As many who read this site on a regular basis will know, most of my river fishing takes place on the Ribble these days. The Ribble, for those who don’t know it, is a spate river, 40-70 yards wide, and powerful.
The very nature of such a river calls for heavy leads and feeders when it’s carrying a bit of water, which during the winter is most times. On many of the lengths I fish, the fish are located mid to far side of the river. So heavy leads and feeders are a necessity; not a fad or a herd-following thing.
The standard lead/feeder weight when the river is at summer level is 11/2 oz in most swims I fish. As summer turns to autumn and then winter, I have a rule of thumb that I use to work out the type of weight I’ll need to take with me for a session. This works out at 1/2 oz more for every 10 cm the river is up. I fully accept that this calculation is rough and ready, but generally works for me.
It’s important that you have some sort of guide because the loss of leads and feeders is greater on the Ribble than any river I’ve fished in 35 years of river fishing.
I kid you not when I say, “you can lose 6 feeders in 6 casts.”
That means you’re ‘packing’ a lot of lead a session, 3-4 lbs if the rivers running 1m high. With that much water on you can, and often do, need 5oz of lead per feeder, so 10 feeders can mean three pounds of lead. Then there’s the half a dozen leads (3-5 oz) as well. Add this to the 25 lbs of gear I have to carry and on many occasions a mile walk. No wonder I arrive at the swim blowing a bit. And I ain’t getting any younger either!
Why, oh why, are all the best swims always at the bottom or near to the bottom end of the length!?
Now I don’t know about you but I’ve never been very happy with the clip-on leads that you can buy. So I set about rectifying this by making my own feeders. This came about not only for the above reason but also the cost incurred. I got fed up of boosting the bank balance of Mr D.
The Return of Mr Gadget
The above heading will no doubt give you a clue as to where this article is going. Yep! Making your own feeders.
So how do you make a lead of 5 oz to fit a plastic cylinder, and how do you make the plastic cylinder? It’s quite easy really, and you don’t need a state of the art workshop either.
Equipment & tools
You need plastic bottles – lemonade, flavoured water, cider, any that are not ribbed and preferably clear, green, blue or brown. A good stapler using size 10s or less, any bigger than 10s, and can’t get the base plate inside the cylinder to staple it. A good pair of scissors for cutting the plastic bottle. Some copper or paper clip wire, two sets of pliers, a small hammer, a chisel of half an inch, a foot or so of 2 X 1 timber, a ruler, tuna tin or similar, and lots of lead, 20lbs should suffice, a pair of tin snips or an old pair of all metal scissors.
Cylinder making
Take said bottle, cut the top and bottom off and throw it in the Council recycling box or the bin if you don’t have one. You’ve just cut your plastic bottle waste by two thirds by the way.
Cut the large piece into 2¼ inch strips. Out of a litre bottle you should get 3-4 strips and 4-6 cylinders, dependant on the type & shape of bottle.
Take a strip and coil it round into a circle of about an inch in diameter, making sure it overlaps by at least ½ inch. Take the stapler and staple one end through the two layer of plastic, holding the cylinder layers firmly in place as you do it. Staple the other end so cylinder is now formed. Then fill in the middle with at least 5 staples. Cut the larger unformed piece of plastic off about ¼” from the line of staples.
This now gives you the open-ended cylinder for your feeder.
Lead mould making
Mark fig 1 on your piece of timber. You also might want to mark and make several on the same piece of wood as a production line job.
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Take the chisel using the flat face always pointing to the outside of what you’re going to carve out and chisel all the way around of your drawing to a depth of no more than 1/8” at first. Take out to the above depths. This then forms the wrap-over ends (wings) you’ll need for securing the cylinder.
You can then work the middle section to the depth stated in the drawing. When you are happy with the depth and the evenness of your carving, the job’s done and you’re ready to start casting some leads for the cylinder. Figure 1 should give you a feeder lead of about 4 oz.
Wire bending
Cut a piece of wire 3 inches long and bend it in the middle, take a pair of pliers and grip the wire leaving 3/8 in. protruding from the pliers’ jaws. With the other pair twist the two ends together so they make a tight twist of at least three turns. Don’t over-tighten, as the wire will break. Open the wire up roughly as shown in Fig 2.
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Lead Casting
Take the tin and crush part of the open end into a kind of poring spout. Cut the lead into pieces so they fit into the tin using tin snips or old metal scissors, only fill it up to halfway with lead pieces. Place the tin on to a gas/electric ring. Best done when the wife’s not around. Hee! Hee! Hee! Never been caught yet! But the cooker’s next to the backdoor and I can be out with the tin like Jack Flash. If she’s in and I’m boiling lead, I use my Coleman Stove outside.
Lead flashing can be bought from B&Q for about £12 for 11 Kgs.
When all the lead is melted, using the pliers for gripping and pouring the tin, quickly pour it into the mould(s), filling it/them up to the top. Allow the cast to set firmly before you start messing with it. When you get experience of casting, you’ll find that you can vary the weight by about half an ounce using the same mould.
Important Safety Warning
- Always where goggles or a full face mask and gloves when working with hot lead
- Make sure the wooden mould is dry; hot lead and water don’t mix and the lead could spit
- The lead, when set, stays hot for a long time, so knock it out of the mould onto the floor, pick it up with a pair of pliers and quench it in cold water. It is perfectly safe to do this providing the lead has set firm
Getting the knack of casting might take you several attempts at first, but if you mess up, just put the lead back into the tin for re-melting.
Attaching the wire loop to the lead and fitting the lead to the cylinder
Take the cast and bend one end up to a right angle, using a pair of pliers. Place the loop on it and press it down so it lays flat but not touching the middle section. The tail of the loop needs to be in the centre of the wing. Take the cylinder and push it under the loop tail and wing, with the staples facing downward to the middle of mid section of the lead. Bend the other wing over and down to the cylinder, crushing it hard down with the pliers.
Finishing touches
Take the pliers and pull the loop hard, making sure the loop tail stays in a central position. This action bites the wire into the lead and secures it in the position you want. With the pliers, crush the loop together and then put some twists on as you did with the tail. As you twist the wire, again it bites deeper into the lead, making the whole loop very secure (Fig 3.). You will notice that you are left with a small ring formed at the top of the loop for attaching a ledger clip to. To double secure the loop, I hammer the wing flat using a small craft vice that the cylinder will just fit over.
All that’s left now is to throw the finished feeder in the box with all the others you’ve successfully made.
It really is that easy and will save your bank balance from transferring into Mr D’s. Well it does if you fish a river like the Ribble…..the tackle snatcher that it is!
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