Shearwater Lake part 2

After last week’s visit to Shearwater fishing the feeder it wasn’t long before I was back there on the 13^th July this time with a different approach to how I wanted to fish it. Having already gained that the fish were happy to settle on a traditional feeder or pellet feeder I wanted to see how they would react to the slider and pellet waggler. Shearwater is the perfect place to snear a few fish on the slider due to its varying depths (mainly the dam wall where the lake is at its deepest).

Having arrived nice and early pulling into the main gate saw the dam wall almost completely free which was a bonus as the morning would be spent there before moving around the lake in the afternoon to another swim where the pellet wag would be deployed.

Setting up the plan was to fish about 20 yards of the dam wall where it levelled off at the bottom with a steep incline moving back towards the wall itself. The fish have a habit of patrolling that area and most of the locals who fish the dam wall always throw short and have a lot of success from it. Tackle for the day would consist of a Browning Champions Choice 14ft super match float rod matched to a Xitan MF 930 reel, reel line consisted of 5lb Cenex sinking line.

Float of choice was a Drake Champion slider 4g.

Having plumbed up and finding 22ft clearly a normal waggler approach is out of the question and this is where the slider comes into play, it’s a method I was taught some years ago however spent little time on it. Some anglers will shy away from the method due to tangles that can occur if fished incorrectly, however in the right hands is deadly when the swims are deep and its float only.

When plumbing up and putting shot onto the line I will always place the bulk 2-3ft from the hook in a tapered fashion with 2 droppers further down. The other thing to consider is the stop knot that needs to be employed to act as a stop for the float and this is tied onto the line. The principle is that as you cast out the float will hit the water, leaving the bail arm open the shot will then drag the line of the spool through the float eye until the stop knot hits the back end of the float thus cocking it and setting the float.  As with waggler fishing always feather the line just before it hits the water to straighten out the line so everything hits the water in a straight line.

Having mixed 2 kilo of Browning Champion’s choice Etang ground bait with a pint of caster added it was time to fish. The ground bait was mixed wetter than I normally mix it due to the fact that I wanted it getting to the bottom before it started to break up. To kick start the session off a Kilo of groundbait was balled in orange sized balls to get some feed on the bottom with the caster acting as holding particles for when the fish moved in. 

After 30 minutes there were clear signs of fish in the swim and it wasn’t long before the tell tale bite indication of a the float slowly dipping under before a nice 4lb bream was in the net. This continued steadily for the morning with a larger stamp of bream falling to half a lob worm tipped off with a caster. As the bites tailed off it was a matter of introducing another orange sized ball of groundbait which seemed to keep the bites coming. Overall an enjoyable mornings fishing, fishing a method I hadn’t fished in a long time.

The afternoon saw me move round to the road side of the lake to fish the pellet waggler, a simple set up using 2 Browning Commercial King Pellet wag rods (1 medium/1 power) cast to about 40 yards using what is now becoming a very reliable reel in the form of my Xitan MF 930 reels.  My setup on the terminal end always now consisted of a 10cm part of the line which has been twisted and doubled up with a small knot just before the loop to connect my hooklength. On this I attach 2 float stops so that the float can run up and down the line which then allows me to strike into the fish and not the float. All my hook lengths range from 3ft right down to 6 inch so should I need to adjust depth it’s a matter of replacing the hooklength instead of adjusting the float which can cause line damage if I’m using a un-weighted pellet waggler, nine times out of ten I will use a weighted float with a small disc attached at the bottom end to stop it diving too deep should the fish be right up in the water.

I kicked of the afternoon feeding five 8mm pellets every cast with a 1ft hook length to a PR36 size 16 hook with a banded 8mm on the hook. With the pellet waggler its all about getting into a rhythm I like to feed cast then feed again if the float doesn’t move in 10-15 seconds then I repeat the process.  After a few bream in the net I started to get liners which are a good indicator that the fish are further up in the water so a change of hooklength saw me connect with the fish again and bag a few more. Whilst I expected to catch bream I was hoping for the carp to move in which didn’t happen. A steady afternoon saw me catch around 40 bream coming to about 5-6lb in the end.

Another visit complete the question is what method to employ on my return. I’m leaning more towards a pole approach next time round with my first visit seeing a lot of activity with the carp moving in short and into the margins. Watch this space.