangles.

More than 20 years ago we started to experiment with little booms integrated in the slider rig. After modifying it over the years, I developed a setup that barely tangles, even in the worst wind conditions.

I tie a 0.20mm shocker to my 0.16mm mainline.

My shocker is 10m long, as I fish venues that can be up to 9m deep.

A bead runs on the shocker, blocked by a stopper knot made of 0.17mm mono. The waggler is threaded on the line without any further adapter, which is very important.

Then I tie a 1.5m piece 0f 0.22mm fluorocarbon to the Shocker with a blood knot. This piece of line is very stiff and helps to avoid tangles.

Just over the blood knot I have a ball of lead blocked with a carbon stem, that hides the blood knot and acts as a little boom while you are casting.

90 percent of the loading for the waggler sits in this position. Further down I put 3 No. 3 shots, followed by 2 No. 9 droppers that sit just above the micro swivel that is connected to the hook link.

In deep water I fish special wagglers from 12 to 20 grams. All the wagglers are loaded with at least 3 gram which stops them from running up the line and tangle while casting.