My Approach On Fishing Quiet & Intimate Rivers!

[Brooklin Sibley 45]

Hey guys just thought I'd share my approach on Fishing a River I already know or one I'm Fishing for the first time. If I'm new to the River, from my own experiences I tend to want to find where the Fish are located fast, so instead of the normal ledger bomb I equip myself with either a Block-end Feeder or a small Swim-feeder, I prefer the small Feeder's are easy to manoeuvre, cast with and don't feed the Fish up too quickly. I'll put this on a 6lb mainline then use a swivel of any size in place of a split shot to stop the Feeder from sliding down, further up the line 5 cm passed the Feeder (so it can slide that 5cm when a Fish takes it before he notices the extra weight) I have that this way it is more forgiving in the long run and won't allow the Feeder to travel any more down the line than I would like when I'm actually Fishing or cast into a tree. Of course from there I will attach my Hooklength, I have found 4lb to be a good balance between being invisible to the Fish, landing that slightly bigger Fish and again getting out of trees and if it does snap from the tree or similar snag the 4lb line breaks before the 6lb, this means more times than not i retrieve my Feeder back. I put zero split shot on the hook length for a couple of reasons, I don't like to fracture the hooklength and I want the bait to bounce around a bit like a free offering would when the Fish have their noses down and are feeding from the Feeder. To top this off I'll use a size 16 micro-barbed hook with the Block-end and 10 barbless for the Swim-feeder. On the actual hook for the Block-end i will put on 1-3 White maggots on a River I'm trying for the first time as they are the natural colour, I will change up the colours if this doesn't produce a result within the first 10 minutes. For the Swim-Feeder approach I will pinch a 50p sized piece of White Breadflake around the hook-shank, I do this to allow for possible small fish nibbling my hook bait down. In the Block-end I stuff it full of mixed colour Maggots as I like to give the Fish lots of option, in the Swim-Feeder I will not use groundbait for the simple fact Chub hate the stuff and I'd like to keep that window open as It's one of the my main target species, I will however use soggy mashed up bread as this pulls Fish in like a little babe magnet. I'll cast both of these set ups from a normal Quiver-tipped rod and very close to features such as logs that i can see in the water, overhanging trees, reeds, undercut banks or where I see decent sized Fish make a splash, if you don't get snagged atleast once you are not Fishing correctly. My biggest tip for fishing on these small Rivers is be as jungle as possible, cast where other angler's wont and where you would like to be if you were a Fish, keep it light just with your box , rod and possibly a landing net if you cannot get close to the water. This is a method I have Magpied from various advice from other anglers, youtube videos, common sense and my own actual trial and error attempts, I use this everywhere I go and rarely blank on most waters I fish, the Maggots i generally use to find the fish on a new river or get my first fish on the bank, once I've done this and the pressure releases it's death grip I may switch over to the Swim-feeder rig I've already tied up to pick out the bigger fish. If I already know the River and the fishing is relatively easy I may not even put anything in the Feeder and just cast it out naked to save time, if the Fishing gets harder I will fill it up, this saves time from switching from a lead bomb. The way i gauge what size Feeder I need is to buy several different sizes and use the one that just grips the bottom, I will then put it on the rests, reel in the slack and tighten up to the point where the rod is relatively straight but even the slightest bite will make an obvious bend in the rod. If anyone else has any tips or wants to share their approach on Rivers big or small then feel free as I'm always on the look out for different techniques and tactics, atb guys and tight lines .

[CushtyJook 1,097]

Good post thanks for that

[billybaltic 308]

Depending on the swim i sometimes leave a slight bow in the line instead of tight line to bomb or feeder, mainly for a slight upstream cast, enjoyed your post, good luck.

[jonah. 775]

Depending on the swim i sometimes leave a slight bow in the line instead of tight line to bomb or feeder, mainly for a slight upstream cast, enjoyed your post, good luck.

Can be deadly approach freelining meat on small rivers for barbel and chubb, just letting it roll round with the flow that naturally creates the bow in the main line

[Brooklin Sibley 45]

Just personal preference to be honest, on my favorite swim on my favorite river if I cast upstream I have to strike left and due to huge dace dominating this swim I have to react fairly fast and this is not the case when I'm striking from that angle so I'd miss or deep-hook the odd fish or two, I really don't like deep-hooking with micro barbs so it's become common practice to downstream cast more often than not everywhere I fish now. Of course not to say you can't catch fish upstream and I do occasionally do so but after a long day or some happy medicine I tend to keep it as simple as I possibly can . I've never actually free-lined for Chub or Barbel but when I'm fishing on a small river I don't know, I don't like to limit my chances of a catch and just any fish will do, on the rivers I do know I tend to target Trout and Dace more than anything because the Dace aren't far off the UK record and the Trout can really give you a good run around. I want to go fishing so bad now, was in the Bristol city centre's harborside the other night with my mate and I never second glanced fishing this canal as it was jam packed with party peeps and noise, I threw some bread out to see hundreds of roach and rudd slurping away and devouring it, needless to say we racked up around a dozen each in around an hour on the night time and we weren't trying to hard either, great sport to be had