Fishing the Method at Chittenden

I have received a number of requests for an article on fishing the Method over the last few months, so I am going to describe a days fishing the Method at Chittenden

First though I should explain a little of the development of this technique as it is forever linked to this Society as the frame feeder that is associated today with Method fishing, was pioneered by our very own Ken Staton who has been an officer of this Society for many years. Ken developed the feeder for Bream fishing, and over the years since, it has been responsible for many Match winning weights at Hever. The idea was to deliver a soft ball of ground bait accurately at range, and Ken's prototype feeders were made from brass wire. These proved so successful that they were made commercially from plastic and sold under the name of The Emmstat Feeder. Dorking used these feeders to win a major sponsored tournament. Where in the final in Scandinavia they were able to catch Bream at a range of around ninety yards, further than the other teams could feed and fish with there conventional tactics.

A method that I became aware of in the late seventies or early eighties, was to feed tangerine sized balls of ground bait on a regular basis a couple of rod lengths out until you spotted Carp swirling as they attacked the ball of feed, with just a hook attached to your reel line, you placed your rod in a couple of rests with the bail arm open put your bait on the hook and squeezed a handful of ground bait around it, and tossed it out like the free offerings. More often than not a Carp would grab the bait before it reached the bottom and the line would peel off your reel. This was quite something as in those days Carp were thought to be very difficult to catch.

One of the first commercial fisheries was Mallory Park in Leicestershire which had large stocks of Carp, and whether by chance or not someone combined the methods by using the frame feeder to deliver firm balls of ground bait  to the waiting hordes of Carp, this was the start of probably the most efficient techniques of catching fish yet found.

It is a lovely summers day and as usual I have arrived at Chittenden hours later than planned, I decide to look down the lake before unloading as there are a lot of cars in the car park and I need to make a decision on which swim to head for. There is a gentle breeze blowing towards the car park end of the lake yet strangely the majority of anglers are fishing the opposite bank from the middle down, this made swim selection easy as the disabled swims were all free and there is the sign of fish feeding(bubbles) around twenty metres out in front of the left hand swim, also I don't have far to travel in my wheelchair so it is going to be a relatively easy job to get all my kit there (only one trip for my wife). I set up facing straight out with my platform on the left, to the leg of this I attach my feeder rest pointing straight at the area I intend to fish, this will give the perfect angle for bite detection when the rod butt is placed on my lap, it will also allow me to guide any fish I hook away from the feeding area as quickly as possible.

I set up my 12 foot power feeder rod with a reel loaded with 8 lbs Trilene XL which is more than capable of handling the rigours of a bagging session and casting a feeder. To this I attach one of the original Emmstat feeders that I have had for years, and although I have tried many other products I have yet to find anything that works as well, as it is slightly smaller than most makes and with four spokes holds the ground bait more securely until it settles on the lake bed. The only slight modification that I have made to the feeder is to fix a strip weight of approximately an ounce, across two neighbouring spokes to ensure that it settles the right way up, so that the bait is in or on the top of the ball. There is an additional benefit to this, as on the retrieve the feeder planes up in the water away from snags etc. and does not spin, also the increase in weight does enhance the bolt rig effect. I attach the feeder with a lead clip which semi-fixes it, but allows the feeder to pull free should it become snagged, an additional benefit to this is that it allows me to use a longer hook length(about 200mm) without compromising the effectiveness of the rig

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I have attached a size 16 Fox Match Carp hook to a 200mm 6 lbs Trilene XL hook link, the hook is attached using a knotless knot as this improves the self hooking performance.I mixed the ground bait that I am going to use last night so that it has totally absorbed all the moisture and has become inert, as I don't want particles floating up towards the surface. The ground bait consists of a bag of Sensas Carp 3000 natural, 1/2 pint of ground Corn Steep Liquor pellets, and a tin of sweet corn(I remove a handful of kernels to use on the hook). I blitzed( in a blender) the rest of the contents of the can of sweet corn until only a hint of skin was evident and diluted this a little with some previously boiled water that had been allowed to cool (I read somewhere that boiling water removed any Chlorine) this is used to mix the ground bait. I mix the dry ground bait with the ground pellets then add the sweet corn mixture until the ground bait is slightly over wet, by the next morning you have an inert ground bait with quite a sticky texture that will bind to the feeder firmly, but breakdown fairly quickly once on the lake bed, leaving an enticing cloud around the feeder.

I impale a couple of red maggots on the hook then load the feeder, I do this by holding the mainline just above the lead clip, letting the hook link hang down between two spokes of the feeder, I then trap the line against the centre of the feeder with a small amount of ground bait, bring the hook link back up between the top two spokes and again trap this with ground bait this centre core is pressed very firmly, I then fold the hook back down between the top spokes and add a handful of ground bait around the feeder with one good squeeze, this forms the slightly elongated ball and encloses the hook bait. If a fish grabs the bait it will hook itself against the tightly compressed centre core, then as the hook link pulls free it will eject any remaining ground bait from the feeder so that it doesn't get spread far and wide as you play the fish. I find that the benefits of using the longer hook link is well worth the extra care needed in loading the feeder.

Before casting I look for a landmark on the far bank to give me the line to cast, then imagine a bucket of about 2.5 - 3 metres in diameter where I want the feeder to land, I am quite happy for the feeder to land anywhere within the imagined bucket as a large shoal of Carp need a bit of room,  and if you pack them into too small an area the risk of foul hooking fish increases. I cast with a gentle lob and feather the line slightly to reduce the need to tighten to the feeder once it lands, I drop the rod in the rest with the butt resting on my lap, so that I am holding the rod constantly as the Carp here have 'previous' for stealing rods and swimming off with them in tow.

There is no sign of the tip moving after four minutes, indicating that the fish have not yet started competing for the ground bait. so I fill the catapult with hemp and fire this to the target area, hopefully the noise of this landing will attract fish from quite a wide area, I then retrieve the feeder check the hook bait, refill the feeder and launch it back to the target, this time within seconds the tip starts bouncing around as fish start trying to dislodge the ground bait

 After about four minutes the tip stops bouncing, indicating that the feeder is now empty so I fire another pouch of hemp and again retrieve the feeder , reload with ground bait and cast, once again the tip starts bouncing until after about two minutes the rod is nearly wrenched from the rest, as I lift the rod, the fish is still trying to head for the far bank of the lake,  I increase the pressure and it starts to kite round to the right, this is ideal as it has quickly moved away from the target area, I keep the rod tip low to my left while I steadily pump the fish back to me. The fish is coming in fairly steadily after the initial run, and my wife Linda is ready with the landing net, so as the fish gets close I raise the rod tip smartly and as the fish surfaces, Linda scoops it straight into the net before it realises what is happening. I immediately fire another pouch of hemp to the target area to keep the fish interested while I unhook the fish. Linda places the net complete with about 5 lbs of Mirror Carp on the unhooking mat and I remove the hook from its lip, as Linda returns the fish I re-bait the hook pack the feeder with ground bait and cast again.

This time the rod pulls round within a minute of the feeder touching bottom again I guide the fish away from the target area, but this fish is fighting in a series of short fast runs which leave me no option but to give some line, as I start to win the battle, the fish rolls about fifteen metres out and I can see that this is a beautiful silver wild Carp of about 4 lbs not very big, but certainly punching above its weight. Once again Linda does a brilliant job with the net, and as she places the fish on the unhooking mat I despatch another pouch of hemp to the fish

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By feeding a large pouch of hemp after each fish, or as soon as the feeder empties, I am trying to keep the fish already present on the bottom, but attract more fish to the area with the sound of the hemp landing, also by the time I have returned the fish, re-baited and cast the fish should be waiting to attack the feeder within seconds of it settling on the bottom

The benefits of feeding in this way are proved on the next cast as the tip is wrenched round as the feeder reaches the bottom, this is an altogether different fight, having guided the fish away from the swim, the fish is staying deep and only giving ground grudgingly, I suspect this is a better Mirror by the way it is fighting so once it is under the rod top I make sure it is well beaten before Linda slips the net under it. Again out goes the hemp before I look at the fish in the net, which turns out to be a grey Mirror Carp of about 12 lbs with a pronounced beer belly, much like its captor I guess.

After recasting the tip starts to bounce as before but this time after a while it stops altogether so I introduce another pouch of hemp, and retrieve the feeder, Whilst reloading the feeder I notice that the anglers fishing over towards the oak tree in the corner are using fly tackle to present floating baits and seem to have picked off a few fish this way, it certainly looks to be enjoyable and it is certainly pleasant not to be disturbed by Bite alarms every few minutes.

On the next cast normal service is resumed and within about thirty seconds the rod pulls round, unfortunately this fish hasn't read the script and it kites to the left leaving quite a large bed of weed between us, I keep a steady pressure on it but it still refuses to come out from behind the weed, so drastic measures are necessary to prevent it turning towards me straight into the weed. Crossing everything for luck, I swing the rod over so the line is now passing over the weed bed, and begin pulling the fish towards the weed. Brilliant! The fish has immediately turned and is now heading for clear water, so I can revert to my normal methods to land it.

It is now close to 5pm and I am almost out of  ground bait, earlier I had noticed a weak point in the hook link and decided to change to a size 14 hook with a hair and use sweet corn as bait to see if this would produce bigger fish. It did not produce fish of any greater size, but they kept coming at regular intervals, and in total I have landed 32 Carp up to 12 lbs and five skimmer bream to about a pound and a quarter, strangely the skimmers all fell to sweet corn bait. My arms are feeling quite uncomfortable now as being confined to this chair I am unable to use my body weight when playing the fish, so even though the fish are still keen to have a go, I am going to pack up with Linda's help and head home.

Roger Ledwidge