ATTENTION all anglers who fish pellets. Unless you want to run the risk of rifling through your other half’s underwear drawer with intent to steal, an imminent visit to your local supermarket or department store’s hosiery section is on the cards.
Readers who want to uncover a hot new method – stocking pellets – need wait in suspenders…sorry, suspense, no more.
The good news is that if you fish pellets – whether on commercial stillwaters, specimen carp lakes or barbel rivers – then after reading this article you’ll have a new string to your bow. One which can genuinely revolutionise your efficiency with this super-effective but often frustrating bait.
The bad news is that you’ll need to beg your wives, mums or mistresses to buy you some stockings – or boring old tights. Unless of course you don’t mind buying them yourself and toughing out the strange looks from shop assistants and other customers!
Time to go public
Stocking pellets are not a new invention, and fishing4fun has no intention of trying to pretend otherwise.
However, as with all closely-guarded secrets, a ‘leak’ eventually springs. And the source of this leak was Andy Pell, a member of the Royal Mail Northampton club who lifted the coveted Angling Times/Van den Eynde Supercup trophy at Rocester, Staffordshire’s JCB Lakes earlier this summer. This competition starts out each season with several hundred hopefuls fishing two regional knockout rounds. The best (or luckiest) progress to regional semi-finals, and then the final. Andy, 37, was part of a six-strong team of posties who made their long-established works club top guns for 2006.
As well as his full-time job in the Northampton sorting office, Andy works part time delivering Sensas bait and tackle to shops in Northants and neighbouring counties.
A speculative call to Andy enquiring whether he’d be willing to split the seams…sorry, spill the beans, met an initially guarded response. “I’ll have to check with the lad who gave us the method.” Happily, a couple of days later came confirmation that he’d got the green light to unmask the secret and go public.
Back on The Banks
To flash the stockings for fishing4funs eager readers, Andy chose The Banks Fishery at Barby, a couple of miles south east of Rugby.
A further section has since been added, and although all of the 85-peg fishery’s is connected, you get the impression of a series of smaller pools. This is reflected in the names of the various areas, such as the marshes, the islands and the straight.
Setting down his tackle at peg 49 on the back loop, Andy said: “Our club first fished here soon after it opened and I won our match with 40lb the first time I’d seen the place. I’ve loved it ever since, and it’s got steadily better. Pole fishing to features is my favourite style so this place is perfect.”
As Andy set up his Rive box on the peg’s pallet, rigged up and began fishing, we took the opportunity to delve into his bait bag and search out some of these elusive stocking pellets. Locating a small resealable sandwich bag containing our Holy Grail, it was interrogation time.
How to prepare your pellets
Andy credits club-mate Shaun Smart with first putting him onto stocking pellets, but he’s unsure who the actual inventor was.
“I believe Steve Ringer has been using them, and my team-mate Mick Wheeler fished a match at White Acres a couple of years back and couldn’t understand how this guy who was bagging up on shallow pellet was hardly ever having to rebait. Mick is now convinced this is what he was using. It’s quite possible that there’s small groups of anglers all over the country who have cottoned on but been keeping the secret to themselves,” he reasoned.
Here’s all you need to knock up a batch of stocking pellets – some pellets, a pair of stockings or tights, some sharp scissors and a tube of Superglue.
As you can see, each one has a small piece of stocking mesh cut into a roughly circular shape and stuck to one end. “It’s the kind of job you can do in an evening while watching TV, and you’ll probably be able to do enough to last several sessions,” said Andy.
“The stocking goes almost invisible in water. It’s lighter, faster and less fiddly than a bait band, plus you can use far smaller pellets as hook bait. I’ve had three carp on the same pellet before it needed replacing ” he enthused.
Another quick hook option which Andy and his pals sometimes use is to cut up small sections of elastic band – the flat, thick type are best – then superglue them to pellets. “There’s never a shortage of elastic bands at the Post Office,” he grinned.
Two-pronged attack
Although Andy’s chosen peg has an attractive overhanging willow tree along the near margin to his right, he’s only got eyes today for a pair of far bank spots.
“In a match I’d feed either cat meat or a hemp and corn combination down the near margin and leave it until the final hour, expecting to catch some bonus big fish. They run to 15lb here, maybe even bigger,” he explained. This was confirmed by the bailiff who’d heard of a 27-pounder caught this year, which if true would be a clear venue record.
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“I’ll start at full depth on the first line, which I’ll feed via a pole cup with pellets plus a bit of Sensas Crazy Bait Gold sprinkled on top then firmed down under light thumb pressure. This helps keep the pellets in the pot,” continued Andy. “But I’ll fish shallow in the right-hand swim so that means regular loose feeding by catapult.”
Andy is a big fan of the Hydrolastic range of pole elastics. Far and away the costliest, he reckons this fluid-filled hollow gear’s performance justifies every penny. And even when he’s finished with a length inside his pole, it still has uses. “I replace the latex on my catapults with old Hydrolastic. It’s superb stuff,” he grinned.
Both of Andy’s rigs are made up on 0.20mm line. The full depth rig has a size 1 Tubertini 175 barbless hook (approximately equivalent to a size 19), while an eyed Kamasan B911, knotless-knotted on with the tag cut off, adorns the shallow rig. Shotting for the full depth rig is a small bulk of No.10s, while none at all is needed shallow as Andy uses one of the self-cocking ‘Pea floats’ made by his pal Mick Wilkinson.
Hose The Daddy ?
Before examining Andy’s elastic set-ups – which are a bit different to how most anglers do it – there’s one burning question we’d still like an answer to. How much time does he save during an average match by using Stocking Pellets instead of an expander or banded hard pellet?
After some deliberation, Andy replied: “Over five hours I reckon it saves me 20 minutes. Obviously it’s less for evening sprints and more for the six hour matches which are increasingly popular on commercial fisheries. But however you look at it, that’s a significant amount of time.”
You’re not kidding! So are there any other big advantages to the stocking pellet? This time his answer was immediate. “Probably the biggest is the way it allows you to hook the same size pellet as you are feeding.”
Warming to the theme, he continued: “In this year’s Supercup semi-final we were fishing the Barford Lakes complex near Norwich. One of the lakes, Railway, has a big head of F1s and these were still very cautious feeders at the time of the match, late spring when the weather and water still hadn’t warmed up properly.
“They would come and inspect you hook bait closely, and if it wasn’t the same as the small pellets we were feeding then they didn’t want to know. Banding such small pellets wasn’t possible, but a tiny bit of stocking glued on solved the problem. I’m convinced it helped me win my section that day,” concluded Andy.
The tactic has certainly served the Royal Mail lads well. Following their Supercup successes, they picked up a sponsorship deal from Chiltern Baits who run a bait farm at Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire, and a tackle shop at Desborough, Northants.
Meanwhile, the old grey matter was ticking. We’d arrived expecting a fairly straightforward demonstration of a summer commercial carp tactic, but now a whole host of other opportunities and possibilities was springing to mind.
How about Stocking Chum Mixers for specimen carp, rudd and chub? Or Stocking 10mm boilies under a bagging waggler? For anyone who finds the use of bait drills and baiting needles a bit of a chore, there’s got to be scope to experiment with a hook nicked through a stockinged-up bait instead. Well and truly hooked on the whole concept, all that remained was for Andy to prove to us how well it catches fish…
Elasticating for success
1. Andy takes advantage of another service offered by Mick Wilkinson, namely cutting back his pole’s power tops, adding large bore internal bushes then a varnished whipping for extra reinforcement. A two inch loop of fly line backing attached to the Hydrolastic by a simple overhand knot is his favoured means of rig attachment. These are buffered by silicone sleeves.
2. When fishing close to reeds, Andy reckons standard Hydrolastic – even the heavy duty purple stuff he’s using through one top kit today – simply has too much stretch. “The fish get in the reeds and you lose too many. So we’ve worked out a balance, incorporating around two feet of fly line backing at the bung end of the elastic,” he revealed, extracting a bung to prove his point.
3. If the stiffer elastic created by the fly line backing is causing too many hook pulls, Andy simply unwinds two or three more inches from the winder bung. On the other hand, if fish are still getting into the reed stems then he can tighten up further.
4. A neat, simple loop knot connects the backing to the Hydrolastic. Just like the connector attachment at the tip end, Andy insists this never slips and the overall set-up is well worth all the effort because it results in fewer lost fish.
5. Standard Tosspots don’t fit Andy’s chopped-back pole tips, but the new, uniquely-shaped Vespe cup does. This also has an unusual method of fixing on, involving latex thread, which takes a bit of working out but is certainly light and effective.
A satisfying session
Andy kicked off fishing at dead depth, tight to the far side directly in front of him. After a couple of small roach, knocking reed stems indicated the arrival of carp. The first two or three were under 1lb, and no match for his black Hydro through one section. But gradually they began to get larger.
An experimental switch to the shallow rig after 40 minutes produced an instant bite, and from then onwards it was a case of swapping between the two lines and ensuring that the pellets kept going in.
The stocking pellets performed brilliantly, both for Andy and his club-mate Mick Wheeler who fished a few pegs away. Both ‘posted’ near-70lb hauls, and reckoned that a few bigger fish from the margin lines which they didn’t set up on the day but would have done in match conditions, would have given them the chance of topping the ton.
From what we saw, a time saving of 20 minutes over standard pellets is no idle boast. If anything, it’s erring on the safe side.
It now seems only a matter of time before some enterprising bait company produces ‘ready-stockinged’ pellets, or tackle shops begin stocking stockings! After all, many anglers would happily pay a premium rather than get the missus involved!
Venue File The Banks, Barby, Warwickshire Rules: Barbless hooks only. No fish over 2lb in keepnets. No under-14s without adult supervision. Keepnets may be banned at certain times of year. Directions: From M1J18, head west on the A428 and follow signs for Barby. In the village, turn right at the pub then bear left on Barby Road. There are two car parks, the first on your right before the Onley Lane junction and the other on Onley Lane just before the canal bridge. Day tickets: £5. Juniors and evenings (after 4.30pm) £3.50. Contact: Richard Bubb on 07973 654336.
More pictures below from this feature…..
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