Happy Slapper

For me the biggest trend in match fishing in recent years has been the evolution of shallow fishing. Both on the rod (in terms of pellet waggler fishing) and the pole this approach has come of age. More specifically, in the last 2 years shallow fishing has evolved into a specialist subject all of its own. My brother and I have got some ideas which we’ve tried to put into practice recently, with varying success, as described below. I’ll start with some rigs, and then describe my last match using them.

The Classic Rig
This rig consists of a tiny float – 0.05g or 0.1g maximum, set at about 12 inches deep, with a Mosella F1 pellet band on a hair rig. Shot are No 10s positioned at half depth. Hook is something like a B911 size 18. You put a 4mm pellet on the band, and feed 4mm pellets over the top. The Verdict: this rig does work. By slapping it you get 3 splashes (float, shot and bait). On a good day you can start on this and catch all day, but to be honest this rig is starting to prove less effective. More recently we have tended to start on it, get a few quick fish, but then they back off.

The Classic Maggot Rig
Identical to the above, but with the hair bitten off and a red maggot put direct on to the hook. Verdict: This rig seems to kick start the swim again, and produce more positive bites than the banded pellet. I have found it is best to keep feeding the pellet, rather than switch to feeding maggot, or a mix of both.

The Rigless Rig
This consists of a length of line, with a hook attached and nothing else. Can’t claim any credit for inventing this – we first saw it used at Gwinear about 15 years ago when they would just put a BB shot on the hook to imitate the pellet. We have tried this rig both with a banded pellet on the hair or just with maggot on the hook. Basically, you lower it in, and the hookbait falls very slowly. Verdict: At first this feels really weird, and much slower, but it does work. Bites are signalled by the elastic coming out of the pole. Therefore, you only ever see fish that are properly hooked. It feels much slower because you are not missing bites, and yet measured over a set time period you seem to hook as many fish as with the classic rig. Takes some faith, and is worth trying, but suffers because of the lack of splash ie you can’t slap it.

The Lead Rig
As above, but with a small row of No8 shot where the float should be. So basically, 2 ft of line with a hook at the end, and 3 No8s bunched together half way along. Verdict: This rig gives you something to splash, and also allows you to have some control over the rig. Try to hold the shots level with the water surface. I thought this rig was going to be a killer, but it practice it has met with mixed success. That is, we caught a few on it but not as many as the method below

The Flying Classic Rig
This is the same as the classic rig, but with the float held about 1 inch above the surface, to keep the line tight. Verdict: if you are missing bites, this is one of the most effective ways of upping the hit rate. You get more bumped fish (they are hooked momentarily, and then gone) but you definitely hook and land more as well.

Putting it into Practice
Most of my shallow fishing of late has been at Partridge lakes in Warrington. The fish here on the match pools are small stockies (carp) typically 6oz with a pounder a good fish. We have been trying the above variations. My last match was Sunday just gone. I drew Peg 52, not one I was too excited about – 12 metres across with no wide bay area or bridge to fish to, unlike those pegs either side of me. Worse, when I got there the water was gin clear, not ideal when combined with bright sunshine. I set up two classic rigs, one with a band (pellet) and one without (maggot). Elastics are the Middy Hi Viz 6 to 8 (orange) – perfect for stockie fishing.

I have not fancied a peg less for months. Or at least that was the case, until 15 minutes before the start a ball of fish surfaced about 10 yards to my left, and started gobbing off the surface. Over the next few minutes that moved slowly past me and took up residence about 10 yards to my right, halfway between me and the next angler. Only small fish but beggars can’t be choosers.
On the all-in I went straight at them with the banded pellet and caught from the off. Over the 5 hours I had 119 fish for 43lb (told you they were small) to win the section by 5lb. Here is what I learnt. The Classic pellet rig worked but started to fade after 2.5hrs. I’m not sure whether this was because they were tired of it, or because the hair was knackered and a bit twizzled up – I’d had 52 fish on it at that point. Switching to the classic maggot rig saw a sudden lull in activity, before they seemed to adjust to the maggot and started to take it. I loose fed a few maggots at the start but mainly kept feeding pellet.

In the second half of the match, on the maggot, I had 67 fish. During this period I also tried the Rigless rig and the Lead rig. Both produced fish but top method by far was the Flying Classic maggot rig, suspended an inch above the water. This critical factor here was not the revised depth of the rig (obviously an inch shallower) but the direct connection with the fish.

But the most fascinating observation was this. At one point I tangled my rig. I decided to try and untangle it, which took about 5 mins. In this time the fish moved along the bank towards me, so they were only about a yard to my right. They had obviously been scaring off the pole in the clear water. And with the pole over their heads they again backed off. Fair enough. But at another point on the match I decided to try down to my left, where I hadn’t fed anything. I could get bites, but only by slapping a few times first. In fact, three hard slaps of the rig on the surface would generally yield a bite. So what can we take from this? Fish don’t like the pole over their heads, but the urge to investigate noise is stronger than the urge to back off the pole (or at least it was that day).

So slapping is absolutely key at Partridge. Our new approach is to slap more and feed less. In fact I only got through about 2 pints of pellets in the last match, and in the next one I’ll aim to feed one pint. Also we are going to try a Long Classic Rig – basically the same rig on a longer line (a ‘flick rig’ as the southerners call it) to try and combine the benefits of a loud slap without the pole too close overhead. Obviously missed bites might be the problem but we’ll give it a whirl (literally). So this Saturday morning I’m going to slap on the suncream, go to Partridge Lakes and slap my rig all day long. Then I’ll go home and have a slap-up meal. And maybe a bit of slap’n’tickle.

Yes, I know I have got issues. But once you start slapping it is hard to stop.