With a couple of hours remaining of a session on a commercial, it can be tempting to stay on a line further out where you’re catching well – but the truth is you can’t afford to ignore the margins to really bag up.
Bigger carp, F1s, barbel and tench will lose their inhibitions in these closing stages and move incredibly close-in, often just inches away from the bank. And this close-range fishing isn’t only easy to do, it’s great fun too!
Here's how I do it...
Fish to cover
Carp feel safe feeding close to features. This may be reeds, an overhanging bush or a platform, but avoid fishing too much of a snaggy area or you may struggle to land fish.
Use a kinder pot
You can use a big pole cup to dump in lots of bait in one go, but that’s best left for summer. At this time of year, it’s better to use a small pot to feed a little bit of bait each time.
Maggots catch ’em all
Using a banded hard 4mm or 6mm pellet hookbait picks out quality fish, but three or four deads on the hook can get a much quicker bite – especially if the barbel are about!
Give them pellets
Groundbait and dead maggots are a great margin feed, but not if there are roach about. Pellets attract bigger fish, so I’d feed 4mm hard Van Den Eynde pellets instead.
Keep the rig stable
In 2ft or 3ft of water, you’ll need a decent size of float to keep things still. I use a 0.3g DT pencil pattern. Shotting is a bulk of No9s, with the rig set a couple of inches overdepth.
Balance your tackle
You don’t need really heavy kit yet. I favour 0.18mm Browning Cenex Hybrid Power Mono to a size 16 or 14 Browning Feeder Leader pattern on a short 4ins hooklength of 0.14mm.
