Little Differences

Analysing those Little Differences

This article discusses those little things that can make all the difference. One topic is currently being discussed on the forum

I’ve caught some decent fish over the years and most of the time it has been easy to analyse the reasons for the success. But there have been many instances when I’ve sat alongside other anglers, specially friends, and been so much more successful than them it has been difficult to see why. Of course, the opposite has applied at times too, when they have caught more than me, and we’ve been equally puzzled about why it has happened.

The easily understandable successes are usually the result of one of three events. The first could be the product of a plan coming together. Where you have set out with an agenda that included swim selection, bait, method, feeding and effort. The second may be when you have veered from that plan in one or more ways and the change to the agenda has brought success. The third could have been nothing more complicated than having spotted an opportunity and grasped it with both hands, ie, you saw a fish roll some distance from the chosen swim, cast a bait to it, and the fish readily accepted it.

The less easily explained times are those when you sit just a few yards from another angler, possibly even shoulder to shoulder in a boat, and one catches significantly more than the other. Even when using identical tackle and bait.

On rivers the answer is often quite straightforward, in that the successful angler was fishing the downstream peg and therefore enjoying the proceeds from the feed from his own bait bucket and that being fed into the upstream peg too. It isn’t always so simple though, for I’ve been present on more than one occasion when the upstream angler has had the pick of the crop.

One of the most puzzling instances I can remember was when Eric Barnes and I were catching tench and bream from a Cheshire mere one late May when the north west river authority allowed fishing in the then otherwise closed season. We were fishing from a platform with trees either side which prevented us from casting anywhere other than straight out, therefore we had no choice but to fish the same swim. Which was often our habit anyhow, for we have never seen the point of providing two tables of food and increasing the chance of one table being ignored. Much better to feed the one swim and share the proceeds – when it happened like that! So we baited the one spot and fished our floats within a 2ft circle. It took some time to get the fish feeding, missing a few bites on maggot, caster and worm. Later, they seemed to settle for bread flake. We had both tench and bream visiting the swim. They were a good stamp at an average of 5lb for the tench and an average of about 71/2 lb for the bream.

Now I wasn’t catching more than Eric at about two to one, or even three to one. I was catching all the fish, and Eric couldn’t get bite. For some time he swapped baits, hooks, hooklength strength, shotting pattern, all without success. Then he settled for exactly the same float, hook, hooklength, and bait I was using. We held the two lines together and he altered his shotting pattern so that it was identical in size of shot used and so that the spacing was exactly the same. And still he couldn’t get a bite. He was using a different brand of bread than me, so I gave him some of mine. But still no bites to Eric.

So we did the next logical thing and swapped places in the boat, he casting into my spot and me into his. I continued to catch a fish, or at least get a bite, every five to ten minutes or so. I was compiling quite a catch, for it was only a couple of weeks or so since the bream had spawned and they were obviously extremely hungry. Eric, however, sat there almost literally tearing his hair out and wondering what the hell he could try next. It was Eric who came up with what could have been the answer. He asked me to put his bait on for him, having realised that that was now the only difference between us. And it was a fact that my fingers smelled very strongly of tar and nicotine, for I smoked quite heavily at the time, specially when fishing.

So I baited his hook and the difference was unbelievable. Straight away he was into fish, catching, I think, four or five before the fish left the swim and both of us stopped getting bites. It was a pity one of us hadn’t thought of the possible difference earlier, and then not only would Eric have probably caught more fish, the solution would have been more firmly established. As it is I still wonder if it was the fact that I baited Eric’s hook, or if it was a case of simple coincidence, in that the fish fed on Eric’s bait following me baiting his hook. Another piece of the jigsaw that is missing is that I forgot to ask Eric what he’d been handling. Was there a smell on Eric’s fingers that the fish didn’t like? Eric, by the way, has no sense of smell whatsoever, and God only knows where he may have had his fingers prior to fishing!

Graham returns a Cheshire mere bream

Another instance of a little thing making a lot of difference was when I was boat fishing with another pal, again on a Cheshire mere. And again it was me catching most of the fish, which were tench between 4lb and 7lb. It went on for two hours or more, the floats often no more than 6ins apart, and yet my float disappeared much more often than my pal’s float. He tried everything, until he settled for exactly the same tackle, rig and bait I was using and sat there, still catching very little and wondering if he’d killed a robin. Then we swapped rods, and he began to catch and I was struggling. What was the difference? Much easier to spot this time. He was fishing straight through with a line that was best suited to the reel only. Although it was the same strength and diameter as the line I was using, my line was much more soft and supple. From the first cast following swapping his hooklength to a softer one both rods were catching at a similar rate.

Only a small thing, but enough to make the difference between success and failure.

June 99 to March 2000 was an exceptionally good river season for me. Not by Great Ouse and other southern river standards I should add, but certainly by north midlands and northern river expectations. And that is not a comment on how ‘easy’ the Great Ouse and other southerly rivers are, but simply an assertion that we have to recognise that big and small are relative to the venue. Scraper doubles from the rivers Dove and Ribble, or any other river due north or south of those waterways, are big fish. The difference is that there are a hell of a lot more of them in many of the rivers in the southern half of the country. That fact alone makes them so much easier to catch. Great Ouse barbel of 14lb are probably the equivalent of a Dove and Ribble scraper double.

Anyhow, last summer on the Dove I caught five barbel over 9lb and my first Dove double at 10lb 12oz. Then I went on to catch a few 8-pounders and a 9.5 from the Ribble and saw Peter Gibbinson, who was fishing as my guest, catch a double. Most of that time on the Dove and the Ribble I was fishing alongside pals who were really struggling, in spite of apparently using the same tackle, rigs and bait. And also in spite of us continually swapping swims to try and eliminate that possibility from the equation. They were catching barbel, but fewer and of a much smaller average size. Besides the ‘nines’ Id caught I had also netted numerous ‘sevens’ and ‘eights’ which, on the Dove especially, is pretty good. My regular fishing pal, Dave Colclough, and I went through the whole gamut of tackle and bait comparing to make sure there were no differences. At last we picked up on one. I was using a 10lb fluorocarbon hooklength (Sufix Invisiline to be precise) while Dave was using an ordinary pre-stretched mono. From the day he changed to fluorocarbon he began to catch more and bigger fish. And then another pal made the change to fluorocarbon and he too began to catch more and upped the average weight of his Dove barbel by about 2lbs.

I know, I know, it all sounds too incredible to be true. How can a hooklength make that much difference? Not a difference just to numbers of fish caught, but a difference to the average size? Now I’m not making any ridiculous claims for fluorocarbon line, but I should point out that the line does have certain properties that can’t be ignored. Whether those bigger fish were caught because of, or in spite of, the fluorocarbon line is a matter for speculation. I can’t prove it one way or the other. But as Lloyd Grossman says, ‘let’s look at the evidence’. Or, in this instance, the properties of fluorocarbon line.

The most obvious one is it’s invisibility in water. Yet my catch rate and fish size was still better after dark, when the invisibility of the line was irrelevant. Yet it is that property that is pushed by the line manufacturers to the point where you may not be aware of its other advantages. Understandable, I suppose, for fluorocarbon line was first manufactured as a flyfishing leader. But there is more to fluorocarbon than meets the eye, and no apologies for the intentional pun.

The invisibility in water can be demonstrated if you lay two wet lines across the back of your hand, one an ordinary mono and one a fluorocarbon mono, the fluoro being very difficult to see while the conventional mono is easily seen. The technology behind this near invisibility in fluorocarbon lines is PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) which has a refractive index close to that of water.

Now, another equally interesting fact about fluorocarbon line is that it is also a very dense line, having a specific gravity of 1.78 against that of ordinary nylon monofilament which is 1.15. This property makes it sink faster and then lie on the bottom tighter, therefore offering less chance of spooking wary fish.

Yet another advantage of fluorocarbon mono is that it is waterproof, which therefore increases its reliability when it has been submerged in water for long periods of time. Ordinary nylon mono absorbs water and can lose up to 15% of its strength. There is also less stretch in fluoro than most nylon monos, giving better hooking power and more ‘feel’ when legering.

There is one more property to fluorocarbon line that is even less trumpeted by the manufacturers and yet, I reckon, helps it to add up to a line that has some very real advantages over conventional nylon mono. It has a real smooth feel to it. It is silky smooth. In my view that is the greatest negative about braided lines – they feel so rough to the touch, and educated, wary fish must learn that that rough feel is to be avoided when mouthing a bait. That is the reason why, whether they know it or not, many specialist anglers who have reverted to mono hooklengths find they are now catching more fish. If they used fluorocarbon hooklengths I reckon they would catch even more.

Those Dove barbel we caught are educated fish. We were fishing a very popular club water, and in swims that are well known and fished probably every day of the week through the summer and autumn months. Those anglers using fluorocarbon hooklengths were noticeably more successful than those using conventional mono and far more successful than those using braid.

Those are facts. But as I said earlier, I don’t know if it was in spite of, or because of, the fluorocarbon. I can’t prove anything one way or the other. There is very little that can be proved in this abstract sport of fishing. But I do know what hooklength I shall be using for most, if not all, of my fishing this year. At least until something or someone convinces me my thoughts are off beam.

Yes, we can often take a good shot at explaining why some little difference has made all the difference between success and failure, and equally as often we don’t have a clue. But it is those anglers who pay attention to the little differences that are consistently successful.