Winter Baits & Tactics

With

Mick Wilkinson

On a chilly January daytime, UKMA descended upon the Glebe fishery situated in the centre of the country in Leicestershire to meet up with handmade float maestro Mick Wilkinson so he could show and explain the baits and tactics he employs during the colder months on commercial fisheries.

Mick is backed by Japanese bait giants, Marukyu, and we were keen to see how the baits from this company performed in water temperatures that were just above freezing point. Marukyu are synomynous with a scientific approach to developing baits for different species and water temperatures, and on the drive to the Glebe, we were not expecting a lot of action given the low air temperature, chilly wind and fish not being as active as they had been a few weeks previously.

Upon driving down the track to the car parking area, a quick phonecall to Mick told us that he was on Lake 4, which he did say had been producing fish more than the other lakes. With this in mind, it was not surprising to see on approaching the lake that there was several other anglers on the lake as well as Mick. This would give a better evaluation to how effective the baits and tactics were compared to if Mick had the whole lake to himself.

When we arrived, Mick had been fishing for about half an hour and had already got a couple of carp in his keepnet. So straight away, we got to the task of quizzing the man with questions on his bait selection for the day. Looking on Mick's bait tray, he had a very comprehensive selection of baits including a small amount of casters, krilled maggots, Marukyu JPz hook pellets and a small bowl of groundbait. When Mick was asked about the groundbait, he said that he had not mixed a lot up due to that he would like to show how he mixes the groundbait and how simple it was for the angler to do on the bank without the need for a riddle - something that most anglers would be using in the cold conditions to ensure that there was no large lumps of bait left in the bowl which could fill the fish up quicker.

Mick's groundbait choice was as simple as you could get. Using a large Drennan pole cup, he simply mixes equal amounts of Marukyu EFG130 groundbait and water from the lake. If conditions would be extremely hard, then he would add some Marukyu Liquid Krill to the mix for added attraction, but as the lake has been producing a few fish, he decided that it was not required today. Mixing the groundbait is as simple as giving the water and dry groundbait a quick mix around with your hand and then leave for 3 minutes for the liquid to soak in to the groundbait fully. After the 3 minutes has passed, a simple whizz around with his fingers gave a light fluffy mix that still stuck together when gently squeezed, but more importantly, no riddle was required as there was no liumps at all! This mix is Mick's first choice for both the fishing the feeder and the pole, which saves the angler money in not having to mix up different mixes so that the groundbait gets to the bottom in the deeper water on the pole line and also leaves the feeder quickly once on the deck up the far shelf.

We asked Mick on is choice of hookbaits. Mick replied with his decision is based on that most commercial fisheries contain other species than just carp such as F1's, silver fish such as roach and skimmers as well as big perch (which a lot of anglers ignore when the fishing is hard). With this in mind Mick told us that his main target line is the far shelf using an open end swimfeeder with hair rigged JPz pellets as hookbait. His pole line is used to catch skimmers and roach on should the feeder line dry up or his catch rate is slower than other anglers fishing, ensuring that he is continuing to put fish into his net throughout the duration of the match. Mick also feeds a near margin area with krilled maggots little and often as during the winter when the days are shorter, as the sun goes down, there is a good chance that the margin line can throw up a larger than stamp carp which could be the decider on framing or going home with an empty wallet. Mick is quick to point out that he will not fish the margin line unless he sees signs of feeding fish until the last hour of the match and then it is a case of looking down the edge for 5 minutes and if a fish is not produced or the fish are smaller than what he is catching on the other line, he will go back onto the main pole line or feeder.

Mick's feeder rig is as simple as they come. A Guru open ended feeder is threaded onto the line and stopped by a Guru Run Rig swivel & bead. Mick uses Guru 4lb DragLine on his reel which sinks well and is resiliant enough to handle repeated casting of a feeder. From the swivel, Mick uses a length of 0.15mm Guru NGauge tied to a Guru QM1 size 16 hook. The hair is a continuation from the hook knot and terminates in a Korum Quick Stop tied to the end of the hair. This allows for quick rebaiting of the JPz pellets without fiddling around with hair stops in the dold conditions.

Mick's rod and reel combination of choice are both from the Daiwa range in a 10'-11' Tournament Pro feeder rod fished at the 10' length paired up with a Daiwa Caldia 3000. We asked Mick why he used the rod at the shorter length, and his response was again simple in that it was long enough to get the feeder out to the range he was fishing at! Mick also mentioned that he has lost a lot less fish using this rod at the shorter length than he has with any other rod he has used so he has confidence in it. Cannot argue with that! Mick's reel choice was that the Caldia contains the Real Four gearing which makes it in his opinion smoother and has a better clutch than other reels he has owned, which in turn he feels loses him less fish.

Mick did have one tip for winter fishing that he feels makes a lot of difference when fishing the feeder, and is something that he has been working out with a couple of other members of Mallory Park fisheries. Mick fishes his feeder rod on two banksticks rather than resting the rod on his knee or an attachment to his seat box. His reasoning behind this is that every angler knows that if you get up off your box to get something out of a bag or to answer the call of nature, 9/10 times the tip wraps round and a fish is on. Mick thinks that the fish can sense minute vibrations down the line when the rod is rested across the knee or on a box attachment and when bites are hard to come by, by fishing the rod on two rests the vibrations are stopped and the fish feed more confidently. It was plain to see from watching other anglers on the lake that Mick was getting a lot more bites on his feeder setup than the others were combined! This is something that Mick is still working on, but it seems to work very well!

With regards to the pole line, Mick feeds this with a golf ball sized amount of his groundbait every half an hour or so even if he is bagging on the feeder just in case he needs to go on to it. The regular feeding also stops the fish moving off in to the swims either side of himself.

We asked Mick to show us how effective his simple feeder approach is. Mick had already clipped up at the required distance up the far shelf and had picked out his far bank marker, so with ease he launched his feeder rig across the 40 yards to within 5' of the far bank. Instead of tightening his line, he allowed it to sink and the tow on the water to take up the slack. This took a few seconds to do before his tip bent round ever so slightly. Within a minute of the line tightening, the tip started to move and then bent round to produce the first fish of the day for the camera - a pretty little carp or "Buddy" as the Mallory regulars call them! Another one of Mick's secrets that we got out of him was that he uses a plummet to get the range on his feeder rig initially as it makes a better "plop" on the surface when cast out due to the flat base and is easier to see the plummet enter the water especially if the surface is broken due to wind than a small bomb would.

Mick continued to catch "Buddy" after "Buddy" consistantly over the next hour or so, and it was at this time that we asked Mick to show us his pole line and see if anything was there. Mck was a little concerned that if he did this then the fish on the feeder line would move off, but as this was not a match, Mick conceded to the request and hooked up his feeder rod and proceeded to cup out a golf ball of groundbait.

As with the feeder rig, Mick's pole rig was equally as simple. One of Mick's own float designs - Pinger - was used in 0.5g size. The shotting was a spread bulk of no11 Stotz starting 18" from his hook and placed 2" apart up the line towards the float until capacity was reached. Mick said that on commercial fisheries, droppers are not really required. The hooklength used was a 0.14mm diameter fluorocarbon that Mick was trialling before release and tied to a size 16 Tubertini 808 hook. Mick's Garbolino Power Carp pole top kit was rigged up with Mick's favourite white hydrolastic which was fished in a puller style just in case that a "barney rubble" was hooked and needed controlling from plowing through his neighbours swim! The main bait used on the hook was double krilled dead maggot.

It wasn't long before Mick's float was moving and then buried below the surface and a skimmer was on its way to the net. After 4 or 5 skimmers, Mick then hooked a "Buddy" which in Mick's own words was a bonus as it weighed more than the skimmers he was catching.

Through out the 3 hours that we were with Mick, he had steadily caught fish where the others on the lake had struggled. Mick did try down the edge for a bigger carp towards the end of the session, but only small perch and roach came off that line. In the short session that saw all winter conditions other than snow, Mick had built up a good bag of Skimmers and carp which would have pulled the scales down to around 40lb and easily won him the lake on the day.

Mick impressed us with the cool, calm and calculated approach to the day in hand and how simple he kept things. Nothing Mick done was complicated and rigs were as simple as you could really get. We worked out that Mick used less than £3 worth of bait in total throughout the day, and shows that it doesn't have to cost a fortune in bait to build a bag of fish. Any bait that Mick didn't use went home with him to put in the freezer ready for the next time he is out. Only the casters would be discarded as soon as he got home and Mick didn't use any that we saw.

We feel that there is definately something in fishing the feeder on two rests as the others on the lake fished with the rods over their knees and only 3 other fish were seen caught between them during the time we were there! We also noticed that Mick was trying out other coloured JPz pellets on the hair (these other colours are pre-production test samples) and if Mick missed a bite, only the original red JPz pellet was missing off the hair. We must stress that these are pre-production pellets but the fish definately preferred the original baits on the day.

We cannot wait to get back out with Mick again on the Glebe for his next feature when we move into Spring.

UKMA would like to thank MW Floats, Marukyu and Mallory Park Fisheries for their support in this feature.