tip floats have polystyrene sight

There are by now fewer anglers fishing my local gravel pits which means that there is less feed going in and less chance of finding another angler fishing my prebaited swim. The fish on the other hand are starting to feed up for the long winter when they will become far less active. I believe that these factors combine to make it an ideal time for this last campaign.I generally select a local water to keep travel costs to a minimum and often one on, or close to, my route to work. As the fish are often moving to deeper water at this time of the year, I tend to select swims that are between 10ft and 14ft deep rather than the shallower productive swims of earlier in the season.Once I have selected the venue and the swim, I start to prebait every day. If I used commercial groundbait from the tackle shop, this could prove to be very expensive over a four or five week campaign. To lower costs, I use brown bread crumb as my base. I buy this from my local corn chandler at £10 per 20Kg sack. I buy my sweetcorn in 1.5Kg economy packs from Sainsburys. This costs only £1.29 and will be used up in about five days. However, I always soak my sweetcorn in a strong sweetner before adding it, and the sweetener, to the dry mix. I am a great believer in sweet baits for bream as I believe that they have a very “sweet tooth”. The only other additive is a helping of 5mm trout pellets which I again buy from Percy Chapmans in Twickenham at £22 per 20kg sack.Depending on the weather, I will prebait every day with between 2Kg and 5Kg of this feed. The colder it is, the less feed I will introduce into the swim. I believe that at this time of the year that regularity of feeding is more important than the actual quantity of feed that is introduced.A few years ago, I decided to fish my prebaited swim after prebaiting for only one week. I arrived three hours before dark and immediately fed in eight balls of groundbait before setting up my tackle. I set up my tackle at a rather leisurely pace whilst letting the groundbait workI set up with a matched pair of 11.5ft 1.25lb test curve rods with identical fixed spool reels loaded with 51b b.s. line. The terminal tackles were simple paternoster rigs with .5oz bombs with 4ft tails to size 10 hooks, which were baited with two grains of my extra sweet sweetcorn. As I was going to fish into dark, I used optonics as audible alarms with small beta light bobbins.During the three hours before dark there were no signs of any activity or any bites. Not even a liner. Then, as light faded, the odd fish could be seen rolling on the surface. The darker it became the more activity I could see and I started to get some line bites. This was most encouraging. The light factor certainly appeared to be critical, as after half an hour of complete darkness, I had my first real bite. This resulted in a bream of 6.51b that was in perfect condition. Then an hour later, I had a bite on trout pellet paste. I had just made this up by mixing finely ground-up trout pellet with water. This was not a big fish but one that was fighting surprisingly well for its size. In the torch beam I could see that the fish had red fins. Naturally I thought it was a good roach and took both time and care in landing it. Then as I closely examined it in the torch beam, I could clearly see that it was a roach-bream hybrid. I weighed it out of interest at 21b 14oz. It definitely looked more roach-like than bream. I only fished on for another hour and had one more bite that resulted in another bream of about 71b.After baiting up every day for a week, I was rather disappointed with the results, as I expected so much more. However past experience had taught me that one weeks prebaiting does not necessarily give you a real indication of the venue’s true potential. I decided to continue prebaiting every day for another week before trying it again.The following week, I returned to fish a day session. It was overcast so I was more confident that the fish would feed during the day. I used the same tactics that I had used the previous week. Results improved resulting in six bream to nearly nine pounds and two late season tench to 51b 9oz.Naturally I continued to prebait for another week to return to fish on the Saturday. This time conditions were completely different with a flat calm and a rather dull day. I thought that the conditions were ideal for float fishing so I set up with a fairly powerful waggler rod with a fixed spool reel loaded with 31b b.s. line. I selected a Pat Tarrant spliced peacock waggler. These are exceptionally well made functional floats that offer great sensitivity at range. The float held 2.5AA shot, the bulk of which was placed 8ft from the hook leaving the float just 5ft to slide to the stop knot. Between the bulk shot and the size 12 hook, I had just two number 6 shot spaced out to give the single or double corn better presentation in the 13ft deep swim.It took just over an hour after feeding the swim to get my first bite. This resulted in a bream of 81b 13oz. Sport then remained steady with bream ranging from 61b to over 81b coming to the net for the next two hours. Then the weather turned worse and a strong wind gradually built up making the water rather choppy with a strong undertow. The spliced peacock waggler was too light and sensitive to combat these conditions and I had to make a float change. I knew instantly what I needed to change to under those conditions. It was a Pat Tarrant reversed balsa sight-tipped waggler. These floats are made by Pat from one piece of balsa wood and are a reversed balsa wood waggler with a sight-tip that is also in balsa wood. This is very important as many commercially made sight-tip floats have polystyrene sight-tips which in my opinion is wrong. Being lighter than balsa wood they give a better balance to the float and aid casting but bite indication, the prime function of any float, is ruined. The material is, I am convinced, too buoyant. This means that there is more force required to pull the float under. This extra force will cause many fish to reject the bait.I changed to a 4.5AA version of this float but shotted it up to try to beat the undertow. The bulk shot this time were lowered to 6ft from the hook, making the float slide an extra 2ft. However the bulk shot were lower in the water. A number 4 shot and a number 6 shot were spaced out between the hook and bulk shot. The number 6 shot was only about 12 inches from the hook. The float cast well and performed well. It was more stable in the rough water and combated the undertow. Bite indication was good and I was soon catching bream with the odd tench.At the end of the session, I had had over 1301b of fish that were mainly bream up to just under nine pounds. There were also a brace of late season tench to 51b 9oz. This, I thought, was a good catch particularly as it was nearly October.The following week it turned much colder but I still continued to prebait ever night. However, I cut back on the quantity of feed that I was introducing initially to half, then reduced it further as it got even colder.That weekend I caught some more bream but was surprised to catch six roach to just over the pound on legered corn. I also noticed other roach swirling on the surface as darkness approached. These were the first roach that I ever caught or had seen on that particular water. I did know that they must be present as I had previously caught several roach/bream hybrids.I left that night determined to return to catch some more roach. It was now turning much colder with the odd frost on clear nights. This was not surprising as it was now approaching mid October. I reasoned that prebaiting had attracted the roach so it would be necessary to continue with the prebaiting. However, I thought I needed to cut back on the quantity of feed and change to liquidised bread to attract in more roach. I went to Sainsburys to buy seven loaves at 15p each. These were placed in my food processor and used at a rate of one per night.The following Saturday I returned to fish the water. Fortunately the frost had lifted and it had turned wet and windy. I had introduced the bread feed much closer to the bank as I wanted to use a long rod to catch the roach. I set up my 20ft Shakespeare match rod with my Ariel centre pin loaded with 21b b.s. line. The terminal tackle was a Pat Tarrant pole float with the bulk shot 18 inches from the hook, with a number 8 shot 6 inches from the size 16 hook. I spent my time carefully plumbing the depth.I introduced a little liquidised bread on the float line and started to fish with a small piece of punched bread on the size 16 hook. I fed little and often but it was well over an hour before I had my first bite that, again, turned out to be a bream. I had another two bream over the next hour and a half before getting my first roach. Although the fish was only 12oz, it was in perfect condition and I doubt if it had ever been previously caught. This fish was followed by a steady stream of roach that were averaging nearly a pound, the best being a respectable 1lb 6oz. Plus, I did see the odd bigger roach swirling on the surface as it turned dark. I had about 151b of roach with 181b of bream. I thought that this was a respectable mixed bag for the time of the year.I continued to bait the swim for a further week but it had turned much colder. That Saturday I returned. After four hours I had only one bite that resulted in one roach of just over a pound. I decided that it was now time to stop fishing the venue and to start my river fishing. It had turned far too cold and the fish had stopped feeding.Although it appeared that I had put in a terrific effort for rather mixed results, I had learnt a lot about late season gravel pit fishing. I used most of this knowledge to plan late-season gravel pit campaigns. These have proved to fairly successful, accounting for some good bream with the odd late season big tench.

I now change over to liquidised bread at the end of September and have had some interesting results as a consequence. These include the odd good rudd appearing in catches. Most anglers, including myself, never realised that there were roach in these clear gravel pits. Certainly, by prebaiting, my results improved. I believe that I caught fish that it would otherwise have been be impossible to catch. This prebaiting does require an effort but by carefully buying ingredients the cost can be very reasonable.