“Polly’s method of the month” – Catching shallow

19 May, 2017 | Match & Coarse | Tips | News

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Well, both the weather and water temperatures are ‘on the up’ and that means that on many venues fish can be caught shallow. In this month’s blog, I will talk about my approach to shallow fishing.

Although the following is more of a ‘guide to catching shallow’, all commercial venues differ. On some, you might need to feed more or feed less? Plus, line diameters and breaking strains can change, depending on size of fish you’re looking to target.

My ‘normal’ approach would be an MP7 0.3g float, a 0.18mm Matrix Power Micron mainline and a four-inch 0.16mm hooklink, terminating in a 16 hook with a hair-rigged bait band.

I would start with a rig length of three-feet, so you can rotate the rig and depending how they are feeding, you have enough line to shorten up the rig if needed.

My elastic choice would be Matrix Orange hollow No10, through the top three sections. This is more forgiving when hooking into carp, but still have enough strength in the back end to land them quickly and efficiently.

The hookbait would be either a 4mm or 6mm Dynamite XL feed pellets. These are used straight out of the bag. Regards the loose feed, Dynamite XL 4mm would be my first choice. But, if it is very gusty, I will step up to using 6mm as being larger and slightly heavier they will catapult more accurately in a wind.

Now this is the important part open up a couple of bags of Dynamite 4mm XL feed pellets put them in a bucket and add 80mm of water. Then shake them together making sure that all the pellets rub together. The water is absorbed and lost within the pellets, but this process takes the grease element away from them and makes them sink on impact with the water. If you do not use this process there is a chance that some pellets will hold the water tension and float away from your swim in the wind taking your fish with them.

Now the feeding, I always feed 8-10 pellets each catapult and I will do this every 10 seconds. As a rule, if the bites are not coming fast, I will feed once and then rotate my rig, slapping the hookbait on the water’s surface, as if to copy a loose fed pellet. This encourages the carp to look for food and as your bait is the only suspended pellet, bang, you’re in.

Simply repeat time and time again, rotating and then feeding. This will always catch fish, but some days you will feed less than others. You will only know on the day what the fish want, as it is very easy to overfeed and get it wrong.

I always like to feed a shallow line for half-an-hour before going onto it, as this will give the fish confidence in feeding and build up the area.

I have one other point to add, once you start fishing shallow, even though you are catching well, it is still worth resting the swim, but still loose feeding, as this will keep the fish coming all day long.

Mark Pollard