Wintle’s World of Angling

Mark Wintle, an angler for thirty-five years, is on a quest to discover and bring to you the magic of fishing. Previously heavily involved with match fishing he now fishes for the sheer fun of it. With an open and enquiring mind, each week Mark will bring to you articles on fishing different rivers, different methods and what makes rivers, and occasionally stillwaters, tick. Add to this a mixed bag of articles on catching big fish, tackle design, angling politics and a few surprises.

Are you stuck in a rut fishing the same swim every week? Do you dare to try something different and see a whole new world of angling open up? Yes? Then read Mark Wintle’s regular weekly column.

BITE DETECTION

First, find your fish. Get ’em feeding, and then catch ’em. But how do you know when you’ve got a bite? And is the method that you favour always the best one?

Old floats

Does it matter that much? Over the decades, there have been many debates – from Walker versus Bernard Donovan, Walker versus Clive Smith, and most recently Len Arbery versus Stef Horak. In the past, it was the match anglers versus the specimen hunters, now it seems to be the traditionalists versus the modernists, or it just mechanical aids versus touch legering? Who is right, or are they all right? One thing is certain, and that is whatever method is used some bites will not be detected.

There is more to this than simply the efficiency of bite detection; how much concentration is required? How sustainable is that concentration? Does the bite detection method selected work under different conditions, and how important is the design of the end rig?

There are so many methods of bite detection that it is not possible cover all of them in detail but I hope to cover the majority.

One thing I learnt from watching fish take a floatfished bait many years ago is that it is surprising how many bites are completely undetected, and furthermore it takes an amazingly vigorous bite to register at all. It is hardly surprising that we occasionally reel in to find a fish on the end.

Floatfishing
This is by far my favourite. Archimedes worked out the basics long ago in that his law of displacement determines how sensitive a float is according to the volume of tip displaced. Not the buoyancy of the tip material. Latest culprit on this error is Peter Drennan, in IYCF, who really ought to know better.

Several simple factors determine the design of a float tip. Can I see it in the prevailing conditions? Is it sufficiently buoyant to support the terminal tackle dependent upon whether factors such as the weight of the bait, the strength of the current/undertow or the bait is dragging on the bottom? How much inertia must be overcome to show a bite? And finally, is it sensitive enough to register a bite? In favourable conditions it is possible to use fantastically sensitive floats; look at those used in pole fishing, yet these would be worse than useless for fishing on the Severn in a gale.

New floats

Visibility is often the biggest challenge of these factors. There are a number of options that can help. Different coloured tips perform better in different conditions. An open sky backdrop with lots of ‘white’ water is often best tackled with a blacktopped float. Yellow can work well against the green of vegetation, whilst orange/red are probably the most versatile. One way of increasing visibility without compromising too much sensitivity is to design the float tip so that it is not solid, either using vanes like a dart or with a hollow tip that lets in water through a hole. For night fishing, I have no hesitation in recommending the use of Starlites or Betalites though you may have to design a float to carry one.

From a rig point of view, the best way to improve detection is to try to match the size of float according to the conditions. There is usually some sort of compromise required between obtaining good presentation, casting distance, bite detection and visibility. The float rig that is likely to be least sensitive is where a laying-on type set-up is used. Some rigs such the lift float and windbeaters address this whereas simply fishing way over depth may only register the sail away bites.

As it is not my intention to write a book on floatfishing at this point it’s time to move onto the methods available for legering and free-lining.

Legering
Before all of the modern aids were developed, legering relied on two simple methods of detection bites. Either you felt the line for the bite, ‘touch legering’, or you watched the rod top for a bite (more or less what most sea fishing relies upon). It was clear many years ago that the improvements could be made in this area. Perhaps the first method involved the use of bobbins affixed to the line, either slightly beyond the rod top, or between two rod rings. As bread paste was a popular bait, it was used to create a simple visual bite indicator. It had its disadvantages for it had to be replaced each cast.

Whilst some anglers pondered improvements on the bobbin, others turned their attention to rod top indication. The tips of rods were often made from built cane in the late fifties. But whalebone was also available. By shaving it down as fine as possible better bite indication might be obtained. This was the first quivertip developed around 1956. When Jack Clayton tried to make one a year or two later he overdid the sanding to get a floppy tip that was further developed into the first proper swingtip.

Solid fibreglass was also becoming more available about this time and, having reached the limits with built cane, Peter Stone and others were making improvements to the design of quivertips. Known as ‘Donkey tops’, due in part to the amount of donkey work required to sand one down, these tips remain popular to this day with the sophistication of interchangeable tips and the use of carbon fibre in addition to glass. Further refinements followed with the development of the springtip in the mid seventies. All of these tip-based indicators have a limitation in that there is limited movement in the tip, up to about a foot at most, and the fish may encounter increasing resistance, but they remain popular and successful. Night use is aided by affixing Starlites or betalights to the tip.

Use a starlite or betalite at night

Bobbins
Having superseded the use of dough bobbins beyond the rod tip, many anglers were looking at improvements near the butt ring. Silver paper rings, coins above jam-jars and washing-up liquid bottle tops all got pressed into service. It was Dick Walker who developed the first electric bite alarm, and from that we have the modern electronic bite alarm, the Original being the Optonic, and all the other generic alarms. Other variations include the monkey climber, including electronic versions, and reels with built-in bite alarms. These alarms are best suited to fast runs from carp rather than the subtle tweaks from roach. Also developed for use nearer the reel, the butt indicator sought to reduce the interference from the wind that reduced the effectiveness of the swingtip.

Touch legering
Using one’s fingers to detect bites is an ancient method, advocated by Walker and Arbery, derided by many match anglers, and yet in the right circumstances probably unbeatable. It is defining those circumstances that cause the problem. It is a high concentration, short session, short range, method, best suited to chub and barbel fishing. When Walker suggested that it would be better for slow river bream fishing such as the Witham he, for once, failed to realise that the methods used by anglers such as Ivan Marks and Freddie Foster were superior in determining line bites from real bites. Advocates maintain that this is the only method to detect ‘sawing’ bites from barbel yet I have seen these bites on a quivertip. What this method has done in the hands of an expert is allow a couple of yards of slack line to be fed to a crafty chub when they are holding the bait in their lips, dropping it upon feeling any resistance. Is it worth learning? Definitely, but use it when it has genuine advantages over other methods, or, of course, if you simply enjoy using it…

Line watching
Another ancient method of detecting bites is to watch the line at the point where it enters the water. The method largely used in wet fly and nymph fishing, but also useful for freelining. You need excellent eyesight for this one but it can offer almost zero resistance.

Top: Quivertip, Bottom: Swingtip

Concentration
I have mentioned concentration along the way. What electronic methods offer is much reduced concentration. Nowadays, I rarely watch a float for more than six or seven hours at a time. The days of two five-hour matches in one day are long gone (you start to get blurred vision after about eight hours). Visual methods of legering aren’t much better. It’s a similar story with quivertips and swingtips (and butt indicators). Stare at one too long and you’ll slowly go cross-eyed. Try watching more than one at the same time and you’ll surely go boss-eyed.

Watching the Bait
One final way of detecting bites is to simply watch the bait being taken. This can be in conjunction with other methods of bite indication. It is surprising how often a bait is taken that doesn’t register at all as a definite pull. For floater fishing or dry fly, this is the main method but it can work well in crystal clear water.

Conclusions
Like so many things in angling, bite indication comes down to horses for courses and personal preferences. In many circumstances more than one method is effective but using a single method regardless is likely to be ineffective at least some of the time. Think about what you are doing. Are you getting bites yet not connecting? Is there too much resistance in your rig or bite indication method? Or too little? Could a change to the rig help? The easiest way is by lengthening or shortening the hook link. Do you need to concentrate more carefully? Or let the bites develop more?

I certainly don’t have all of the answers, and I guess no one ever will, but the figuring out will keep us all interested for many years to come.

Next week: ‘Pleasure Fishing Commercial Fisheries’