Ever Thought About Stalking?

Have you ever thought about stalking - no I don’t mean the woman across the road who’s just taken a restraining order out against you, I’m on about fishing.

Sometimes you just know you’re going to struggle to catch anything, even picking a good swim that is known to produce fish can let you down.

So what do you do? You can sit and wait in the hope of a bite or you can chuck some of the tackle in the car and try a bit of stalking. All you need is a rod, landing net and a bit of bait and a little bit of water craft.

First thing to think about is taking the right tackle, this will depend on what you’re fishing for and where. After all it’s no good turning up on a small river/stream with Barbel rods if the fish are unlikely to weigh more than a couple of pounds, conversely don’t go too light if the area holds big fish. Try to keep everything simple and balanced, use a light link ledger or running lead or even free-lining.

The bait should be chosen depending on the river conditions; in a low clear river natural baits like worms, slugs, maggots, etc., should get a response. If it’s carrying extra water then as well as worms, smelly baits like meat, cheese or designer pastes could work and don’t forget the best bait of all bread, fished as crust or flake it’s a bait all fish find irresistible.

The actual stalking bit is easy - all you have to remember is; keep off the skyline, don’t go crashing around like a bull in a china shop, keep quiet, avoid bright and garish clothes use greens and browns - it’s not necessary to dress up like a special forces reject covered from head to toe in RealTree.

How I like to start a stalking session is to first walk the stretch of water looking for likely areas: weed beds overhanging trees, undercut banks, etc., where fish may be holed-up - and then drop a bit of bait in just upstream so it drifts down to them. After finding three or four swims and baiting them up I return to the first swim and fish it, moving on after half an hour or so to the next one. Remember every swim holds a new challenge as some will be devoid of fish, some will contain smaller (1lb/2lb) fish and some might just have a specimen lurking under cover waiting for its next meal, and with a little luck you could catch it. This is a method I’ve found to be more productive than being stuck in one place for hours on end.

On one particular trip I met a couple of guys who had fished all day in some very good swims but had only caught a solitary chub between them, they said they where packing up to go home and if I wanted the swim it would be ten minutes, so in the mean time I set up a link ledger put a worm on the hook and cast out to a weed bed, a couple of seconds later a two pound chub was laid in my landing net, then after moving a bit further downstream I took another chub of around three pounds. That was two fish in five minutes just by letting a worm trundle along the river bed. After a couple of hours having used six or seven worms I’d landed five chub, the biggest went to just over three pounds and a barbel of 4lbs, not massive but great fun to fish for.

A session like this can only improve your water craft skills as you search out likely holding areas and the best way to approach them, so give it a try.

Martin Womble
DVSG