Fishing the Whip Using Mole Hill Soil and Free Kids Fishing!!

A warm welcome to this weeks angling blog i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  So we are now a few weeks into the year and i have to say i am feeling confident and optimistic for the year ahead.  The piking is still dreadful but i guess thats where being an all rounder adds strings to your bow as the roach fishing on the rivers has been fantastic and if i am honest has drew my attention more than the piking.

A nice update this week to the written blog where i will cover a session recently using mole hill soil ground bait for the fish and of course i am as busy as ever trying to keep all angles covered there is a video to go with the session as well.  So if you like a read you can read the blog and if you like to see it in action and on film then there is the youtube arm of the blog.

Thats it from myself point of view as the only thing i need to add is the fact my profile has gone live now on the Warrington Angling Centre website on the links below and there is one or two articles already on there.

link: http://www.warringtonangling.com/about-us/our-team/danny-bellfield/

Free Fishing For Under 16's!!

I was recently contacted by a club and asked if i would share some information on their club via the blog and social media.  As you all know i am all for getting the next generation out on the banks of the rivers, lakes and ponds so i was more than happy to help the club out.

"Free Fishing for kids under 16 at Twyford & District Fishing Club"

The Club is called Twyford and District Fishing club and is based just outside reading.  They have several stretches of the rivers Loddon, Thames and St Patricks Stream which offer fantastic barbel,chub, pike and silver sport.  The club also has lakes containing bream and carp as well as some beautiful ponds on the card.  

A Junior ticket last year cost £15.00 but in a fantastic move for angling the club has wavered this cost this year and with the fact the EA has also wavered the licence costs for children from April 1st it means youngsters under 16 can now fish this clubs waters for FREE!! 

If you are local follow this link and fill in the form: www.tdfc.org.uk. 

On to this weeks fishing:

River Fishing on The Whip using Mole Hill soil Ground Bait..

A video of the following session is available here:

After 2 weekends over time i was chewing at the bit to get out on the bank and wet a line so when the opportunity of two days came up on the leave i hastily booked the Thursday and the Friday off work.  The 3 days in work seemed to pass by in a second and i was soon getting the fishing gear into the hall on the evening of the session and preparing some rigs.

The next day was due to see a drop in temperature so i made the decision there and then not to go with the stick float and decided to fish a small whip.  The huge advantage here would be speed of course and also if we had a freeze over night then i knew there would be no issue with the rod rings freezing.

The night before i prepped one rig using my favourite 2lb 10z line and a nice fine hook length.  A simple light float was all that was needed as i knew with not much rain about i expected a low and clear river.

The whip was made up in seconds and put away in the holdall and i was all set for the session the next morning.  I have to say i was really excited as the 2 weeks exile had me itching to get out on the bank, if only to wisp away the cobwebs from 2 weeks at a desk.

I awoke the next morning to the ground glistening white and opening the front door i was met with a icy blast of cold refreshing air.  Not ideal but not exactly a disaster.  As an angler who fishes all year round i am more than accustomed to the bad weather this country can produce and to be honest opening the door to a hard frost fills me with more excitement than opening the door to it blowing a hooilie and raining.

The layer of ice removed from the car i set about my normal Thursday routine of dropping the kids off at school.  A few funny looks later from the teaches who seemed a little surprised to see me in thermal boots and fishing gear and not my normal work shirt and pants i was on my way to the bank.

The luxury i have of a weekend was evident straight away as i fought through rush hour traffic to get to the river, never an issue at 5am on a Sunday morning!

"With the Ground bait my whole aim was attracting the fish
and not feeding them so reducing feed content was essential"

I arrived at the bank and first job was to mix the ground bait.  The temperature was just above freezing cold so i knew feeding the swim was going to be a balancing act and this had to show in my ground bait.  My whole aim here is to attract the roach into the swim and not feed them. My mix on the day was Dynamite baits silver x ground bait, a fantastic silver fish ground bait all year round but like all ground baits it does contain a lot of feed like hemp and maize in i so the first job was to riddle the ground bait straight from the bag.

As you can see below just a quarter of a bag contains quite a lot of bulk feed

So the extra feed removed and up the bank i mixed the ground bait as normal and then passed the mix through a riddle to give me a nice fluffy ground bait base.  I then added the mole hill soil, i add here i had riddled the soil when it was harvested.  

The aim here is to bulk out the ground bait so you have a lot more to work with and also to reduce the feed content of the mix.  The mole hill soil is neutral and contains no feed at all so it means that every time i mix a ball up that ball contains a mixture of mole hill and ground bait so its not all ground bait going in the swim.  The mole hill soil will add colour and the ground bait adds the smell and attraction with little or no actual feed when the fish arrive.

The most important component when whip fishing is feeding.  You only have a certain arc and range in which you can catch fish so you need to feed in a way so the feed is on the bottom of going through the water in front of you.  Keeping the fish where you want them is key and you control this by feeding the swim correctly.

Too much feed will see the fish come up the peg and in the water and make them hard to catch while too little can see not enough fish attracted to the swim and can see the fish back off out of range where they know its safe.

In an ideal world you feed just enough to keep the fish in the swim and to attract more but still only enough to keep the fish in your swim competing for the food.  Once the roach are competing the formula is complete and the fishing really does become easy.

The feeding established i soon got into a rhythm,  cast in, feed, hold back, hold back and then strike.  Doing this i was soon putting fish in the net at a good rate and although the fish where not of any size i knew through sheer numbers a weight was possible.

It was literally a bite a chuck all session and by the end i had the fish right off the end of the whip.  When you get the feeding right and prepare your baits correctly you can have a really good and cheap days fishing.

The final net went 19lb and the only thing that saw me leave was the coldness on my hands from holding so many freezing cold roach.  I left the bank a little sad i didn't stay a but longer for the magical 20lb net but happy with the session and the footage i had put together.

Thank you for reading and please like and subscibe on the youtube channel to be alerted when videos go live.

till next time

tight lines

Danny