welcome to the deep water masterclass. we are up at embryo south ings in hull. we’re here becauseit is a very, very deep complex. this particular lake,this is lakes one and two, this goes down to about 48ftand lake three goes down to over 50. but this fish is startingto inch through the marginal weed, so i’m going to shut up,concentrate on getting him in and then hopefully show you the prize. it kicked, there he is.
i thought it had come off then. the first one of deep water. bosh! got him! what an absolutely gorgeous fishto open our account at south ings and what we’re going to do now isbacktrack to the start of the session and show you how to map out the swim because knowing what you’re fishing onin very deep water is absolutely key. you don’t want to be fishingon the sheer cliff face,
you’re going to find a nice bitof flat bottom in the right depth and then the runs will start happening. selecting a spot to fish on a deep lake is massively differentfrom a shallow lake. often i find that fish show overreally deep water on deep lakes and you can cast at a showing fishand you’re in 30, 40 feet of water and you’re not going to get a bite. so using a marker floatis absolutely key on deep lakes because the depthand how flat the bottom is
makes a huge difference to whetheryou’re going to get a bite or not. so the trick on deep lakesis to use two markers. so my spod rod turns into a marker rodat the start of the session. they’re both set up exactly the same. i’m using the new balsa marker floatswhich are really, really buoyant, quite a bit smallerso they don’t make as much splash, they don’t fly back up the linewhen you’re casting out so they don’t tangle and i’m using the little tiny stems thatcome in the adjustable zig kits.
they let the float up perfectly and a 3oz pronged marker leadon each rod. first of all i’ll cast out to an area where i know bites have come frombefore and on this particular session, what i’ve done is put one float outat 15 rod lengths, let the float up, found it’s 22ft there, and then i’ve kept thatas a point of reference and cast the second marker rod aroundthe float to see how deep it is past it, how deep it is short of it.
so to start off withi’ve gone a rod length past the float, so 16 rod lengths, its hit the clip,fallen down, hit the bottom. i felt it’s nice and firm there, pulled it back a little bit,it’s lovely and clear, and let it up. and it’s the same depthas it is at 15 rod lengths, so it’s still 22ft deep. so i’ve got a lovely flat bit therethat is a whole rod length long, which is a long waywhen you’re on a very deep lake because oftenthe depths drop away really quickly
and if you don’t knowwhat you’re fishing on you can be on a really,really steep slope, which you’re nevergoing to get a bite on. so i’ve then pulled the float backand then let it up again and it’s come upalmost next to the other float and again the depth is the same, 22ft. i pulled it back again. it’s come upagain as 22ft, maybe a little bit more, pulled it back againso i’m about a rod length short of where i first cast the other floatand it’s a little bit deeper there
and it shows on the underwater mapthat’s been done of this lake that there’s a little tiny trough between where i’m casting toand the bank. so as i’m pulling the float back,i’m pulling it down into that trough and really you don’t wantto be fishing on the slope that’s coming down towards youbecause the line angle is horrible. the fish are coming into contact withthe line when they’re trying to feed. really you want to be lookingfor a flat bit. so what i know there isdon’t fish short of 15 rod lengths.
i can fish longer,but i don’t really want to fish shorter. and then what i’ve doneis cast at 16 rod lengths progressively further right, untili found the pinnacle that’s out there. so there’s literally like a gravellyhump that comes up off the bottom and it’s actually 15ft deepat the top of it. now you might think that’san absolutely brilliant place to fish, but as you pull the float backit drops down really quickly. within a rod lengthit’s gone from 15ft to 23ft, so a really, really steep slope
and that is notwhere you want to be fishing. your line angle can be terribleif it’s a really, really small spot, all your bait can run off the sides ofit and just leave your hook bait on top. if it was a bigger plateau,so if i cast further to the right and it was still 15ftfurther to the right, it’s still 15ft, then maybe it’s worth fishing on, but i know from the underwater maphere that it’s a really tiny pinnacle. so what i’ve decided to do,is fish all three rods at 16 rod lengths and that’s just before it drops awayinto deep water
and two of them are quite close together and another oneis about a rod length to the right. so by casting around it’s probably been two or three hoursof casting in the swim, i know exactly what’s out there,i know that i’m fishing on flat ground, i know i’m just before the drop off,that’s a brilliant place to start. and this sort of stuff that i would doprobably january, february time when there’s nobody here, if i wasgoing to fish this lake all the time, i’d do all my markering thenwhen the weed’s really low,
i’ll just mark all the distances,i write everything down in my phone, i know exactly what i’m casting aton the far bank, the left-hand rodis where the house is, the right-hand rodis just to the left of the tall tree and the middle rod’s between them. using two marker floatsat the start of a session, or the start of when you’re goingto do a campaign, is absolutely key. it tells you so much and it gives youan edge over everybody else. perfect.
i’m going to put outabout 25 medium-size spombs. i’m using chopped boilie,the new mainline fibre basically because i used itlast time i was here. i did really well on it on lake three,so it was the obvious thing to bring. i’ve got a few of the pellets. the fish get fed hereby the syndicate managers to get the growth rates upas much as possible. it’s a rule on here that in the summeryou can’t use particle because you’re basicallygiving the fish salad
when you want to be giving themmeat and potatoes. they’re not going to grow on salad sothat’s why it’s pellet and boilie only. so i’ve halved the baits with the kutter because i didn’t knowhow steep the slope was going to be that i was fishing on and half baits arebrilliant for these kind of places because they just don’t roll down. if i was fishing a steeper slopewith round boilies, half of them could end up rolling downthe slope away from where my rigs are and i’m actually drawing fish awayfrom the rigs rather than towards them.
but out there it’s pretty flatall the way out there, maybe a foot of difference, so evenround boilies would be staying put, but i love the halves anyway. you’ve got twice as many food itemsin the swim for the same amount of boilie and the fish respond really,really well to them. my spod is clipped up at nine feet, three-quarters of a rod lengthshort of where my marker rod is and where my fishing rodsare clipped up.
and the reason for thatis the swing back of the lead. so in 22ft of water, as i hit the clip, the lead is swinging back towards meon a tight line like a pendulum. and basically i knowfrom this sort of depth of water that it’s about three-quartersof a rod length is that swing back. so if i clipped up at the same distanceas my fishing rods, the spomb would hit the waterwhere the rigs are hitting the water, but the spomb isn’t sinking,so it stays in that position where the rigs are sinkingthrough the water column
and coming back towards me, so i’d end up spombing 9ftpast where my baited rigs are. now the further out you goand the shallower the water, the less the swing back and at 100 yards in about 5ft of water,there’s almost no swing back, so you clip up at the same distance. but in this situationwhere i’m fishing 66 yards out and i’m in 22ft of water,the swing back is considerable. and earlier onwhen i had the two marker floats out,
i cast one of the floats outat the same clipped up range, at that time it was 15 rod lengths, and you see it lands well pastthe float that’s already out there. but then swinging back towards me,when i let it up it comes up almost exactlythe same distance as the other float and that shows how much swing backthere is in this sort of situation. so i’m going to put about 25 mediumspombs out all along that area. there’s 200 fish here in like 12 acres, and althoughthe lake’s not been fishing brilliant,
i think it’s done five or six fishin the last sort of four or five days, they’re showing out thereor they were before i started fishing and i’m confidentthat once they find this bait, they’re going to keep coming to it. i should, if i get a bite,i should get more than one. second take on the pop-up rig. fish is staying out long at the moment. i think i’m going to walkdown to the side bank. i’ve got a net down thereand see where the fish is going.
yeah, he’s keeping into that bank so i’m going to go down thereand try and net him a bit closer. nice to have a lighter rod on. i don’t normally use 3-pounders, but i found actually it’s really goodfor the casting at these sort of ranges. if you’ve got too heavy a rod, it actually makes short-range fishingquite problematic, but these are just perfectfor this sort of range from sort of nothingup to sort of 80, 90 yards
and then when you get a fish on,they’re very forgiving. you’ve got to be so careful at shortrange not to pull the hooks out. come on... lovely fully scaled, get in that net. yes. bosh! get in! man, that’s wicked. well, check him out. what an awesome, awesome carp. 18lb 4oz, absolutely over the moonto get this one
and a pattern is now formingin this swim. one o’clockis a really good time for a bite, so i put another ten spombsof chopped-up fibre boilie out there and then the bite camea few hours afterwards and that’s exactly what happenedyesterday as well. so i now know that if i come back inthis swim, 16 rod lengths is the spot, bite time is nine o’clock in themorning, probably until mid-afternoon, nothing seems to be happening at night and all those thingsi’ll be writing down on my phone.
i spent a load of timemarkering at the start of the session and it started pretty slow for mebecause of that, but i now know the swimand that’s so important. if i come back in here at any pointin the future, i know the marks, i know the bite times and hopefully i’ll be able to extracta lot more fish out of it. the hardware for spodding andmarkering up is absolutely critical and i see a lot of people get it wrong where they spend the least amountof money on their marker rod
and their spod rod and then they justcan’t marker at the range they need to. now deep lakes generallyyou’re not fishing that far out because they get deep really quickly, so casting long distanceis not such a consideration but still if you’re goingto spend the money, you might as well spend it on something that can do rangeas well as fishing close. and when you’ve got a big crosswindlike we have here and you’re using heavy leads and stuff,
it makes it more accurateif you’ve got a better spod rod and a better marker rod. so i’m using a longbowx45 spod n marker for my marker rod and i’m using a longbow x45 spodfor my spod rod. it’s a little bit heavierin the test curve and when you’ve got a spombheavily laden, it will cast that onethat little bit further. and with those i’ve got a spod reel onthe spod rod, very, very fast retrieve. that’s loaded with spod braid,
which is very, very thin,luminous yellow in colour and that keeps the seagulls away. if you put a spod outand leave it on the surface you can actually bait upand the brightly-coloured braid actually stops the gullsfrom diving into the surface. and then on the marker rodi’ve got marker braid which is exactly the sameas the spod braid but it’s a darker green colour so if you’re going to leave itout in the swim for any amount of time,
it’s less visible to the fish and both of those i’ve finished off witha 30lb arma-kord leader. what that doesis it takes the force of the cast, because both of those braidsare very, very thin. if you try to cast them long distancewith a 4oz lead, you would probably crack them off. so i’m joining that to the 30lbarma-kord with a four turn water knot, so a very, very small knot, it very rarely catcheswhen you cast it out there
and that’s about three rod lengths long,something like that, so it takes the force of the castand the other important aspect of it is it stops the marker floatfrom tangling when you cast out. what i’ve done is formed a big loopon the end of both those rods, so it’s the same loop as you tiefor your hair rig, but it’s maybe six, eight inches long, and that means i can loop to loopon different systems. so to start off with i might just usea lead on its own just to feel the bottomand then i’ll loop to loop that off
and then replace itwith a marker float system. so the lead on the stem, a beadand then the float itself and then i can alsoloop to loop that off, change the colour of the floatif i want to, or take it all off and in this case on the spod rod,replace it with a medium-size spomb and then put the bait out like that. so i’ll keep one rod out therewith a marker float on and then the other rodgets used for the spombing. i have finally succumbed to pressurefrom tom dove
and moved awayfrom my beloved fox box onto one of the new tackle safes and i am astonished how much kitactually goes into here. it looks really small, but if i talk youthrough what i’ve got in mine. so i’ve got my size 11 ring swivels,my barrel beads and other rubber beads in there. i’ve got both sizes of crimp,the 06 and the 07, plus micro rig swivelsand micro ring swivels in there. then all the stuff for my choddies.
so i’ve got the chod sleevesand the no-trace beads in that one. and then opening up those there, i’ve got all my boom sectionsfor my cog system and also my shrink tube andmy silicone tube as well in those two. and then this one is basicallymy sort of naked chod stuff. so i’ve got some chod rigs in there plusa couple of spare needles and stuff, a bait drillthat i don’t use very often, so that’s one i don’t go to that much. and then back onto the front here,onto the lead system.
so i’ve got hybrid lead clips andalso the heli-safe in those two and then in these two i’ve got leadclips and rubbers in the same one, obviously matching colours of those. obviously this big compartment herei’ve got all the bigger items. my hook sharpening kit,needles, my bait drills and i used to take both sizesof bait drill with me all the time and i never used the big one. so i’ve scaled everything down and i’m just takingthe one that i use all the time.
dark matter, one pair of scissorsrather than three pairs of scissors and then if i turn it aroundthe other way. so in this side we’ve gotsome anti-tangle sleeves and some heli sleevesand stuff in there as well. and then some of the new d-rig sectionsthat go on the back of the hook and obviously the corksto go with the drill. and then these last few, my hook beads which i use all the timenow with a spinner rig. size 8 swivels in various guises.
both sizes of kicker, medium and large, little bits of leadto poke in the bottom of the bait. and then one with all my rig rings in itand my link loops and then the last coupleis the caps to go on the hook, which i savedfrom when we had the kaptors out to protect the point of the hookwhen i’m storing them. and then two different sizes of extendastop and the normal hair stops as well. and then finally quick change swivelsin size 8 and size 11 that i use for the spinner rig.
so let’s shut that up and it’s the lovely little magnetsthat hold it together. so a beautiful bit of kit and thenmy extra stuff goes in here. this is one of the new compac bags. this is the second size down,so not the largest of them but i’ve still got a coupleof the fox hook boxes in there that i keep all my patterns of hook. i also keep hooks in the top bit there,that are still in the wallets and then underneath those i’ve gotall my different spools in there,
my floss, my hook links, spools, marker,elastic, that sort of thing. and that all fits togetherabsolutely perfectly in there. if i drop that in the top,that was obviously made for the job and zip up around there. they’re fully waterproof as well andthere’s four sizes of the compac and there’s also a walletthat goes into them as well that perfectly fits each size. so i’ve got some overflow kit,sort of spare spools of line, batteries, that sort of thing goes in one.
then other onesi use for my cooking gear, for stuff that i’m taking with melike suntan lotion, all the personal stuff,face wipes, all that sort of thing. everybody loves a bag for a bag,they love to organise their kit. i’m no different from anybody else. have a play around with them,i’m sure they’ll suit your fishing. the hardware i’m usingon this particular session has been chosen specificallyfor this kind of lake. last time i came here i fished my12ft 3.75lb infinities at real close range
and i bumped a couple of fish off. so this time i’ve chosena much lighter test curve. i’ve got a 12ft 3lb longbow x45 and that type of rod is probablya bit softer than an infinity for the same test curve,so they’re a bit more forgiving. and coupled with themare the new crosscast reels. they look absolutely beautiful. you wouldn’t believethey were a budget reel. the line lay on them is fantastic.
i’m using 15lb touchdown which means i can feel the leadhit the bottom really easily and that’s important as well. i want to know if i’m on a clear bit,if i’m on a little bit of weed or in a bit of silt. it’s really important if you’ve gota low stretch line like touchdown, it tells you more. because it sinks well as well, once i’ve put the tip under the waterand sunk the line through,
i’ll pay a bit of line off and try and get as much on the bottomas i possibly can. the other thingabout those crosscast reels, they’ve got a really kind line clipand i’m always fishing against the clip so in this situationi’m fishing at 16 rod lengths, it’s hitting the clip, the rod tipis being poked under the water basically to sink the line. as the lead is sinkingthrough the water column, remember it’s going down to 22 feet,
as it’s sinking it’s actually sinkingthe line at the same time. if you have the rod up in the air witha big crosswind and that depth of water, it can pull the lead back towards you. now everybody knowsi can use the top end kit if i want. i could have basia reels on,i could have infinity rods, but i think this provesthat as long as your tackle is balanced, you can cope with this sort of fishingwith mid-range kit. the rods have got a lovely battle curve. you see them hooped overwhen i’m playing a fish
but they’ll punch a lead outwith pinpoint accuracy. if you’re going to upgrade your tackle,that’s what i recommend. good morning. i’ve chosen lake three on south ingsfor this particular session because there’sa couple of fish in here that i would absolutely love to catch. there was a 28lb mirror stockedlast winter that could easily go over 30 and a common has now broken throughthe 30-pound barrier that doesn’t get caught a lot as well.
so either of thosewould be very, very welcome, but the other reasonfor choosing this one is it’s a different style of fishingfrom lakes one and two. you’re fishingat very close quarters here because it gets deepreally, really quickly, so all the baitingis done from the bank and i got here last night, didn’t really have time to set upproperly and start fishing. so what i do is justput the marker float out in two spots
that i’ve caught fish from before, but what i did differentlyon this session is i used the deeper castable sonar, to see what the topographyof the bottom was like. so to see how flat or steepthe marginal slope was because i’m literally ten yardsoff the margin with both sets of rods. i found that the spots i’d caughtfish on before were pretty flat, which i expected. on really deep lakes you want to findareas that are the right depth,
so in this case sort of 20-23ftbut are also flat. you don’t want to be fishingon a cliff face. so i put a bit of bait out last nightafter i found those areas and then this morning the fish were showingpretty much all over the lake. there’s a lovely south-westerlyblowing into us now. probably the best bit of all of that is i saw a couple of fish actually showright over the bait, so just head and shoulderedover the top of the bait,
which meansthe stuff i put out last night was probably half a kilo on each area,is getting eaten. once it got light enoughto do everything, i went round the distant sticks. on the right-hand set i’m fishing 9.5 rodlengths and 8.5 rod lengths respectively. so the two rodsare both on the marginal shelf but they’re about a rod length apart and i sprayed baitall over that area yesterday and this morning before i cast out,i’ve put some more bait out
because it’s always betterto scare the fish away with bait rather than with a rig. so rather than casting a leadright amongst feeding fish, put a few pouchfuls of bait out. the sound of that is enoughto hopefully push them away. it fluttering through the waterdoes the same thing. once they’re off the spotthen you can get both the casts out. what i’ve done differentlyto the other session is i’ve still used the marker elastic tomark the distance i’m fishing,
but i’ve cast well past the spot,not clipped up, cast well past the spotand then wound it back until that bit of marker elasticjust ticks into the tip ring and then i know i’m at the right rangeand then i stop winding and then lower the rod down and just allow the bait just to cometo rest exactly where it would be if i had hit the clip at that distance. and the reason for doing that is youcan cast well past your baited area. it makes absolutely no splashin the baited area
and then winding back allows youto drop the rig silently into the area and hopefully get a faster bite and i will continue to adopt that duringthe fishing session. it’s always nice to cast past the area,watch the rig in the air, see that everything’s separate and i did the sameon the other two rods as well. so i’ve got two on the right-hand sideand one on the left-hand side, both over a load of chopped boilie. it’s a day lake as well,does lots of day bites here,
so we’re hoping now it’s great weather,overcast, low light levels, couldn’t really be betterfor a daytime bite. so we’re all set up readyfor action, let’s see how it pans out. the fish responded really quicklyto the bait and the first bite camejust a few hours into the session. fights in deep waterare always really weird with the line pointing straight downmost of the time and eventually i caught a glimpseof a really nice scaly upper-double. just when it looked likethe game was over, disaster struck.
gutted. feels like a small, lively fish,same rod as before. on the pink again. come on, get in that net.get in that net. bosh! got him! after a lost fish, that is wicked. i’m just going to transfer itinto the sling. always lift them out of the waterin the sling. check that out.
what an absolutely stunning creature,just gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. 12 and three-quarters, but who cares how big they arewhen they look like this. i’m absolutely over the moon with that. if something is workingon a venue that you’re fishing, then you want to beswapping all rods to that because last yeari caught them all on mystic spice. that hasn’t done a bite, so changing over to the pink onewill hopefully produce more takes.
but most importantly, that spoton the left-hand side is rocking now, so i’ll be gettingsome more bait out on that, just a few more pouchfulsof half boilies and then another pink one over the top,casting past the area, winding it back so that line marker justclicks into the tip ring, lower it down onto the spot and hopefullyit’s going to produce some more bites. but for now,i’m absolutely over the moon. i’ve chosen to fish my rods split,two on this side, one on that side
because my spots are downdifferent margins of the lake. if i had all three rods together in thefront of the swim, it would still work, but it would meanwhen i’m playing fish on one rod i could end upgoing through the other lines, so by keeping them apart, it means when i get biteson the left-hand side i can play them away from thisright-hand set of rods and vice versa. so what i’ve done with the single system is i’ve taken the uprightsoff of my three-rod setup
and then changed it to a two-rod setup. i’ve got the two-rod buzz bars with meas well which weigh next to nothing. it looks super cooljust to fish these two rods as well, which i know shouldn’t matter,but it does. and then with the other one,the uprights that i’ve unscrewed, i’ve just put an extra spikein the bottom of them and just fished itas a set of single sticks on the left-hand side of the swim. you can see i’ve got snag ears on there,which i didn’t use to use,
but i’ve been doingsome real snag fishing this year where the rods are getting pulled offthe rest if you don’t use them and i keep them on all the time now. i’ve pointed this right-hand setof rods more at where i’m fishing because if they werepointing straight out, what i’ve found sometimeswhen you’re fishing down a margin, your left-hand rod goes,it pulls underneath the right-hand rod and you can’t get it off the restto actually pull up into the fish. so i’ve learnt to try and point the rodsat where i’m fishing as much as possible
so that doesn’t happen. and you see the bobbins i’m fishingare very, very slack. these are stow bobbinsand i think for this sort of fishing there is nothingthat comes close to them. the reason for thatis they’re semi-fixed from the bobbin back to the reel. so it’s the reel that’s supportingthe weight of the bobbin, not the line going out there. and you’ll see, the bites i’m gettingare absolute rippers.
i’m fishing really, really close in,they always charge off away from you when you’re fishing with a slack lineclose in anyway, so people worry about bite indicationwhen you’ve got a slack line and you’re not going to getas good bite indication. well, you’re probably not, but i’d muchrather have that than a tight line going right throughthe middle of the swim, telling the fishexactly where i’m fishing. so by fishing them like that, semi-fixedand supported by the weight of the reel, i think it’s a major, major advantage
and you can see the line’s just droopingdown really slack off the rod tip. i’m not worried that it’s sittingin all the weed on the marginal shelf. that’s the perfect line layin my opinion and it’s so different from howmost people fish with a heavy bobbin, right underneath the rods. you can see the lines like a bow stringgoing through the swim and i think the fish know all about it and they can avoid areasas a result of it. so that’s how i’ve got my rods set upfor this kind of close quarters fishing
in very, very deep water. i know it’s different from the normand it may seem weird to fish like this, but if you do,i promise it will get you more action. that’s one of the great thingsabout deep lakes, they fish well into the late autumnand into the winter, right up until christmas is a brillianttime on these sort of places. really pleased i’ve got the soft rodson now, really pleased. get in that net, you big, fat carp! get in! yes! come on!
that is a real big ‘un for this lake,that is awesome! okay, moment of truth. he’s big. he is 27 and three-quarters - get in! yeah, check that out. 27lb 12oz, my biggest fish from pit threeby some margin, my biggest mirror by a long, long way, and there’s bigger onesthan that in here, there could be one that goes 30lb.
just an awesome, awesome creature,set for really big things in the future and from a personal perspectivei’m getting it right, that’s the most important thing. i’ve worked out the swim,worked out the baiting, worked out the rigs and the hook baits,absolutely over the moon. let’s give him a little kissy. as we always do. off you go, my darling,back to your watery home. as soon as that chunky mirrorwas safely back in the water, it was time to chop up some more baits.
being prepared for more action is the best wayto make the most of any session. on this particular lakei’m catapulting them out because i’m fishingso close to the bank, just going round to the adjacent bank and catapulting them over the top of themarker float at the start of the session and then once i know what i’m aiming aton the far bank and how far i’ve got to catapult them,i don’t need the float any more i just carry on catapulting outin that rough sort of area.
and with the catapultyou get a really nice spread of chops, even at close range andit just creates a lovely baited area. you can imagine the fishcoming and picking them off, perhaps taking the onesthat are further away from the rig to start off with and then moving closer and closer inuntil you get a bite. it’s a proper little edgewhen you’re fishing on deep lakes. left-hand rod again this morning. as you can see the sun’s come up,it’s a beautiful day
and it’s very high pressureand you’d think that deep water wouldn’t fish in high pressure,but certainly these lakes, it doesn’t seem to make a difference. and if you just fished onwhen it looked good on paper, you probably wouldn’t comeon days like today and this provesthat it is still worth it. banging its head a lot,could be a better one, but i don’t know at the moment. charging around quite fastwhich normally means a smaller fish.
get in that net. come on! just check his fins are flat.that one’s bent back there. see the little lump,just push it flat against his body. he is 26 on the button. get in! there we go, check that out. just an awesome,awesome complex, this and it shows that just becauseyou’ve got deep water up in the north,
it doesn’t meanthat the fish won’t grow and it doesn’t mean that the fishingdoesn’t stay really consistent. and i reckon this place will keepfishing right up until christmas. the deep waterjust helps that so, so much and if i lived closer,i’d be here all the time. beastie. yes! the rig i’ve been using on both lakesover these couple of sessions is my favouritepop-up rig at the moment.
it’s called the spinner rig,or the ronnie rig, and the essence of the rigis a quick change ring swivel that the hook clips onto. so you’re no longertying it onto the line. it’s being hooked on and it meansyou can change it really, really easily, but most importantlyit spins really quickly so as the fish sucks the bait in,it spins into the prone position, catches in the flesh really, reallyquickly and a roaring take ensues. the hook links i’m usingare made of hybrid stiff.
that’s slightly softerthan the boom material which has become very popularfor use with that rig. i just likethat slightly softer material, especiallywhen i’m fishing for smaller fish. i think it just enables the hookto get into the right position in the bottom lipthat little bit easier. and you can fish that rigwith a braided hook link if you want. the important part of it is that swivelcan turn and catch hold so quickly. the hook link itself is about 5†longand it’s crimped at either end.
i love crimping,i’ve done it for years now and the hybrid stiff materialworks particularly well with it. if you tie a knot in it, you have to tielike a half blood knot, or a grinner. you can’t do a loop knotin hybrid stiff, it just doesn’t like it but if you crimp it, you get almost 10lbextra breaking strain. so 20lb with a knot,nearly 30lb crimping. the most important part of crimpingwith these double barrelled crimps is when you squeeze them down,it squeezes down evenly so it’s not squashed flat, it retainsthe same shape it started off as,
but it’s just squeezed nice and tight. the crimp underneath the hookis what i mould the putty round to counterbalance the pop-up and i use a lot of putty, i wantthe pop-up sinking really quickly. at the start of this sessioni used a krank x in size 4 and it was heavily, heavily sharpened and unfortunately the first fish cameoff, so i swapped over to a wide gape x, again quite thick in the wirebut heavily sharpened again and every fish since thenhas been absolutely nailed.
the hook simply clips ontothis new spinner rig swivel which has got a different crook onthe end so you don’t have to open it up and then over the top of that i puta medium kicker that i’ve just cut down. it makes surethe hook doesn’t get off that crook and just gives a nice angle so the hook’s sort of cocked overlike a claw to grab the flesh. and then the bait goes on. that’s tied onto a micro rig swivel,and i just use a series of granny knots just to tighten down the hair stopon the top of that hook bait
and then just burn the endsjust to neaten everything up. and then lastly one of our hook beads,and the point of the hook goes through that just a little way. you can then pull it off the sprew and then slide it around to the topof the shank of the hook. that’s where i like it to beand if you drop it into the edge you can just see how aggressive it looks when it’s sitting therewaiting for a take. now that’s fished on a helicopter rig,and the reason i’m using that
is i’m using small hook baitswhich are prone to tangling but not with a helicopter rig. i’ve got a very short leadcore leader,so it’s only about 18†long. i cut them right down becauseyou don’t need any longer than that. that bit’s lying across the bottom and as soon as you can get off thatleadcore leader and onto the main line, that makes the whole thingas invisible as possible. the advantageof having a lead core leader on means that it’s very, very durable,so you can play loads of fish
and not have to retie anythingand also it’s kinder to the fish. so when you’re playing the fishit’s going to be that lead core leader that’s rubbing up and downthe side of the fish and i think that just reduces the riskof taking any scales off. i’m using a heli-safe on the bottomof the leadcore leader and that’s just done by snippingthe ring of the ring swivel off the bottom of the lead core leader, or using the little swivel thatactually comes with the heli-safe and splicing that on.
and then the whole thing slides downover the leadcore leader and fits together and you can use itto either dump the lead or keep the lead on. in this situation i’m dumping the leadbecause i’m not getting many bites and i want to make sureevery single one goes in the net. but if i was getting loads of takes,i’d put the little collar in, keep the lead on and if you losethe odd fish because of it, it’s not the end of the world. and my top bead, the no-trace beadis about 2-4†above the lead.
it's a flat lead, a 3oz flat pear. i’ve cut the swivel off it just to keepeverything nice and close together and i think the fish feels the weight ofthe lead that little bit sooner if you do take the swivel off. i need a flat lead in this situation because the bottom thereis very, very steep and i don’t want a round leadrolling down the marginal shelf and tangling the rig uponce it’s come to rest. hook baits-wise, i’ve changedfrom yellow on the first session,
which really suited the fibre baitthat i was feeding, over to a pink almond on this session, basically because that’s whati’ve been catching on recently. it was on one rod and that rodhas kept producing the bites so i’ve swapped it over to all rods. and it’s worth keeping in touch with the other guys on the lakethat you’re fishing. if something is standing outthat’s getting more bites, then that is the thing to get onto.
there’s no shamein copying successful anglers. it’s always worthplugging into the local network, always make them a cup of tea,get a bit of extra information and it will definitelyget you more bites. taking a hell of a lot of line. a little quote from jaws therejust because i love it so much. proper powered off, this one,into the deep water. it’s important to be patient now andjust let the tip of the rod do the work. there he is, he’s nailed.
wicked! result. yeah. one awesome, awesome fishto finish our deep water masterclass. i absolutely love this kind of fishing. if these lakes were closer to homei’d be here all the time. it’s so, so interesting and the fishare in such awesome nick as well. i hope it’s given youloads of tips and tricks to put into your own deep water angling. and remember, it may be deep,but that’s where the food is.