Hello, im dominic garside and am 14 years old. I currently fish regularly when I can with the ice in coarse fishing matches and this is my first time at making an online magazine.

1: Dot your float down : whenIsee many young anglers (and the odd adult angler) float fishingIsee that their float is sticking 1inch to far out of the water. DON'T the reason why you shouldn't do that is because when the fish picks up the bait and starts to swim away it feels theresistanceof the buoyancy of the float and will spit it back out without even anickon the float. This is especially prone to happen when fishing for perch, which have very rubbery but sensitive mouths. Also it hugely reduces the effect of seeing shy biting fish like Crucian Carp, Roach orRudd. When in the winter months and the bites are at a premium then dotting your float down gives you hugely improved bite sensitivity and presentation.

2: PrestonOriginal Slip Elastic is a must : the best elastic on the market in my opinion and plus its the cheapest of them all at only 1.99 for 5m its great compared to some of the latex stuff which is around 15 :O. a bit to much in my opinion! it has great power when you need to get your fish in quickly and get its head up to net it. but when you first strike into a fish it is verysuppleand 9/10 the hook holds stays firm without the worry of the hook being pulled out or ripped out of the fishes mouth which is veryimportantfor thewelfareof the fish.

3: Hemp and Caster : The best combination of baits in my eyes EVER! it has never let me down and any species will love the crunchy casterhook baitand the hemp keep carp and bream digging for ever. Hemp alsoreleasesloads of oily gasses and lets of thousands of bubbles to draw fish into your swim/peg.

4: Hemp in a PVA bag : many people struggle to use hemp in a PVA bag for the simple reason that it contains water therefore melting the mesh stocking. but a great way to get round this problem is to add ground bait to it. theground baitsoaks up the water and therefore means you can add hemp (the best fish pulling attractor) andground baitin a PVAbagof mesh without the fear of it melting.

5: method feeder fishing : many people struggle to present their hookbaits perfectly around a ball of groundbait or soaked pellets, but hopefully this little tip will help you overcome this problem.setup; a rod with a good through action like the Preston carbonactive 10ft minicarp feeder rod. it is important to have a rod with a good action all the way to the but of the rod. this is because whenfishing with a method feeder you are usually fishing up against reeds of lilly pads or tight to and island. this calls for allot of pressure being put on the fishand therefore maximising the chance of a hook pull and loosing fish. also when you get the fish up to netting distances the shaking of its head usually pulls the hook out but with a rod with a good through action it bends with the vicious lunges that the fish cause and therefore again reduces the no. of lost fish.reel; a good reel with a very good drag on it the allow the fish to take line if it needs to.line; trilene, most trilene lines sink very well so try and aim for them. you don't want to spend ages sinking you line and miss a bite or move the feeder.feeder; Preston innovations small inline method feeder. a great little feeder and when used in conjunction with the Preston innovations method quick release mould it is brilliant. it creates a perfect ball of g-b or pellets around your hookbait. also it creates a perfectlyaerodynamicshape which can be cast extremely accurately and to a great distance.hook; Preston innovations PR36 eyed hook for hair rigging. a great hook which is very strong and can handle fish up to 15lb easily on a size 18 hook!bait; method mix; the feeder mix should be either bait tech special 'g' green or halibut method mix or finally the swimstim green from dynamite baits.other tips to think about when using the method feeder; 1.keep you rod still, keep you rod on two rod rests so you can't knock it. I believe that the vibrations carry on along way down the line and spook the fish so I ALWAYS keep my rod still on two rests. 2.use a korum quickstop; a korum quickstop is a fantastic little gadget that allows the very quick presentation of any soft bait. it is a small plastic spike with one hollow end which you put a needle into and the push into the desired bait. it the give a perfect presentation every time and only takes a couple of seconds to do.

6.Pellets are probably the cheapest and most widely available bait of them all. It will be difficult to cover every aspect of pellet fishing in detail within one article, so what I will try and do is talk through the basics of a few different ways of fishing the pellet with a view to returning to a few of them in more detail at a later date.I find the term natural bait a strange one, as to the majority of fish in Britains commercial fisheries pellets will be the most natural bait of all, as these are what they are reared on from birth in the fish farms. A lot of people look at a worm or a maggot and assume that this looks natural to a fish, when in actual fact a pellet may seem far more familiar.For this reason, there are very few times in the calendar year when pellets wont work, with anglers who think that they are just a summer bait often losing out. Being successful with the pellet is largely about confidence, and having the faith to fish with them when other anglers fish far more negative baits.Of course, as an angler you have to adapt your feeding and presentation to suit the quantity and type of fish you are looking to catch. As I mentioned last month, it is best to avoid the one size fits all mentality when it comes to rigs, there is no such thing as a dedicated pellet rig, dont be afraid to adapt you rig to suit the circumstances and the type of fish you are looking to catch.

Expander PelletsThis is probably the most common way in which pellet is fished, and one of the easiest for beginners to master. If you look on the shelves of your local tackle shop you will see a vast array of pellets of different colours, shapes and sizes. In all honesty these are more to catch anglers than fish, and are no better in my opinion than pellets that you can buy in the bag and soak yourself. Van Den Eydne RS Elite Expander pellets are a good place to start, with 4mm being a nice size for all round commercial carp fishing. You really cant go wrong preparing these pellets for the hook, soak them in water for around an hour and they swell up to a perfect size. You can leave them in water once they have swollen, and it is often best to do this especially on a warm day.When prepared in this way the pellets will float, but the weight of your hook will make them sink and they will fall appetizingly through the water.Personally, I dont use expander pellets as feed pellets, but should you want to do this use a pellet pump to make the expanders sink, or let them swell up as as above and then squeeze the air out of them by hand. The times that you can do this are limited in the modern climate however, as the vast majority of commercial fisheries make you use there feed pellets.The best way to prepare these for feeding is simply to soak them for a while on the bank side. I know a while may sound like a vague term, but it really does depend on the kind of pellets that the fishery is supplying. What you are looking for is a soft pellet which remain single and dont cling together. A good way of keeping them separate is dusting them with a fishmeal groundbait such as Ringers after they have been soaked, and this can also help create a fish attracting cloud as they drop through the water.RigsThe thing to bear in mind when rigging up to fish with soft pellets is that it is a delicate bait, and therefore your rigs need to be as sensitive as possible. The best way to achieve this is to present your bait as close to dead depth as conditions allow, and have shot as close to your hook as you can. This is why methods such as the hook in the loop are so successful, as they provide maximum sensitivity.I an ideal world, you would present your pellet just touching bottom with a bulk around six inches from your hook with no droppers, as then bites will be really positive. Unfortunately fish wont always have bait presented as crudely as this however and you often have to compromise sensitivity in order to achieve better presentation and get bites, so as with worm fishing a bulk with two droppers is often a good place to start. Again, I would recommend the use of Preston Stotz, as these allow you to adjust your shotting very easily by simply sliding them about on the line.As I say, pellet is a sensitive bait, and where possible it helps if you can read your rig from the moment your pellet touches the water. What a great little trick I learnt was to lower your rig to half way down in the water before letting your rig straighten out, i.e. let the droppers fall so the rig is as it would be on the bottom, then inch the rig through the last couple of feet of water. Sometimes the fish will just pull the elastic out before the rig even settles, and when they dont bites normally come very quickly after the pellet has touched bottom.An added bonus when fishing like this and feeding with a toss pot, is that it gives the pellets that you have fed through the pot the chance to settle on the bottom before your hook bait reaches them, reducing the occurrence of line bites.In terms of what floats and hooks to use, I would recommend Kamasan B911 as a good all round pellet hook, with Tubetini 808s being a good model for winter work and Preston PR28s being a suitable heavier gauge model. Preston Chiantis are a good float for pellet work in depths to 5ft, though I would thread a rubber over the bristle instead of using the side eye to avoid the eye pulling out, and in deeper water KC Carpa Porths work well.FeedingThe best way to feed pellets is invariably little and often, feeding to your bites. Putting too much bait in when fishing with this bait is the most common mistake that anglers make, as they draw too many fish into their pegs and then proceed to fowl hook them and often spook what are there and lose them.I would kick start a session on the pellet with a kinder pot full of bait, and wait for an indication, if none were forthcoming I would be reluctant to feed again in that area for at least half an hour. The best way of looking at pellet fishing is that you are trying to catch a fish, then after you have caught one try and catch another one, rather than trying to draw a load of fish into your peg in one go.If all goes to plan and you go in and get a fish off your first tosspot full of feed I would feed the same amount again, and keep doing this until line bites become a problem, at which point stop cut back on your feed accordingly. A useful tip for feeding pellets when you are really bagging is to fill your pot up, ship out but dont feed, see if you get a bite straight away, if you do and you hook a fish tap your pole and feed the pellets in the pot . this way, by the time you land the fish and go back out the fish will be nicely settled over the pellets you have just fed.Another important thing to consider with pellet fishing is the way in which you strike or, to be more specific dont strike. All you should do is gently lift your pole so your rig comes about a pole float length out of the water, if you dont get a fish lower it back in, that way your pellet will never come off the hook, unless of course there is a fish on!Hard PelletsAs I mentioned in my introduction to this piece there are lots of different ways of fishing pellet in the modern commercial climate, and the way in which hard pellets are often fished is very different to the softly softly approach described above which is required for soft pellets.

On southern match waters, most notably at White Acres, it is very rare to see any anglers fishing with expander pellets, except for silver fish, all carp fishing is done with big, hard pellets, with feeding done either by catapult or by hand.These can either be attached to the hook by a hair rig, a band or by a lasso, which is effectively a hair rigged slip knot.In terms of feeding, the emphasis again is on feeding to your bites, with firing a couple of pellets every few seconds being the most common way of doing it, with southerners often referring to this as pinging.Rigs used for fishing pellets in this way on the pole generally involve just a bulk a couple of feet away from the hook, with rigs often being set to three or four depths to find where the fish are in the water, with the aim being to catch shallow eventually.If you have a feature to present bait to, or even plenty of open water to go at, the bomb and pellet waggler really come into there own however, and most of the massive weights you see from southern baggin meccas are taken on one of these two methods.The real beauty of both these methods is there simplicity, as long as you keep feeding if the fish are there you will catch them. That is not to say that there is no skill in fishing them, as the pellet waggler for example takes a lot of skill to master.Firstly, in terms of waggler choice avoid loaded wagglers as these have a tendency to dive and spook the fish. The best type to go for are the Styrene straight wagglers, they may lack the glossy professional look of some models but have a look at the floats that most top anglers use and you will see that nine times out of ten it is one of these.Another tip that helps prevent your float from diving is to put the bulk of your shot above the float, with one locking shot underneath. Dont worry about sinking your line, as the waggler is rarely in the water long enough for skim to become a problem.As a basic rule of thumb though if you dont get a bite within a minute cast in again and feed, and keep doing this until you get bites. It is not a method you can sit on and wait for it to go under, you should expect to catch fairly quickly on it, if you dont go back on the straight lead.Which Pellets?As I mentioned in the early part of this article, selecting which pellets to use can at times seem a daunting task, as there are that many on the market all claiming to be responsible for hundreds of ton up bags.Dont be confused or daunted by the different sizes and colours, find a type you are confident with and stick with it. By the same token,, dont be afraid to experiment, as you would be amazed at the difference a subtle change can make. As a general rule though, the old saying holds true: If it aint broke dont fix it!

7.making your own cheap groundbait.The first things you need for the process are:Bait Box
Kettle
Clingfilm
4 mm hard pellets. ( Buy in bulk to make it cheaper )DirectionsFill the bait box to just below the rim with pellets. If you want four pints of groundbait use a four pint bait tub.
Boil the kettle
Cover the pellets in the bait box with boiling water to just cover the pellets. ( Health and safety says be careful with the kettle. Boiling water bloody hurts)
Cover the bait box with clingfilm.
Attach the lid.Then leave the pellets for at least a couple of hours, and for best results leave them overnight.When you open the bait box you will now have a cake of soaked pellets.Boiled pellets on Right and part of the cake for putting through a maggot riddle on left.
Boiled pellets on Right and part of the cake for putting through a maggot riddle on left.This is then pushed through a maggot riddle and you are left with a groundbait that is basically broken down pellets.Push the pellet cake through the maggot riddle.
Push the pellet cake through the maggot riddle.If you want a finer mix push it through again. If you want paste then add some water. Its great for the feeder or loose in shallow water or as an initial ball of groundbait.The finished groundbait ready for bagging up on.
The finished groundbait ready for bagging up on.
This is a greatground bait. if you mix it sloppy and use paste on the hook it is amazingly good!From pellets to groundbait. Nice and simple.
From pellets to groundbait. Nice and simple.Its cheap and simple and this is so very often the best way.

8.fishing you first match.Taking the step up from pleasure angler to match angler is regarded by many as a daunting move. After all, you are going from a pastime when the result is almost secondary to the day out, to a pastime where the result counts for everything.From a tactical point of view, the gulf between the two occupations are not as great as you may think however. The chances are, that if you are considering stepping up to fishing matches then you are quite a pro active angler anyway, who is concerned about the effectiveness of what he does, and it is this quality that makes a good match angler.Realistically, you should expect a teething period before you win any money, and a golden rule, difficult as it is to stick to, is try not to get frustrated by poor results. Instead, be objective, think what you could or should have done better and build from there. It may be that you have just been unlucky at the drawbag, it is not uncommon for world champions to go months without winning a bean, sometimes there is nothing you can do as an angler to turn a bad peg into one which will win money. At the end of the day, all you can do as a match angler is catch the fish in your area of the lake.Many top anglers believe that you should go to a peg at the beginning of the match with this in mind, and make an assessment of a target weight before you begin to even tackle up.It is pointless, for example catching 100 roach for 10lb of you are on a carp lake where 100lb is needed to win. There is often more to winning a match than simply catching more fish than everyone else.A good starting point when deciding what to fish for is looking at recent match results for a venue. From here, you should be able to decide on what weight you will need to compete, and then you can go about deciding the best ways to catch that weight.When pleasure fishing, this decision is of course made relatively simple, you see an island you chuck to it, if the tip goes around all the better. There is no time constraint put on you, and if youre plan doesnt work it doesnt matter.In matches of course, the emphasis has to be on giving yourself options. Obviously, to a large extent the peg will dictate what you are going to do, in terms of the features it has got in it, but as long as you always try to give yourself somewhere to go, you shouldnt go far wrong.Try to have two or three lines all at different parts of your swim. For point of example, say you have a feeder line, a long pole line and a short pole / margin line. This way there is plenty of room between all your lines, and you are not in danger of splitting your fish. An added bonus, is that any short line can be fed by hand, saving you valuable time throughout the match.It is of course important to consider the practicality of what you are doing when feeding these lines, and not get too carried away.Feeding too many lines can be as damaging as not feeding enough, as fish can fill up on a line your not fishing, and then move on without you having chance to catch them!A much cited fable in match fishing with regards to feeding is you can put it in but you cant take it out (no euphemism intended) and it pays to bear this in mind when feeding lines. To summarize, always give yourself options by plumbing up several lines, but dont undo those options by feeding too much early in the match and ruining your peg.Perhaps the most important part of match fishing cannot be summarized in an article, it is the watercraft and ability to read what is going on in your peg on the day. Never be afraid to start a new line or try something different if your not catching, and try to always be thinking of what you could do to improve your catch rate if you are.A final piece of advice to a new match angler would be to keep an eye on the clock at all times, and bear in mind the amount of time you have left in relation to what you have in the net. Say for example, you think 50lb will be needed to win the match on the day, and with an hour to go you have 20lb in the net, it is fair to assume you will need a big weight in the last hour to compete.This would be the time therefore to exclude all other options and fish for big fish on. After all, working the lines you have been fishing on the day and catching another 10lb probably isnt going to do you much good. Instead, make a tactical decision, rule everything else out and sit for a lump. If the float goes under three times, you could win the match, even if the early part of the day has been a real struggle for you. Try to think about things logically, and always give yourself the best possible chance of achieving the weight you are aiming for.9.fishing with castersHard chrysalis of a maggot approx 5mm in size.Ideal for:Roach, bream, chub and barbel.Where from:Good fishing tackle shops.The life cycle of the blue bottle fly starts from the egg which hatches into the maggot which then changes into the chrysalis before finally hatching as the fly. The caster is the chrysalis stage of this development and varies from a light, creamy colour initially to almost black just before it hatches. As well as changing colour, crucially from a fishing point of view, its buoyancy also changes. As it gets darker it starts to float making it useless for bait so we have to intercept the development and chill the caster at the right stage before it starts to float. Although the process is a relatively straightforward one it is a time consuming business involving riddling the turning maggots several times a day to catch the casters just when they turn and they are still at the sinking stage. It is a job you can do for yourself, and many serious caster anglers swear by turning their own, all good tackle shops do the hard work for us and produce gallons of top quality casters every week which we can buy by the pint ready to use.The use of casters as a deadly fishing bait started in the sixties when Lancashire legends like Benny and Kevin Ashurst took the Trent match fishing circuit apart with the crunchy shells. At the time no body knew how they produced them in quantity and made them sink and it was even ridiculously suggested at the time that they put a micro shot in each one. Over the years the secret came out and now the casters are seen as a readily available bait that is excellent for many species of fish but particularly for quality roach, bream, chub, barbel and tench.Hooking CastersThe traditional and perhaps most common method of hooking a caster involves burying the hook inside the bait. Using a fine wire spade end size 20 or 18 hook push the point into the blunt end of the caster, rotate the hook inside the caster until just the spade is proud of the bait and finish off by pushing the spade into the shell to end up with a totally hidden hook. The bigger and crunchier the caster is the easier this process is so it is a good idea to keep a few out of water to dry out and crisp up a bit when you are caster fishing.An alternative method of hooking is to simply hook it through the blunt end like a maggot leaving the hook visible. If the fish will have this presentation, usually when the fish are competing and you are getting lots of bites, it can be more effective as with the hook point showing more bites will be hit. The other advantage of this hooking method is that you can use smaller hooks which, when fishing on the drop for example, will not weigh the caster down as much and will allow it to sink slower than with a bigger hook.For bigger fish like barbel, chub and tench fish with two or three casters on a size 14 or 12 hook.

Keeping CastersCasters are usually sold in airtight polythene bags which are fine for keeping casters in for a couple of days or so in a fridge. The only potential problem with keeping them in polythene bags is that sometimes they can develop burn marks uneven discolouration. To prevent this store them in a plastic maggot box with a couple of sheets of damp kitchen roll on top followed by a piece of polythene and then the bait box lid. A bit of a faff but worth it when only a perfect caster will do. When you get to the bank side it is vital that you keep them submerged in water. On a warm day a caster can turn into a useless floater in a couple of hours or less if they are not kept in water. Put them into a bowl or bait box full of water and if any float skim them off and keep them for the hook. Feeding floating casters can be a disaster as the wind or flow will take them and possibly your fish out of your swim.Caster Fishing Tips1 Always keep your casters in water while you are fishing to stop them turning into floaters.2 Use a fine wire hook to prevent damaging the caster when putting it on the hook.3 Use a floating caster on the hook when fishing on the drop. The weight of the hook will make the caster sink slowly like the loose feed.4 When adding casters to groundbait only add them as and when you are ready to feed. If you add them all at the start of the session they will turn to floaters as the day progresses.5 Try different colour casters on the hook. Some days the fish prefer dark ones while on others they go for the lighter ones.

10.meat fishingIf you were to approach ten anglers and ask them there opinions on meat fishing, the chances are five of them would love it and five of them would hate it. Along with paste fishing, it tends to provoke extreme responses in anglers, with some being supremely confident in the method and some having next to no faith in it at all. There is no doubt that it can be a devastating bait on its day, with some massive weights being taken on it in the warmer months. Its not just carp that love it either, it can be a devastating way of sorting out the better silver fish in a venue.

The BasicsThe real strength of the bait at this and a lot of venues is that it catches everything that swims, where as baits such as worms and caster only take the silvers, and dog biscuits only take the carp. It also has a habit of selecting the bigger skimmers, while worms and casters can leave you with smaller samples.In terms of rigs for this kind of fishing, it is often best to err on the heavy side, as when the fish are really having it they become preoccupied with the bait so it doesnt matter so much about rigs and presentation, and after all you want to land any carp that you may hook0.14 is a good line for venues where silvers are expected along with the odd carp, as it is robust enough to land your carp but light enough to still attract bites off the silvers. As I say, dont be afraid to step up if you are struggling to land fish however!As I have stressed in my articles in previous months, I am not a big believer in one size fits all rigs for different baits, believing it is much better to suit float sizes, hooks and shotting to conditions on the day. For meat fishing, a simple bulk around 12 inches away from the hook is normally a good place to start however, then you can amend your shotting depending on whether you are getting bites or missing them.A very important thing to consider when fishing meat is how you strike, or to be more specific, lift into bites. This is very important, as like pellets, meat is a soft bait and you want to avoid time wasted shipping back after you have missed a bite and your bait has come off. When the float goes under just lift until your float is totally out of the water, if there isnt a fish on, lower it back in.Bait PreparationOf course, there are things that you can do to help your bait stay on the hook, and I will cover those in detail later on in the piece, but perhaps the most important thing you need for a good days meat fishing is the right type of meat. The three most popular are Spam, Plumrose and Tulip, with Plumrose being my preferred choice for the majority of meat fishing.The best way by far to chop your meat is with a meat cutter, as this ensures that all the pieces are the same size, which makes life a lot easier if feeding by hand or by catapult, as they are all the same weight and therefore travel the same distance.These are available from all good tackle shops, and are generally available in 2mm, 4mm and 6mm sizes, with 4mm being about right for the vast majority of meat fishing. One point I would make with regards to preparing meat is take your time when putting it through the cutter, there is nothing worse than forcing it through quick and snapping a string, not only does it mess your meat up but they are a nightmare to replace!A little trick I like to employ is putting the tins in some warm water for around two minutes before I chop them. This melts the fat holding the meat in the tin which not only makes it easier to get out of the tin, but also prevents the fat (which floats) getting in with the main body of the meat. Dont let the meat itself get too warm however, or it will tend to crush rather than cut when you put it through the cutter.When prepared, I store the meat in polythene bags tightly packed in the fridge until it is time to use them. When on the bank, put your bait in boxes and immerse it in water to stop it from drying out.Liquid MeatA devastating way of fishing meat in shallow water is to push it through a maggot riddle, thus creating fine particles of meat, which can be drip fed by a kinder pot. This is even more effective if the riddled meat is then dusted in a groundbait such as Ringers, which then breaks up in the water along with the meat as it falls.It is best to only use this in really shallow water however, as when it is more than say three feet deep it has a tendency to draw fish up in the water causing missed bites and liners.This method is particularly effective on snake lakes, where mixed nets of F1s and carp are the target.FeedingI tend to look at feeding meat in the same way I feed pellets, as they are very similar baits in that they are both quite difficult to keep on the hook at times. Look to feed little and often, and avoid getting too many fish in your peg as this will lead to a frustrating days fishing, with foul hooked fish and liners galore.For this reason I would always kick off by feeding just a few pieces of meat along, and then feed by catapult or kinder pot to draw fish into the peg if bites are not forthcoming. Some venues respond well to the introduction of particle baits such as hemp or micro pellets along with the meat however, as this gives the fish something to graze over until your next meaty offering comes there way!Shallow SecretsOne thing that meat lends itself too particularly well is shallow fishing, as it sinks really slowly through the water, giving the fish plenty of time to come up and intercept it. When you intend on fishing meat it is often best to have rigs set up at a variety of depths, as the fish have a habit of moving up and down in the water.One of the key things to successful shallow fishing with the bait is how you hook the meat, and there are a couple of little tricks you can employ to improve your bite to fish ratio. Hair rigging the meat is one way to get around the problem, but a far quicker and easier way involves hair rigging a bait band.Tie the bait band on as if it were the loop on a hair rig. Thread your bait on a baiting needle, then loop the bait band around the top of the baiting needle, stretch it, and pull the meat down onto it. You will then find that the bait band retracts at the back of the meat and holds it on. Changing meat on one of these is loads quicker than hair rigging, which can be worth an all important couple of fish at the end of the match.As I mentioned earlier in the article, it is very important to lift not strike when fishing meat, and this is particularly relevant with shallow fishing.Expect the float to be up and down constantly, just a steady lift so the float is out of the water will be enough to set the hook if a fish has took the bait. If you hit one bite in three with this style of fishing then you are doing well, so dont stress if there is a bit of movement on the float!Meat FeederAnother popular meat based attack which is commonly used where islands are out of reach of the pole is the meat feeder. This is a really positive way of fishing, and has accounted for many massive bags over recent years, and has won many a festival at White Acres over the last few seasons as well.I was fortunate enough to be told the method by one of its greatest exponents- Mr Steve Ringer, who gave me a few tips which have proved invaluable.The first is to use a metal cage feeder with no spikes in it, as this will mean that your meat explodes out of it, where as with a grip mesh feeder it has a tendency to stick in it.Use as shorter hooklength as venue rules allow, around twelve inches is ideal, and expect bites to be savage! Do not be tempted to sit on the rod if its not going around, keep casting in and putting bait through the feeder, you will start to pick up fish eventually, and when they turn up you will generally keep on catching on the method.In terms of what to put through the feeder, it all depends on the venue and how the fish are responding. Sometimes it is best to feed 4mm cubes, while at other times putting the liquid-meat mix I described earlier or even a bit of fishmeal groundbait through the feeder can be a better way to go.Punched meat is best on the hook when fishing the meat feeder, as the shape of it means it stops on a hair rig better than cubed or chopped meat. Dont be afraid to give these shapes a try however, as its amazing how fickle carp can be at times, and a subtle change can make all the difference.Bad for the fish?One criticism of meat that is commonly aired is that, oils in it are bad for the fish. To be honest, I think this is a load of rubbish as when you look at the best venues in the country like White Acres, they nearly all allow meat.Even on a local scale I believe it is apparent that meat does no harm. All in all I would say you can use the bait without feeling you are doing the fish any harm.

Thanks for reading my first e-mag. Please could you leave any comment on my website @ www.fishingguru.webs.com and visit my youtube channel with lots of other fishing videos at www.youtube/users/lynwoodbaitcompany.com