Bumblebee on Fish Location

The Severn at Bridgenorth

All those fancy notions about looking for patches of bubbles, waving fins, discoloured water and rolling fish. Crazy theories about patrol routes and reading the water; looking for fishy Esperanto? Reedbeds, weedbeds, overhanging trees, shelves, bars, plateaux, thermoclines, flatspots, hotspots……Total poppycock!

When you started fishing you didn’t bother with all that stuff did you? You just found a comfortable spot and started fishing. So what went wrong? You read all those books and magazine articles about creeping around with a pair of Polaroids and a floppy hat, and starting looking for the bloomin’ things, that’s what. Why?

To obtain your computer to read this article you didn’t need to spend hours checking each street in turn until you finally located an area that might have a shop that sold computers; you simply looked in Yellow Pages, or on the Internet and looked for computer retailers, then drove to the nearest retail park or high street and found PC World, or Dixons or whatever. Simple. So why should it be any different for fish?

But there’s no Yellow Pages for fish you bleat. You can’t look under Carp, specimen size – see day ticket lakes. Maybe not but it’s nearly that simple.

What the tackle trade has done is provide Information Centres in most towns and at some day ticket waters. Here you are free to pick the brains of the understanding staff (regulars even get free cups of tea). Advice on the best swims, likely waters, tactics, and ideal conditions abounds. Some of these places even have special consultants on hand to dispense extra advice. It helps if you spend some of your hard-earned cash in these centres (better known as Tackle Shops). Don’t be afraid to ask for maps to locate the best swims.

Bumblebee’s Location Rule #1 – Use the free Information Centres

That’s a good start. Some waters have permanent pegs, and reference to these is a godsend. But there are times when you arrive at a strange water and have little to go on. You couldn’t make it to a tackle shop and have to rely on making the best of a bad job. This is where some logic comes in. The swim nearest the car park is almost certainly well fished and well fed. Fish may be stupid but they don’t overlook plenty of free grub in a hurry. Continuous prebaiting you might call it but at least there’s some fish about. It saves the bother of dragging your gear miles as well, just look for the well-worn patch of grass. Even better if it’s next to a bridge. Fish like to be admired by bridge leaners, raises their self esteem, don’t you know. I guided that novice Mark Wintle (calls himself an expert) back in the summer to a well worn peg next to a bridge on Throop fishery. True, the hundred ducks swimming around were a bit of a nuisance, but the continuous baiting by the general public with bread attracted some fish, and it was the shortest walk from the car park. Ungrateful beggar then complained that the rod I’d brought along for him to try wasn’t up to much. Pah! Darn sight safer than those lightning conductors he normally uses – he didn’t exactly go short of fish either. But I digress.

Ron ‘The Hat’ Clay and Peter Jacobs on the hot roach pegs at Witherington Farm near Salisbury

Bumblebee’s Location Rule #2 – The swim nearest the car park is often a good one

The late Dick Walker often preached (and practiced) the art of reconnaissance. Time spent locating the fish was seldom wasted. But he advocated doing it the hard way not the Bumblebee way. Sure, leave the tackle at home, spend time on the bank, but use it asking other anglers, especially regulars and bailiffs about likely swims. There are a few secretive beggars about but with tact, patience, an ability to be around when fish are being caught, and some knowledge of who the successful anglers are on the water, you should be able to locate hot swims. Not that they’ll thank you for it, so best to keep your own catches totally schtum, and smile when you beat them to their favourite swims. Peter Stone was one who went to what he thought were extraordinary lengths to throw others off the scent even using disguises, yet was quickly discovered. He also played down his catches though on waters as public as the Thames around Wolvercote. This was far from easy. Recognising the cars of well-known anglers can help, too.

Bumblebee’s Location Rule #3 – Let someone else do the hard work

This next concept is somewhat more difficult. It’s only going to work if you’re a well known angling writer with a weekly column in one of the angling papers. You simply ring up those that control waters and offer to do a nice little feature on it. Of course, it’s important that conditions are ideal, and if that means fishing the water when it hasn’t yet opened for the paying punters then so much the better. You get to fish the best swims in peace, in conditions where they’ve yet to get hammered. They, the owners, get some free publicity and sell more tickets. A just reward for all those years in the wilderness? Perhaps, and maybe you will get to fish The Wilderness (paradise for lucky Kennet fans). The drawback is when the water is not as good as you had hoped but with a bit of wheedling you ought to be able to get another crack (free day) at it another time.

Bumblebee’s Location Rule #4 – Take advantage of your fame

So far it’s all been low-tech. Forget about fish-finders, they still need too much leg work. With some modern technology fish location can be improved dramatically. Instead of Angling Times having vague descriptions of what’s fishing let’s have the GPS co-ordinates of the hot pegs. Recently, one well known writer complained (tongue in cheek I hope) that instructions to get to hot swims were often vague and misleading, and therefore decent maps would come in handy but with a GPS device such guesswork can be eliminated. But this is only half of what’s required. Modern radio tags must be fitted to all named fish, and their daily GPS fish locations available on the Internet. Having narrowed down the search somewhat (and only the privileged few having access to the information), then a radio fish locator on the bank can fine tune the search. No point fishing a swim that doesn’t have a named fish or two, is there?

Bumblebee’s Location Rule #5 – Worth considering going high tech but it’ll need a lot of hard work (by somebody else) first

See, I told you it was easy, just follow the crowd, and forget about pioneering new waters and doing it the hard way. It’s so much easier to let others do all the long-winded hard work for you, and just follow along behind reaping the benefits.

Still, must dash; just had details of a hot swim on a local water. Where’s that? Can’t say, don’t want someone else getting there first!