river

Chopped worm my way

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Firstly this is chopped worm fishing for silvers not carp which is a different ball game but that is not to say that my way won’t work for carp. Chopped worm fishing can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be but I am going to outline what I do in three different scenarios- canal, lake and river. Before that -the worms. I now use medium denrobenas as it gives a wider variety of thicknesses but chopped lob worm in the winter can be devastating especially in very clear water.

Canal

This is in respect to normal canals not the deeper canals as found in Yorkshire or the Gloucester canal. I differ in many respects to most who fish chopped worm on a canal

both in terms of tackle and approach. I have two main approaches but both involve the pole, the first when the water is coloured can see me use a float of anything up to 1.5g depending on depth and tow with a long bristle- usually one of my Paster floats, the second when in clear mode (mainly winter) sees me using a 0.4gfloat with a standard bristle – the “Peatmoor”. Line in summer is 0.12mm to 0.10mm, in winter 0.10mm to 0.08mm, hooks are usually 18 or 20 with occasionally going to a 16 in deeper areas. Shotting is bulked with one no8 or no10 dropper(winter).

I do not set up a separate area for the chopped worm, generally I set up a line down the deepest part of the canal starting with groundbait and loose feed, usually not introducing any very finely chopped worm for an hour or more. When introduced it is cupped in on the same line neat (NB I do not wash the worms first) along with the medium it comes in. The thinking here is that the worm juice is soaked up by the medium rather than just being washed away.

The key element of this type of fishing is finding what size/thickness the fish prefer – size matters! I start with about an inch of the head of a thin

worm and if bites are not forthcoming I will use an inch from the middle of the worm before trying the tail segment. I rarely use more than an inch as I find anything longer results in the end being taken without the hook being anywhere near the fishes mouth so a strike at what appears to be a positive bite just results in the worm being pulled of the hook! I will try different thicknesses of worm until I find what the fish prefer.

Fishing the worm can fall into two distinct approaches. Bream and roach I tend to try and keep the worm still, perch I try to give movement by very carefully and slowly dragging the float either against any tow or then with the tow, occasionally lifting just the float out of the water and letting it fall back down. In both cases I tend to be 2-3 inches over depth. Worm on the canal tends to be viewed as a bonus fish approach but I try to use it to maintain catching while also having good chances of picking up bonus fish. One word of caution as regards feeding- I tend to feed the equivalent of two pinches of chopped worm initially and will not introduce any further until bites slow down/cease I then will cup in the same amount and fish that out while expecting fewer bites in winter from the second introduction, after this I will reduce the amount I put in as I find in winter especially it is a case of diminishing returns.

Lake

Tackle is similar but if there is a good head of bream I will mix micro pellets with the chopped worm 50-50, this is handy if on a commercial where they insist on the worms being cleaned first. Again the thinking is that the micros will soak up the worm juices as well as being an obvious attractant for the bream. Generally I will fish it the same way as the canal with the recognition that the depth is likely to be greater and I will try movement even after bream often moving it against the tow. Depending on the depth I will for deeper areas mix chopped worm in with the groundbait especially if there is a lot of tow on the water as I do not want it drifting out of the swim.

River

Depends on the flow! Basically two approaches, chopped worm in groundbait cupped in or bait-dropper used for neat worm. Often the bait-dropper is used after the initial feed as a top up. Floats are anything from 1g to 4g+ depending on flow and depth with line upped to 0.14mm to 0.12mm or 0.10mm in winter hooks anything from a 16 to a 20 depending on size of fish expected. I will try letting the float trot through at speed of flow, then try holding back and letting go and finally holding it dead still to see how the fish want it. Worm size is where it may surprise you – it stays at an inch even when after big fish on the river. I remember a winter league match on the Bristol Avon at Sutton Benger when I was well up the section (may even have won it) and had a bream, an eel over a pound and some perch . The guy on the upstream peg was telling his companion after the match that I was fishing just like him with “a dirty great big worm” but he couldn’t catch anything on it. I did smile to myself as the dirty great big worm was a segment from the middle less than an inch long!

That is my approach to chopped worm fishing, not saying it is right or the best way but it seems to work for me.

April 2024- Part 1 The Bs continue!

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With the forthcoming match at Boddington on the near horizon I took my self up there on Tuesday 2nd, mainly to check the water levels and confirm with the bailiff that he had all the details. I decided to go light and just took the whips, setting up on peg 38.

Unusually for Boddington it was like a millpond when I arrived so set up a 6m Chinese whip with a new float that had a long multi-coloured bristle with a sight bob on 0.14mm line and 0.10mm hooklength to an 18. The water was lapping the top platform and I had about 9-10 feet at 8m.

I started off with three balls of groundbait and loose fed over the top. It was slower than normal but plenty of bites, unfortunately the fish were predominately very small with just the odd better example. In the 3 or so hours I was there I had 60 roach and lost two lumps on the whip, the first probably a carp, the second a pike.

Saturday arrives along with the 47mph winds! To be fair it was very windy all day with certain periods that were worse than others and this caused problems with presentation for most. I was running the match and at the draw the last peg in the hat was mine – peg 38! Just where I had been in the week! I had intended to take the pole but with the projected winds I settled on the whips and a waggler rod. To cut a long story short I had 36 roach, lost a lump that was a pike (scale on hook) after a brief fight, had most of the fish in the first 2 hours and then struggled, a couple on the waggler but most on the whip. One of the comments on the day – “presentation was impossible with the waves, one moment the float was a foot out of the water next it was a foot under”. I did manage to sneak a couple of pictures at the calmest point of the day, at points the waves were crashing into the platforms and sending spray up in the air, particularly on the dam wall.

So Monday sees me continuing with the B theme – Burbrook, as I had booked into a match on the Sunday. As I had to collect the exchange ticket first I did not start until 9:30 and set up on peg 1. Plumbing up I had a full top kit in depth once past the initial margin shelf then it was consistent. I set up with a 0.10mm hooklength to a modern 18(explanation to follow) with a 0.6g homemade float. There were a couple of others fishing further down the other end also. I began with two hard balls of groundbait laced with casters at 8m and fed a swim to my right just over the shelf plus one to my right where I put in some chopped worm. By 1 o’clock I had caught 4 small perch all on maggot, one from the right and the rest out in front. I had lost a better fish with my only bite on the left and had two very small roach drop off on shipping back. At this point I decided changes where the order of the day, so first I put on an old style 17 hook which when you compare it to a modern day 20 is smaller! The modern hooks do not have any consistency of size across not just brands but also within brands! Secondly I put out three large pots of loose groundbait with just a pinch of caster on the 8m line. This seemed to work as between one and two o’clock I added 4 chub, a hybrid and a roach.

As the old adage goes – if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got! Change was needed and this is probably something I need to work on as I can be stubborn trying to make a method work!

Sunday arrives Burbrook is only small and the ten pegs that were in filled the place. The four left out were 1,6,11 and 14, either because they crossed other pegs or were in the process of being “desnagged”. I drew peg 13 which after being told by a regular that it was in the corner, which I thought odd as that I thought was 14, the match organiser then came around and indeed the regular was on the wrong peg so we shifted up one and finally on 13 I looked across and there was peg 1 about 20m away!

Setting up like on peg one I also set up a rig for close in (2+1) which was the same depth but used a light float for on the drop and a heavier margin rig for the left margin where I planned to put chopped worm, micro and caster. The match got under way and it was hard, after 2 hours I was blanking while the regular on 12 was catch small fish at mid depth. The light rig produced nothing but finally on my peg 1 rig I got a perch on a tiny piece of worm over my caster line. I had one perch from my margin line, so at 12:30 I cupped out three pots of loose groundbait and sat and waited. Maggot had not got me a single bite so I persisted with small pieces of worm then at 2 o’clock I had my first bite, a small chub. Twenty minutes later another came to the net along with another perch and roach. That was it, I missed three bites that I am sure were liners as the float shot under but nothing and no marks on the bait.

The match had been hard for all, with some only having one fish, with three left to weigh I was lying second with a level 2lb behind a single carp of 3lb, peg 2 then put 2-06 on the scales and Darren who was on peg 3 put 3-06 on the scales to make me 4th and one out of the money! Darren, who had lost a big fish earlier in the match said he had a last minute chub that swung it for him, proving you need to keep going right to the end.

My thoughts now turn to the three day event I am in charge of at Woodland View at the end of the month.