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The Drain Game - Uncovering Silverfish Secrets

Our Ginger Ninja, Matt Godfrey, takes you to a prolific Winter haunt to uncover some secrets about making the most of these silverfish bagging meccas!

The Cambridgeshire drains and fens are home to some of the best Winter fishing in the country, and like a lot of places in the UK, massive numbers of small fish pack into the urban areas of these waterways as safe and warm winter havens. This provides some incredible sport for anglers, and huge bags of small silverfish such as roach, perch, skimmers and Silver bream can be caught by targeting these venues. To make the most of them, you need to pick the right locations, apply the perfect tactics and baits, and be as efficient as possible. Today, I’ve brought you to The Whittlesey Dyke. Believe it or not, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the venue, and it gives me the perfect chance to try and figure out the tactics while you guys tag along with me.

Location

Choosing the right area to fish is essential. Fish generally migrate to the most built-up areas of towns where there are many people around. The structure, features, bridges, and built-up nature of these venues mean there is cover to shelter them from the elements and predators. I believe that the influence of people keeps things like cormorants and predatory birds to a minimum too, and it’s likely that walkers and people on the bank increase food sources with activities like feeding ducks. Perhaps in some cases, the temperature is slightly warmer from buildings and the shelter they provide. So many places can fit into these criteria, and across the UK, you’ll find sections of rivers, drains, and canals in urban areas that see the fish pack in these places. Bridges are the ultimate hotspots; the closer you can get to them, the better. The same applies to lock gates, jetties, platforms, buildings or trees in these areas; the closer you are to the most urban features, the better!

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Matt's chosen swim for todays urban winter fishing session.

Today’s swim is a perfect example. I’m nestled on a steep bank, with lock gates 20m to my right, where a water inlet from the canal above is located. Across from me is a platform for boats to moor up, and to my left is a large concrete wall with an old water pipe coming in and a bridge just above that. And if that's not enough, we’re right on the edge of the bustling little town of Whittlesey; it’s the ideal winter swim on this kind of venue.

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Matt Godfrey, "The closer you are to the most urban features, the better!"

The Two-Pronged Attack

I’m tackling this venue with two parts, each involving a different bait and feeding approach. My starting gambit is bread punch fished over liquidised bread. I’m feeding this very close to me, just 4m out at the bottom of the first shelf going into the main depth of the dyke that is about four feet deep. This is to let me assess how many fish are present. I’m not venturing to the full extent of the peg on these small venues, which could lead to fish pushing out of the swim. Bread is an instant bait, allowing me to read the swim well. Fish often come straight to it, and if the action is good it gives you a guide that there may be a lot of fish about. This means you can feed your next swim more aggressively to really make the most of this. However, if the action on bread is slow, it shows you may need to be more cautious with the feed on your second line and nurture it carefully.

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Bread is a very useful winter bait that allows you to read a swim.

The second swim is fished in the central channel of the canal, river, or drain, in the deepest water where I can try to gather as many fish as possible. Today, it’s about 8m out and just over four feet deep. Here, I feed groundbait with squats, pinkies, and hemp. To keep fish coming, I’ll either loose feed over the top, or top-up with groundbait containing particle baits. The mix I like for this kind of fishing is simple, a mix of Mainline Match Supernatural Dark and Natural. It’s sweet and full of hemp, maise, and quality bread and biscuits that silverfish love and feed over for extended periods. I feel like it’s important to mix this groundbait nicely and damply, which means you can put plenty of feed in the mix and get it to the bottom without breaking it up.

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Matt's chosen groundbait, perfect for a natural venue in Winter.

Starting The Session

To begin, I simply place a small tangerine-sized ball of bread on the 4m line. This is just Aldi home brand bread that is liquidised to a fine texture, and I add some fine gravel to this to help take it straight to the bottom, thanks to the weight of the gravel. I then feed three large balls of the groundbait on the 8m swim, which contains squatts, pinkies and hemp. The plan is to start on bread and get off to a good start while this longer line gathers fish and settles for later.

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A small tangerine-sized ball of bread to start on the 4m line.

Going in on the bread, I’m using a 0.6g Speed Wire float, shot with a bulk of No9 shot and four No10 droppers spaced below, all in the bottom 40cm of the rig. I have a six-inch hooklink of 0.08mm Pure Fluorocarbon to a size 18 Super Fine Pole Special hook, 0.12mm Supernatural Mainline, and a No3 Slip Elastic. A 4mm punch is the opening ploy, and placing the rig right on top of where the ball of bread went in, it’s like the float is over-shotted, and I’m soon swinging in a roach about 2oz! This is the power of bread; fish come straight to it, and I catch plenty of fish in the first ten drops. This tells me there are a lot of fish in the area, urging me to make sure I feed the longer line positively. Every few minutes, I will fire in half a pouch of hemp and the same with squats, hoping to pull as many fish into the area as possible.

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Matt loves the Super Fine Pole Special hook.

Matt Godfrey, "An 18 Super Fine Pole Special, I can hook the bait so quickly and unhook the fish easily, thanks to the long shank of this hook pattern."

After 20 fish, the bread line fades, and the stamp of fish drops smaller, which tells me the bait is running out. However, after re-feeding, the response is nothing like the start, and although I can still catch odd small fish, it’s nowhere near as fast. This tells me the fish are backing off, and after around 30 minutes of fishing and a great start on the bread, I’m ready to move out onto the longer line, where hopefully, the loose feed has gathered more quality fish.

Bagging Time

Shipping out with the same rig as bread but a slightly lighter 0.4g version, I’m into fish immediately. Letting this swim settle and building it with feed has indeed worked, and it’s literally one a chuck! A single pinkie seems to be the perfect hookbait on a size 18 Super Fine Pole Special. I can hook the bait so quickly and unhook the fish easily, thanks to the long shank of this hook pattern. Feeding-wise, the fish unquestionably come to the loose feed. After a ridiculous spell of catching, there is just one more move I feel that I can make to step up the catch rate even further.

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I’ve assembled a super-positive bulked-down rig, which consists of a 0.75g Slim Pencil float, shotted with a bilk of No8 shot next to the hook length knot, then a 0.10mm Pure Fluorocarbon hook length and same size 18 Super Fine hook. The idea of this rig is that it bombs the bait straight to the deck to pick out the most significant fish that are sat right over the groundbait. It gets down fast and shows up a bite fast, saving as much time as possible. Over the space of a five-hour match, using this kind of rig over a standard bulk and dropper setup can result in an extra couple of pounds of fish.

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Bulks help sink the bait straight to the deck.

Improving The Stamp

The only other way I feel like I can improve on what I’m doing now is to catch a slightly bigger fish every time or more ‘odd bigger ones’ in between. One way to do this is to tightly focus the fish on the bottom, meaning there is even more competition, meaning the bigger fish pick out the hook bait faster. I’m going to try this by cutting out the loose feed completely and starting to feed balls of the groundbait full of food – squatts, pinkies, and hemp. I’m packing the balls with a lot of feed and squeezing them as tight as possible to slow the release of the food down to keep the fish competing and working for it, so hopefully, they pick out the hook bait quickly when it drops on top of them.

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Squatts help hold fish in a swim for longer periods of time.

After feeding the first ball and dropping the rig in, I bump a fish and miss a few bites. This is normal after a sudden impact of bait, as the fish are driven into a scatty frenzy. However, after a few minutes, the swim settles, and I’m into an incredible run. More ‘odd’ chunky fish are coming in, and I think the general stamp has increased, too. It’s worked for sure, and signs of a top-up now are a run of smaller fish, odd scavenging perch making an appearance, or the fact that you’re having to wait a little longer for a bite. As soon as I feel this is happening, I’m re-feeding with a big, damp, hard ball packed with feed to re-focus and re-boot the swim, and it’s working a treat.

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Matt's changes have resulted in better bites.

Efficiency Tips

Being as efficient as possible is vital when you’re fishing competitively in this manner. My single best bit of advice for this (and it may sound crazy) is NOT TO RUSH! As soon as you try and speed up, things just go wrong. Tangles, trashed rigs, bumped or lost fish, and miss-calculated decisions start to show. My best advice is to go as slow as possible, then as you begin to catch, you will naturally get faster and faster.

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Matt Godfrey, "My single best bit of advice for this (and it may sound crazy) is NOT TO RUSH!"

Other small wins that will increase efficiency are things that will save you time on every ship-out or in with a fish. I break them down on these drains into the top three rather than the top two. This enables you to swing the fish in from further out, and it also saves you shipping that extra section every time. When you’re unhooking fish and re-baiting, your rig is tight and stays tangle-free, too. My elastic setup helps massively with efficiency too. I have it set through a full 3.5mm bore match top kit, but the bottom half of the elastic is doubled up. This means you get the soft benefit of the initial number three so you never bump fish and you can ship back fast, but then the doubled-up kicks in and you can swing chunky fish very easily as it powers up.

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Correctly swinging in fish can save time.

The final trick I employ when doing this sort of fishing is to lift at bites and not strike. If you hook the fish, you keep disturbance to a minimum, and they don’t splash on the surface. More importantly, in my opinion, however, is that you don’t lift the whole rig out of the water if you miss a bite. You can just lower the rig back in, ready for another bite. This works as a treat with the bulked-down rig and Slim Pencil float, which offers little resistance to fish and strikes cleanly from the water. Miss a bite and drop it straight back in for another, simply re-setting the rig without wasting all the time lifting it all the way out!

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Matt's final net of fish.

I ended the day with an awesome net of fish and enjoyed a busy day of bites from mainly roach. In two and a half hours between filming and photos, I’ve ended with over 20lb, starting on bread and then progressing to the groundbait line. This was built up with loose feed and then changed to potted balls of groundbait, which helped me focus on the quality fish. In the end, the spot was ridiculous, with quality fish every drop in, and with the tweaks we’ve spoken about here, I felt I was as efficient as possible. I can assure you, folks, that a venue like this will be near you. Look around and make sure you don’t miss out on this awesome Winter sport.

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