Feeding

Feeding your swim

Correct Feeding?

"Possibly more than anything else, correct feeding is what sets the consistently successful angler apart from the rest."

Feeding the right way

Many anglers can pick a good swim, choose the right method and present a hookbait properly, yet still don't catch much - usually because they don't feed correctly.

Small to medium Roach, Bream, Dace, Chub, Barbel, Perch and Rudd...all are very different fish, but all tend to swim in shoals. Much of the time these shoals roam around looking for food. Having found some, they stop only long enough to eat it.

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Take Aim: Accurate feeding is vital. Scatter your feed and you scatter the fish. And accurate casting is just as important - there's no point in concentrating the feed if your casting is all over the place. The golden rule is not to fish too far out.

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How Far?: The farther out, the harder it is to feed and cast to the same spot each time, and if the wind gets up you might struggle to get the distance, let alone feed and cast accurately.

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Regularity?: If you don't feed a swim you only catch the occasional fish - whenever a shoal chances by, in fact. But it's no good chucking in feed 'willy-nilly'. To attract, hold and consistently catch fish, you must gauge what, how much and how often to feed.

What to feed?

There are two basic types of feed. Loose feed is samples of hook bait or other baits, fed by hand or catapult if float fishing or ledgering, or via a block-end swim feeder.

Ground Bait is essentially 'wetted' breadcrumbs, fed by hand or catapult if Float fishing or ledgering, or via an Open-end Swim Feeder. Samples of Hook Bait or other Baits can be added or, when fishing within loose-feeding range, you can feed it neat and loose-feed over the top of it.

Knowing when to loose-feed and when to ground bait is crucial.

Bream and Rudd are commonly very fond of Ground Bait, while Roach, Dace, Chub, Barbel and Perch tend not to like it.

Ground Bait is also usually 'the kiss of death' in clear, cold water, in which all fish tend to be wary and easily over fed. It is therefore used much less than loose feed in winter.

There are two main types of loose-feed catapult:

Mesh, for greater distance; and Pouch, for greater accuracy close in.

A catapult is essential to loose-feed a swim beyond throwing range.
Lock your elbow and hold the catapult dead still before firing.

How much and how often?

The aim is to tempt fish into your swim and keep them there without filling them up. The saying 'little and often' holds true.

Little:

Sparing feeding forces the fish to compete for the feed. You can always step up the amount if you think there are a lot of fish there, but if you feed heavily to start with, yet only attract a few fish, you risk overfeeding them. Start with a walnut-sized ball of groundbait or about a dozen loose-fed bait samples, or both. When bites are hard to come by, feed half this amount. If the fish are feeding really well, double it.

Often:

Frequent feeding ensures a steady stream of feed going into the water, increasing your chances of attracting fish - not only at the start, but throughout the session. It also encourages bites 'on the drop' in warm weather, resulting in a faster catch rate.

'Trotting':

When 'trotting' running water, feed every cast. On still and slow-moving waters, feed at least every five minutes.

Exceptions:

The main exception to the 'little and often' rule is Bream fishing. Bream can be very nervous fish and don't always appreciate feed constantly landing on their heads. The standard attack when 'breaming' is to lay a large, initial carpet of feed and catch as many of the shoal as possible before feeding again. When you do feed again, do so carefully and if the Bream have their heads down they should be too preoccupied with eating to notice.

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Another exception is when you find yourself being pestered with small fish. In this case often the only answer is to blast in the bait to try to feed them off.

'Little and Often'

'Little and often' applies nine times out of ten. Feed a dozen or so bait samples every cast when trotting flowing water - every few minutes when fishing still or slow waters.

A Bait Dropper is also handy for loose feeding fast water under the rod tip - when feed thrown in would be swept away by the strong current and for getting the feed down past small fish in mid-water and near the surface. Attach it to the line by threading the hook through the ring at the top and inserting the hook in the cork on the back. It opens automatically when it reaches the bottom, releasing its contents.

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More modern versions of the Bait Dropper exist nowadays but the principle and methodology remains the same today.