Steve Ringer’s 12 brilliant bait tips for spring stillwaters – try them now!
An unlikely venue, but the fish don’t care!
ASLENDER waggler sways in the breeze before sliding away, the stike met by the unmistakeable jag-jag fight of a feisty crucian.
It’s easy to be seduced by secluded farm ponds with lily-clad margins when it comes to this all-too rare golden beauty, but the truth is that crucians can turn up in the most unlikely of places – anywhere from busy canals to heavily-stocked commercial carp waters and even rivers!
And how about reservoirs? The Leamington Angling-controlled Snitterfield Res near Stratfordupon-Avon can be added to the list of crucian-producing waters, but at first glance it looks a far cry from the type of venue normally associated with the species.
It’s a concrete bowl with few fish-holding features, yet it is ranked as one of the finest crucian waters in the Midlands, offering super fishing at close quarters if you get a few fundamentals right before you cast a line.
Bait-Tech-backed local Kelvin Tallett was keen to show the Angling Times cameras how this
unlikely-looking man-made lake can rival the most chocolate box of crucian pools!
“It doesn’t look much at first but the head of crucians in here is vast,” Kelvin said.
“This being a reservoir, the depth is substantial just four rodlengths out, so that makes fishing at close range a given. Pretty much every crucian is caught here around the edges, certainly no more than four sections of pole out where you can find a good 6ft of water. It’s finding the depth that is key to catching a few.
“You need to find a spot where the water is warm enough for the fish to feed happily, as crucians are one species that reacts strongly to warming water,” he continued.
“It’s even possible to catch them just 1ft deep if they’re there in numbers and you feed relatively heavily, but most of my fishing at Snitterfield revolves around presenting the bait just touching bottom so that I can react to every indication on the float.”
Having found that ideal depth – which, typically at Snitterfield, is around four or five pole sections
out – Kelvin then turns his attention to rigs. These do give the nod to the classic crucian fishing handbook... small floats, light lines and small hooks to turn tiny bites into fish hooked. Crucians are famed for their shy bites, and even on venues like Snitterfield their habits don’t change.
“I prefer a slim pencil float for fishing at full depth. I dot this right down to just a pimple of the bristle showing,” Kelvin explained.
“This allows me to see exactly what’s going on and to react at any movement on the float, which may be all you get in terms of a bite. My favourite pattern is the DH18 from Dave Harrell Angling in the 0.4g size. Shotting is a strung bulk of No10s and I take plenty of time plumbing up to get the bait to just touch bottom.”
Lines are 0.14mm main to a hooklink of 0.10mm and a size 16 Drennan Carbon Match. Kelvin crushes the barb down on to make it barbless. Around 12ins of line between pole-tip and float allow him to strike at tiny bites immediately and miss fewer fish.
“Because I’m fishing on a slope I will put the rig in going away from me. When it has settled, the hook and bait will have fallen back up the slope and be just on the bottom. If you lay the rig in to one side, there may be a slight depth variation that will ruin the presentation,” he said. “I’ll also set up a shallow rig using a size 18 Carbon Match
hook with a 0.2g DH14 float set a couple of feet deep. There will be days when the crucians come off bottom very quickly and this is when you can put a netful together. Once I start getting line bites or lift bites, I know that the fish are sitting off bottom or beginning to think about moving well up in the water.”
After introducing a large pole cup of 2mm pellets, Kelvin throws in 4mm pellets little and often, being cautious not to introduce too much, otherwise the crucians will come up off bottom. Half-adozen pellets every few minutes is ample.
“Groundbait can work for the crucians too, and it pulls in the skimmers, so having a second line fed with the Bait-Tech F1 mix shouldn’t be ignored,” he added. “I’ll add 2mm pellets and a few casters and use the same pellet rig. I’d expect that main pellet line to produce the bulk of my fish.”
And that’s exactly how it turned out, with the pellet swim giving Kelvin a small run of crucians even though there were few signs of them coming up in the water.
A look on the groundbait line fished towards an overhanging tree on his left yielded a couple of big skimmers and a crucian, but it’s that pellet swim where all the action was. Sport was steady, and fish of a good average stamp saw him end the day with nine crucians, a few roach and skimmers, and a bonus tench.