As I write this report, reflecting on what has been a really fascinating day with Nick Speed, I’m finding it difficult to know where to start. When I arrived home, after spending 3.5hrs on the motorway, I wrote down the points I learnt and soon realised it was a lot.
Firstly thanks to BNF for arranging the prize, as well as Nick for devoting his time for free. Nick is a professional angler, who recently made the decision to start coaching. As we all know Nick is a top quality angler, who regularly wins on the northern commercial circuit, but he is also 1 of the more approachable anglers, with an easy manner, which is ideal for coaching.
When my name was drawn a couple of weeks ago, my joy was tempered by when can I go? With Christmas and the colder weather just around the corner, as well as a busy work diary, time was certainly short, however I managed to re-arrange a meeting and took Friday off.
After a couple of conversations with Nick he suggested Lindholme would be the best venue. Living in Bristol, meant a bit of travelling. Fortunately I found a cheap hotel room off the M1/M18 for Thursday night, which left a short 25 mile trip the following morning, but more importantly it also meant I missed the worse of the traffic around Birmingham.
On arrival at Lindholme it was easy to see why it is so popular. A really decent café and tackle shop. A quick walk around some of the lakes revealed a well maintained fishery, which will put some of the fisheries in the south west to shame.
I consider myself to be a decent angler (fortunately Nick agreed!), however I feel that I have hit a plateau and winning a day with Nick came at the right time to iron out any problems.
Initially we had a chat over a coffee, so Nick could gauge what I wanted to get out of the day, which I thought was great, because it meant there was no preconceived structure. The 1 thing we both agreed on is that there are too many anglers doing the same thing, day in, day out without actually thinking about it. Far too many anglers say the lake, the peg or weather was rubbish and that’s why they didn’t catch. Very few anglers admit to cocking up a peg due to their own inability. I like to think I am honest enough to say when I should have done better and certainly in the last 9 months have looked at how I fish, changing my floats, how I set them up and how I feed.
Whilst I want to improve my own fishing there are certain ruts I have got stuck in and unsure how to make the necessary adjustments. At the end of the day, results don’t lie and whilst I have had some good days, there are certainly days I have come away thinking I should have done better.
They say there is a fine line between success and a failure and my day with Nick certainly highlighted that fact. Now individually the things learnt were only small, but when added together it’s the difference between having an extra couple of fish in the net and picking up a brown envelope.
After our chat, Nick decided that we should fish peg 48 on Willows which is on the point of 1 of the arms, so we could concentrate on fishing soft pellet, which is 1 area I need to improve.
Other than Todber Manor, there are no real venues were F1’s dominate in the south west, however the things learnt today are transferable to any fishery, because the principles are still the same.
Bait Preparation
Fortunately how I prepare my soft pellet wasn’t dissimilar to Nicks, which is soaking a handful of expanders overnight. Nick isn’t a big believer in flavouring, preferring to trust his ability to feed and present the bait, however what he does do with hook pellet is add some Dynamite Bait Source which is oil based. As well as adding some flavouring, more importantly, the oil helps expel the water from the pellet, making it a little firmer. However even more importantly, the consistency of the pellet remains the same for the whole day and can still be used the following day.
Feed for the day was micro pellet, which was simply covered in water then drained off, just enough to make them soft. The critical thing about the bait preparation was the colour of the pellet and Nick is a big believer in a lighter colour at this time of year and will even use a yellow dye to lighten a pellet.
Finally, if you need to pump pellets don’t overdo them, because you will ruin the texture of the pellet and they won’t last long.
Water craft
Nick highlighted the fact he sees too many anglers not thinking about where they are fishing, in other words going straight out at 13m, but on Willow lake, fishing this way could mean competing for the same shoal of fish as another angler. I already like to fish at angles, trying to give myself a bigger swim, although I can be guilty of having various swims too close together, which in reality is counterproductive. So something for me to give more consideration to.
Plumbing
I already tend to plumb around, but Nick stressed the need to find where the bottom of the shelf starts to level out, then fish slightly up on the shelf, which means you are fishing on a hard bottom, instead of silt.
Feeding
Due to unfavourable weather conditions we couldn’t go into too much detail about feeding, since I couldn’t fish beyond 5m, due to an ever increasing wind. However Nick showed me his kinder cups and there was 1 that we ended up using I thought was brilliant and will have me heading for a shop for a supply of kinder eggs. Very simply the cup has a criss-cross of light elastic, which allows you to fill up the kinder, simultaneously feed more than 1 swim, plus there is no need to fill up every put in, thereby saving time, which means more time in the water.
Rigs
For the day I set up a Hillbilly frostie 0.3g, which Nick was really impressed with, although on the day Nick thought I could have done with a thinner bristle due to the shy biting F1 and the choppier water.
Hooklengths
If I only took 1 thing from my day with Nick, it would be his advice on hooklengths. I am very comfortable fishing light hooklengths (.10/.12) for carp, but I have always used a 6in hooklength. For pellet fishing Nick uses an 8in, because it allows for a more natural fall of the bait.
I’ve used a 6in hooklength, because it allowed me to place the last shot closer to the hook, thereby allowing me to see bites quicker. However Nicks view was an 8in hooklength allows for a more natural fall, because the loop to loop connection is further away from the hook. But what about the bait wafting too much in the tow? On lakes where the tow isn’t an issue, a slightly heavier gauge hook (which I will cover later) will help ensure the bait is presented properly, whilst also adding as a counter balance for the expander.
Even if there is a bit of a tow, there is no harm placing the last shot on the hooklength if needs be.
Stotz V Shot
Most of my rigs are made with stotz, because they sit on the line nicely and are easy to put on and take off. Nick is a big believer in using shot, because it is more symmetrical allowing it to fall through the water more naturally, but also shot is smaller for it size when compared to stotz, which again aids with presentation. Stotz do have their place, but mainly when used bulk.
Hooks
The way F1’s feed, they tend to peck at the bait, and Nick likes to use a wide gap hook so the point of the hook protrudes from the pellet, giving you a chance to prick the fish as it sucks in the bait, thereby allowing you to hit more bites.
Back-Shot
I always back shot on my rigs, usually with 2x no 9 or 8s. Nick only uses no8, but what he did do, which now seems stupidly obvious, was when the wind really picked up, bring the 2x no8 together, which definitely helped.
Floats
Interesting one this. I used a hillbilly frostie, which as I mentioned earlier Nick was really impressed with, particularly when I started to use it. However, with an increasing wind Nick thought it didn’t ride in the water quite as well as a thinner solid bristle. On the day Nick used a Tubertini Delta, which did show up the bites slightly better.
However, Nick did acknowledge that because down south, heavier baits like hard pellet and corn are more popular than up north, hollow bristle floats are more practical.
At some time most of us have blacken the tip of our bristles. Today with the bright conditions and clearing water, it was difficult to read the bites, because I could see the whole bristle, despite only having a fraction of the tip above the water. Nicks solution was to simply blacken the base of the bristle – it made such a difference.
Elastics
I used double 5, which Nick thought was spot on for the day – so no change there!
The Day
Unfortunately the weather was doing its best to ruin the day, with an ever increasing wind, meant we could only fish at 5m. I deliberately didn’t want to fish the method, because there aren’t many venues in my area where it dominates, and I really wanted to focus on my soft pellet fishing, because I feel this is a weak area for me.
As the session progressed I tried my rig and Nick also set up 1 of his rigs. As it happened my rig caught a few fish, however it was noticeable that Nicks rig after a few adjustments would get a fish slightly quicker. We also had most of our fish after lifting and dropping.
Nick sat on my box a couple of times and the good news (for me anyway) was he wasn’t catching any quicker, but to be honest, the weather was making presentation difficult, which was a shame.
We only ended up fishing for about 3.5hrs (although we were chatting for further couple of hours), deciding to cut the session a little short because the wind was getting stronger and it was beginning to feel colder, with some very dark threatening clouds on the horizon.
I found the day really interesting, particularly when discussing the theory of why something works, and whilst today was about F1s, the skills learnt can be transferred and adapted to any venue.
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| About 30lb of F1s |
