To spod or not split spod mix idea

[Pete Springate's Guns]

3 hours ago, yonny said:

I'd struggle to do that even if I wanted to. The first morning I see fish elsewhere and nowt in front of me just drives me nuts. I really struggle to stay put.

Same. I’ve got more impatient as I’ve got older! In my mid 50’s now and it would be easier to play the waiting game but you’re often kidding yourself that ‘if you bait it, they will come’. I think this is related to spombing. Having spent hours finding spots and accurately baiting, you often feel ‘invested’ in a swim-usually to your cost.

This topic does have several issues. A ‘spod mix’ implies the ingredients and ratios of what goes into your bucket. But the Spomb is simply the delivery method not a tactic as such. Avoiding Gulls and the convenience and accuracy of wrapping and clipping mean that I will Spomb as a default option despite what bait I’m using. If I want a less densely baited area I’ll simply load it with less bait and spread it more widely. I’m still Spombing/Spodding but its a world away from the typical heavily and tightly baited area with 3 rods tram-lined to a dustbin lid.

[salokcinnodrog]

40 minutes ago, Pete Springate's Guns said:

Same. I’ve got more impatient as I’ve got older! In my mid 50’s now and it would be easier to play the waiting game but you’re often kidding yourself that ‘if you bait it, they will come’. I think this is related to spombing. Having spent hours finding spots and accurately baiting, you often feel ‘invested’ in a swim-usually to your cost.

This topic does have several issues. A ‘spod mix’ implies the ingredients and ratios of what goes into your bucket. But the Spomb is simply the delivery method not a tactic as such. Avoiding Gulls and the convenience and accuracy of wrapping and clipping mean that I will Spomb as a default option despite what bait I’m using. If I want a less densely baited area I’ll simply load it with less bait and spread it more widely. I’m still Spombing/Spodding but its a world away from the typical heavily and tightly baited area with 3 rods tram-lined to a dustbin lid.

I think the spodded area and wait became big time with Danny Fairbrass. 

I used to spod back in the early 1990's but it was usually just a bit, not pile it in. There were times of pile bait in, but most weekends were just a handful around the hookbait. 

It was Brian Skoyles who wrote 'The Four Day Approach' which I remember reading in Nutrabaits Bait, where if he had 4 days or more would pile boilies in and expect to catch mostly from the 4th day. Anything before that was a bonus. 

I did also notice that sometimes carp would take at least 2 days to come over bait. That bait, any bait, had to be in place for 2 days. My weekend results dropped from 6 fish or more over 2 nights to those I stalked, usually on floaters, and none on alarmed rods. 

Bruce and I fished Taverham pretty regularly, usually having at least one whole week each year. You could pick off occasional fish, but baited areas were left alone for days. 

I often think I have screwed up many sessions by putting in too much to start and committing myself to an area, then not wanting to move in the past at Nazeing, Taverham, Weybread. 

I should know, at Taverham I have had fish, it has gone quiet so I have moved and caught more. Yet my first 20lb common out of Taverham came out of piling it in Monday, and finally catching on Thursday, that 4 day approach...

Yet on Alton, most spodding sessions the fish came on day 2. 

[Pete Springate's Guns]

One of the very best pieces of advice I received about 25 years ago from an excellent angler on Redesmere, ‘You can’t mess a swim up with a single bait’!

Too often you can destroy your chances by simply breaking out the spod rod.

Edited February 3, 2021 by salokcinnodrog
To remove swearing, don't do it again

[elmoputney]

47 minutes ago, Pete Springate's Guns said:

One of the very best pieces of advice I received about 25 years ago from an excellent angler on Redesmere, ‘You can’t mess a swim up with a single bait’!

Too often you can destroy your chances by simply breaking out the spod rod.

I bet I could 😂

[ouchthathurt]

16 hours ago, Pete Springate's Guns said:

One of the very best pieces of advice I received about 25 years ago from an excellent angler on Redesmere, ‘You can’t mess a swim up with a single bait’ 

Totally agree mate 

[ouchthathurt]

17 hours ago, salokcinnodrog said:

I think the spodded area and wait became big time with Danny Fairbrass. 

 

I think this is the point to some respect, it is easy to think after watching some of the tutorials that tipping up in a swim, mixing up a bucket of “munga” and spodding it out to the “dance floor” then sit back and wait for them to climb up the lines. Obviously this approach can and will work on certain venues, as the Korda boys have quite conclusively proven, but it won’t work everywhere. I could see how an angler could watch that action on YouTube or dvd or whatever and think that it was that simple. They may lack the experience of carp fishing and may think that’s all there is to it. I don’t think the vids are to blame as they are a show, they’ve picked the venue and the method to match. 

[yonny]

54 minutes ago, ouchthathurt said:

I don’t think the vids are to blame

Agree, the vids aren't to blame and Danny F certainly isn't to blame lol.

For every Korda vid that advocates spodding at the right time, there is a Korda vid that advocates singles and zigs at the right time.

The problem is anglers with no common sense (of which there are many lol) that think the more you put in, the more you will catch, regardless of the angling situation. You just need to visit a local day ticket water to see this phenomenon. I was at a day ticket water at the end of December, it was cold, nothing showing, and as the crowds descended on the Friday and spods came out one by one. Kilos and kilos emptied into the lake. Ridiculous. Only 2 carp were caught that weekend - by me, over very small amounts of bait just 6 wraps out lol.

[elmoputney]

I think I am always happiest fishing over bait, I haven't got any confidence in singles, I can just about handle casting a solid bag out on its own, I just think how will they find a single bait in all this water , I think even if I was putting it right in front of there nose I would want to add a few freebies if I could, but i know it works for a lot of people

I think one of the reasons I am presently obsessing about a bushwhacker is that it will allow me to fine tune how much I should put out for a bite and also it won't hurt with accuracy and in theory with a scoop size of 900g i shouldn't be able to massively overdo it in one hit 😂

 

 

[Pete Springate's Guns]

1 hour ago, elmoputney said:

I think I am always happiest fishing over bait, I haven't got any confidence in singles, I can just about handle casting a solid bag out on its own, I just think how will they find a single bait in all this water , I think even if I was putting it right in front of there nose I would want to add a few freebies if I could, but i know it works for a lot of people

I suppose I’m lucky having been exposed to the effectiveness of a well placed (and usually, highly flavoured and bright) single pop-up in the early 90’s on Redesmere where Frank Warwick developed it.
It is often my first line of attack and has caught me fish from every water I’ve fished in the last 30 years.

It’s kinda like Zigging-once you’ve had a few, you recognise its effectiveness and gain confidence.

[B B]

To spod or not a to spod that’s the question

Last summer in a heatwave fishing a runs water that was 4ft deep but mostly 3 ft with the  drought, anglers were spoding like it was the spoding Olympics. No fish coming out and still they piled it in. It would be all quiet then one would spod then another and another... I call it Spoditis .. but on the other side of the coin iv spod in the early hours in a storm after iv had a fish. 

[salokcinnodrog]

2 hours ago, elmoputney said:

I think I am always happiest fishing over bait, I haven't got any confidence in singles, I can just about handle casting a solid bag out on its own, I just think how will they find a single bait in all this water , I think even if I was putting it right in front of there nose I would want to add a few freebies if I could, but i know it works for a lot of people

I think one of the reasons I am presently obsessing about a bushwhacker is that it will allow me to fine tune how much I should put out for a bite and also it won't hurt with accuracy and in theory with a scoop size of 900g i shouldn't be able to massively overdo it in one hit 😂

 

 

Like you I do like fishing over bait, but I can limit myself to a PVA stringer of 1, 2 or more baits. 

In winter on Taverham, once I had worked out the hidey hole, a 4 bait stringer produced fish. 

 

On a local day ticket lake a single bait stringer worked. 

I honestly don't know why I stopped using stringers, possibly the rise in fashion of bags or mesh, although I do seem to have gone back to boilies in a mesh as it is usually easier to attach. 

My extra boilies then go in at the end of the session as prebaiting. 

 

I did find I didn't catch as many fish on hi-attract singles on most waters as I do on food baits, with a couple of exceptions, Thwaite until I had established a bait, and on Bromeswell until they really started munching. 

On those waters the hi-attract pop-up produced winter fish, but on Bromeswell as it warmed up and they started munching, bottom baits started working. 

On Thwaite and Bromeswell we had weeks when you had to chop and change baits to find what worked, and on Thwaite I had a week when I fed my food bait every day until they started taking it on day 3 of a week session, up to that point they had been caught on pop-ups. 

[elmoputney]

27 minutes ago, Pete Springate's Guns said:

I suppose I’m lucky having been exposed to the effectiveness of a well placed (and usually, highly flavoured and bright) single pop-up in the early 90’s on Redesmere where Frank Warwick developed it.
It is often my first line of attack and has caught me fish from every water I’ve fished in the last 30 years.

It’s kinda like Zigging-once you’ve had a few, you recognise its effectiveness and gain confidence.

Ive listened to a few things where FW talks about Redesmere and his use of singles, he always makes a lot of sense, from what I can remember he started doing this so he could get to the fish by casting further than everybody else but couldn't bait up that far, but he is always great to listen to, and he makes you think, he always seems to be able to think one step ahead, great man 

I haven't got my head round zigs either yet 😂

[ouchthathurt]

I haven’t got my head around zigs either, I don’t have any confidence in the method, yet years ago, one of the best methods I used happened to be pop ups straight off the lead on 18”-36” mono hooklinks... 

as for single baits, I have a lot of confidence in this method, especially with a single bottom bait fished in isolation in the right spot. When I used to scrimp and save to go carp fishing, a days bait would be a one egg mix, equating to about 50 baits! So I would choose swims with fish attracting features, overhanging bushes, Reed beds etc where I knew the carp would visit. One single boilie fished under the right bush would do a bite. I would also fish them in open water if need be and had a fair few carp on it too... I think a solitary bottom bait didn’t pose too much of a threat to a carp that came across it. Having only very limited bait meant that I really had to work on location, which is free, as opposed to using lots of bait, which wasn’t as free! It taught me a lot being a skint school boy!