Many anglers are under the impression that fishing bloodworm and joker is a complex art, practised only by a handful of top anglers across the country. Sheffield Angler, and fishing4fun blogger Mark Wragg, begs to differ and took fishing4fun to one of his regular haunts near Wentworth to show how a bloodworm approach can be a simple and effective way of catching fish, even when temperatures plummet.
“The thing with worm and joker fishing is that too many anglers over complicate the method, believing that it requires ultra fine rigs and intricate shotting patterns, when really it isn’t like that at all. Essentially, any angler who can fish pellet well on commercials shouldn’t have any problems whatsoever with this style of fishing” Mark told me.
When he got his rig tray out, I saw straight away what he meant, nothing complicated just simple rigs he could rely on. 0.10 mainline was his choice on the day, with an 0.8 hooklength around 6 inches long, complete with a kamasan B590 hook in a size 20. In terms of shotting, a simple bulk of preston stotz around 18 inches from the hook with two tiny droppers was all that was required to cock his
Next job was to plum up, and with the bottom being made up of a very soft silt, Mark got out one of his home made plummets, which basically consisted of a piece of rig foam stuck to a 2p coin. You could tell that this really made a difference, as the plummet sunk in a strange sort of oscillating motion before coming to rest on top of the silt, as oppose to a normal plummet which would no doubt have sunk straight down and in, given the tell tale jerking when you come to lift it up, and pull it out of the silt.
With the depth marked on his top kts with tippex, Mark went on to set one rig up just touching the bottom, and one laid on about 3cms. This was to be his bagging rig, with the former one only coming into use if it was hard, or he wanted to shallow up and try off the bottom for a better stamp of fish,
Next came bait preparation. Mark took his joker out of the newspaper they were supplied in
“Sometimes I would mix my joker with some groundbait, but today I am just feeding it like this, as the sharp overnight frost has meant that the fishing will probably be hard. 8lb will be a good weight today” he told me. “If skimmers were the target I would feed groundbait no matter what the weather, as they are a fish that like to graze over a bed of feed, but with the roach in here being the target today, the activity of the joker alone will be enough to attract and hold the fish.”
After introducing these two initial balls, Mark was into fish straight away, taking a roach in the 1-2ounce bracket every drop in. He found the bites were coming quicker with single joker fished on the hook, and was having to wait slightly longer for a bite when he tried the bloodworm. Suprisingly, it also seemed that the stamp of fish was slightly better on the joker, with the odd 3-4 ounce fish putting in an appearance.
One notable aspect of the way mark was fishing the worm was the way in which he was laying his rig in. Rather than the conventional way of flicking your rig to the windward side of your peg and letting it fall through the water, Mark was instead lowering the rig straight down, at a fairly slow rate.
A soft set 2 elastic meant almost every fish hooked ended up in the net (and it is worth noting that Mark used his landing net on almost every fish). This soft elastic also allowed for Mark to be quicker shipping back given the reduced risk of bumping fish off.
Over the four hours we fished I would estimate that Mark had an average of at least a fish a minute, and with fish averaging 1-2oz you can see how a good winter weight can soon be amassed with this method if done correctly.
When we brought the session to a close and Mark came to lift his net out of the water, he revealed a cracking bag of fish, well into double figures on a day when many anglers would undoubtedly have struggled to catch. “I hope today goes to illustrate that bloodworm and joker is essentially a simple method of fishing, there really isn’t anything hard about it at all, its just a matter of making sure everything is right in terms of shotting and depth, and then getting your head down and catching whats in front of you. Some people think its boring, cathing fish one after the other, all of a similar stamp, but if it is what is required in a match situation then it can be very rewarding. What would you rather do on a cold winters day, catch1 fish or 100?
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i think your plummet idea is abserlootly brill
i.m fishin a match in march, usein blood worm an joker for first time. i’ll tell ya how i got on.
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