HAVING STARTED FISHING the pole at its simplest it’s time to move on to the long pole – short line technique.
Mark fishing the long pole at full length and demonstrating one method of holding it
The secret of doing this well is to start at a modest length of pole and as you gain confidence work up from there. Taking last week’s set-up as a starting point we had about four metres of pole and nearly as long a length of line. To take this into long pole, short line fishing is simple. What will help is a swim that has a flat bottom at the fishing range. So if it was five feet deep about four metres out it will be ideal if it is the same depth six metres, eight metres, ten metres out in the same swim.
Mark fishing the long pole at full length and demonstrating an alternative method of holding it
Dealing with complex depth changes will come later but we’re concerned with understanding the mechanics of fishing this style without additional complications. Assuming that last week’s swim has a fairly level bottom then attach the rig to the Stonfo and put the plummet on again. Taking the next two joints of the pole, already joined together, add these to the four metres of pole so that now you have about seven metres of pole. As before, carefully plumb the depth but this time you are about seven metres out from the bank. To adjust the depth you will find that you will need to break the pole down again.
Only a short length of line is needed between the pole tip and the float
Once you’ve done this you will find that there is still that long length of line between the pole tip and the float. I want you to shorten this so that there is only two feet of line between the pole tip and the float. You will see experts fishing with less than this but until you have gained skill in controlling the pole try to work with this length. Tie another small loop in the line two feet above the float and fix this to the Stonfo. Trim off the spare end and chop it up into tiny bits. Your rig is now only about two metres and a bit (7 – 8 feet). That means that when breaking down the pole you need to take another joint off. The hook should come to hand when you swing it in.
Breaking down the pole
When putting the pole together it only put it together tightly enough to hold it securely not as tightly as it will go. Do that and you could find it hard to take apart. Remember that you are going to be putting together and taking apart the joints a great deal. Similarly when putting the pole together, try to align the joints otherwise you may strain the joints. Keep the joint clean at all times. If dirt and grit stick to the joints they’ll wear very quickly.
Essential kit – the pole roller
When shipping the rig out into the swim practice being smooth, and learn to do this without dragging the bait in the water. Some baits will stay on the hook (like maggots) if you drag them along the water but others like pellets may fall off! This smoothness is a vital skill to pole fishing, and will help avoid tangles.
Like last week, keep up that steady feeding pattern, feeding once a minute with a few maggots or pellets. You will notice that you’re now in much closer contact with your float. This gives you two big advantages and perhaps one drawback. First of all you are able to strike more directly with much less line between pole and float, and secondly you are able to control the float better. This will be apparent if there is any breeze blowing. By holding the pole still, you will be holding the float against the slight surface drift, or undertow, which is where the water of the lake is moving in the opposite direction to the wind. This improves bait presentation as the feed bait is also still on the lake bed.
Get organised!
The disadvantage is that any unwanted pole movements such as when you feed the swim whist holding the pole are magnified, and will, if you’re not careful, cause the float to be jerked out of place. This means that you need to practice holding the pole still whilst feeding, and when waiting for bites.
Landing Fish
The big difference to last week is that now to bring the fish into landing net range you are going to have to break the pole down. How much you break the pole down depends to a degree on how big the fish is. Let me explain.
When a relatively small fish is played out the elastic will have almost all retracted back inside the pole, and so breaking down the pole at the point where you also do so for re-baiting will bring the fish into net range. But a bigger fish, say two or three pounds or more, could result in there being several feet of elastic still protruding from the end of the pole, and therefore you will need to determine where to break the pole down to get the fish within netting range.
There is no hard and fast rule on this; it comes from experience in understanding the stretch in the elastic that you are using and its effect on the size/fight of the fish you are catching. So in the instance I am trying to get you to practice you are adding/removing two joints to fish and re-bait, but when landing fish you might find that sometimes you need to remove both joints and at other times with bigger fish you only need to remove one joint. If the elastic is a little on the soft side for the fish that you are catching you might find that you do not need to remove any joints. In this case consider taking the rig off and putting a different pole top set on with stronger elastic (the next size up that you have).
Playing Fish
What you will also find now that you are using a longer length of pole is that you can use that longer length of pole to your advantage when playing fish. You have more leverage that to guide the fish away from snags. Furthermore, there is nothing to stop you adding joints when playing a fish. It is vital to get the elastic to do the work of tiring the fish, and therefore you need to keep some pressure on the fish to get it to do this.
Let the elastic do the work
But sometimes when you hook bigger fish you will find that it is vital to add joints quickly and smoothly to allow the fish to run. When adding joints to the pole with a fish pulling hard on the other end, take care to align the joints. Otherwise it is possible to split a joint if the joint is only partly home and the fish suddenly pulls the pole round. At this point I can only again reiterate the need to practice as the more fish you play and land, the more confident and competent you should become.
There are times that you may experience in your early pole fishing days where you find yourself losing a high proportion of the fish you catch.
There are several possible reasons.
Elastic is set too tight When you pull the elastic out of the pole it should retract slowly rather than feel as if it’s already under massive tension when you pull on it. Try slackening it off by a turn on the bung, and see if that helps.
Too heavy elastic in use The idea of elastic is that it should act as a shock absorber than quickly plays the fish, but there is a temptation to substantially increase the size of elastic in use in the belief that you will land fish more quickly.
The outcome may be that there is insufficient absorption for the hook to retain its hold, or the line may break. Expect the elastic to be working when playing fish. It should neither be continually at full stretch nor barely emerging from the pole. If two or three feet of elastic are out during the playing then you should be close to ideal.
Too small a hook The hook hold is your link with the hooked fish. Sometimes it’s a case of not matching the hook to the bait, or using hooks that are too fine in the wire. In the latter case the hook may spring out of the fishes’ mouth. See if a bigger/stronger hook will do the trick.
Not striking hard enough – Striking too hard Striking when pole fishing is different to fishing with a rod in that as the length of the pole increases so the effective striking length does too. This means that at longer lengths little movement is needed at the by angler to set the hook. To get it right takes practice, and to take into account what you are fishing for and the tackle you are using.
Poor playing technique When playing a fish it is vital to keep some tension in the elastic, especially when breaking down the pole. As you will probably be using a barbless hook this is doubly vital, but again practice and experience is the key.
Feeding options
Although we have yet to get to really long lengths, perhaps still at seven metres, it can be seen that as we go on to longer lengths of pole that feeding by hand becomes less viable and accuracy suffers.
Feeding with a catapult
The first and easiest option for feeding is to use a small bait catapult. There are special ones for pole fishing that have lighter elastic than those for river fishing, and these are ideal for accurate fishing up to about fifteen metres. The idea when pole fishing is to keep the feeding to a tight patch. Those used to fishing a different part of the swim every cast take note. In using a catapult whilst holding a pole practice trapping the pole under your forearm against you leg and then this should give you two hands free to use the catapult.
Pole pots
For some, even tight feeding with a catapult wasn’t enough, or even possible in some instances. Canal anglers feeding neat jokers required something better and thinking anglers attached a small pot to the end of the pole so that a small quantity of bait could shipped out and deposited next to the float. That was twenty years ago, before the growth in fishing commercials.
Feeding with a pole pot
Since then all manner of pole pots have been developed, from tiny adapted Kinder egg capsules to coffee mug sized pots that screw into the end of specially built top sections that can be used to feed balls of groundbait. For the novice a modest pot that that can be attached to the pole via a clip and big enough to take a small handful of pellets or maggots should suffice. You’ll need to be smooth in shipping out or you’ll spill the contents. It helps if you only part fill the pot, at least until you are practiced in this.
Having got the basics of long pole fishing sorted, next week I’m going to look at how to get the best out of different rigs.
