Trotting 'biggish' baits for barbel

[benny samways]

Just had a gander through the barbel bait thread and it was interesting about trotting for barbel and how this method is under used.

Ive done it myself and had a few barbel on trotted casters but what i would like to ask about is trotting big baits, like meat for example.

How do you do this? Surely the big baits drag the float under, or do you fish it off bottom?

What shotting arrangement? I have laid on before, but never Trotted a big bait.


What are your tips and hints for trotting big baits?

 

[tigger]

What are your tips and hints for trotting big baits?

Use a suitably sized float that's able to carry the weight and that's bulky enough to drag the bait along the bottom if that's how you want to present your bait .

 

[Neil Maidment]

My current favourites are the Clearwater Balsas up to 10grm:

View image in gallery​

Excellent big tips visible at distance and perfect for big baits. Also excellent for trotting in heavy flow but with small baits. I use these up to 10gm when winter chubbing on the Dorset Stour with single maggot on a #20 as well as big meat/corn baits.

For the bigger baits trotted at depth I typically use a big bulk of several SSG/AAA shot or an olivette up to 10grm with an added AAA/BB dropper.

---------- Post added at 19:11 ---------- Previous post was at 18:58 ----------

Usually works well.

These are from the Severn on trotted chunks of meat directly hooked and pushed back through the meat. The bites are often savage!

View image in gallery​

View image in gallery​

 

[barbelboi]

Pretty much the same as Neil and tend to use the very similar Dave Harrell Balsa Missile as well...........

 

[tigger]

I'm not a lover of the chubber floats but if I do use them I usually use the clear plastic drennan ones. I prefer to use a appropriate bolo style float.

 

[108831]

On bigger baits I find bolo floats simply aren't man enough to stay the course,any chubber,or balsa with a decent tip does the job for me,minimum capacity of 5AA,i'd usually use as a starting point a number 4 dropper with the rest bulked 4in or so above,this being liable to change slightly depending on the vagaries of the swim fished.

 

[lutra]

I'm not a lover of the chubber floats but if I do use them I usually use the clear plastic drennan ones. I prefer to use a appropriate bolo style float.

Can't believe a good pin angler would recommend such plastic tat Ian. Where's ya soul man? Give me a bit of elder pith hand fashioned on a quill any day.

 

[108831]

I'm afraid the old fashioned crow quill 'Avons' have little use in my fishing,I prefer 'Avons' with balsa tips around 6-8mm diameter,crow quill doesn't have enough buoyancy for maggot and caster,let alone meat,look nice though and are ok for roach,on the pin of course...

 

[lutra]

I'm afraid the old fashioned crow quill 'Avons' have little use in my fishing,I prefer 'Avons' with balsa tips around 6-8mm diameter,crow quill doesn't have enough buoyancy for maggot and caster,let alone meat,look nice though and are ok for roach,on the pin of course...

A crow quill can have as much buoyancy as you want. Stick one throw a pike bung and float deadbaits with it if you like.

An Avon is an Avon to me, what ever you use for the stem and quill is way more buoyant than many materials used today.

 

[sam vimes]

Big numb baits tend to require big numb floats. Big Avons, Bolos and Cralussos are my choice. I've never got on with short Chubber/Balsa/Loafer type floats.

 

[tigger]

Can't believe a good pin angler would recommend such plastic tat Ian. Where's ya soul man? Give me a bit of elder pith hand fashioned on a quill any day.

I haven't got time to pith about with pith Brian .

 

[108831]

A crow quill can have as much buoyancy as you want. Stick one throw a pike bung and float deadbaits with it if you like.

An Avon is an Avon to me, what ever you use for the stem and quill is way more buoyant than many materials used today.

I'm sorry,I just can't see that,a crow quill is a really sensative float(even more so reversed,if it's good for registering bites in stillwater circumstances it's not as buoyant as a 8mm diameter balsa tip,shotted 14mm out of the water,because I wouldn't dream of using a balsa that diameter for stillwater floatfishing,unless it was for pellet up in the water,even dotted down,I use cro quill Avon's,but don't fancy your chances of dragging a piece of meat through with one,a nice dainty bit of flake maybe...

 

[flightliner]

LI have some purpose made jobs with a four inch top of balsa thats some fifteen mm diameter tapered but the top twenty five mm is whittled down to twelve/thirteen mm .One red and one black top.
Beneath is a swan quill some one two five mm long.
They work a treat, highly visible even when they've gone round a corner so to speak.
Others are the polystyrene "Avalons" that work well with a big meat bait but one of my most usefull is a big middy "parachute" waggler , the ones with the double ribs at the top end, very very good with a lump on the hookend as the ribs resist any sudden "hesitation" when the bait catches on some minor obstruction on the riverbed.
I hasten to add that the metal weight incorporated in their manufacture is removed for obvious reasons so a proper shotting pattern can be added when being used.

 

[Neil Maidment]

Interesting thoughts all round.

I've been trotting floats since before my school days and never cared much for debates of buoyancy, weight or sensitivity. My only caveat is that most of my trotting has been on the Dorset Stour and Hants Avon and that I've probably used most kinds of float over the years.

"Avons" never quite worked for me but I used them a lot. Trent Trotters were brilliant in shallow swims where trotting meat at prodigious distances was the norm (why I've not used them for many recent years is a good question).

My go to float for the best part of the last decade or two has been a fat bit of balsa taking a load of AAA shot. I can also see that tip at not quite so prodigious distances than in the past!

The chubber variations offered to my lazy hand by Clearwater, Dave Harrell, Drennan and others do the job I want them to do very effectively. I will admit, especially last season, to occasionally switching to dumpy wagglers with very pleasing results. But those short dumpy visible bits of balsa seem to me to handle any excessive pace of flow very effectively indeed and enable me to boss the swim and, more importantly, present the bait very effectively. That bait ranges from a single maggot on a #20 to a lump of torn off meat both often suspended under a 10grm bulk shotting pattern.

Each to their own of course but a bit of trial and error helps build personal confidence.

 

[lutra]

I'm sorry,I just can't see that,a crow quill is a really sensative float(even more so reversed,if it's good for registering bites in stillwater circumstances it's not as buoyant as a 8mm diameter balsa tip,shotted 14mm out of the water,because I wouldn't dream of using a balsa that diameter for stillwater floatfishing,unless it was for pellet up in the water,even dotted down,I use cro quill Avon's,but don't fancy your chances of dragging a piece of meat through with one,a nice dainty bit of flake maybe...

Seems you don't get that I'm talking of an Crow quill Avon with a body of what ever size you want it to have, not a straight crow quill?

Anyway if you fancy loosing some money, I can work a whole tin of meat down a summer barbel run for you and with the smallest bit of float you can find me if you like. Fishing well over depth and holding back hard will drag most things down a good flow just with the drag on the line. You don't even need a float if you don't want one.

 

[Jim Crosskey 2]

Interesting thread this as I'm planning on doing a bit of trotting next week on the Wye, most likely with a large lump of meat.

In terms of shotting pattern, is there a "normal" pattern? If I was fishing in say a 6 foot deep swim, my usual set up would be to have the bulk about 18 inches from the hook, with a number four shot closer - say between 4 and 6 inches from the hook? How does that compare with others - am I missing something vital?

 

[108831]

Working it,is not trotting it Lutra,there are many,many times bait has to travel at the speed at the current(or virtually so),also,my point was the sensativity of the quill,which is the same whether you have a massive body on it or not,but whatever,we have opposing opinions on it,hey-ho.

 

[lutra]

Working it,is not trotting it Lutra,there are many,many times bait has to travel at the speed at the current(or virtually so),also,my point was the sensativity of the quill,which is the same whether you have a massive body on it or not,but whatever,we have opposing opinions on it,hey-ho.

I'm sorry whitty, but your wrong. The body of a float even when weighted to pull it under the surface will still have some more load carrying ability. That's why it takes more weight to make it sink deeper. It's not a huge amount but it's there and the bigger the body the more it's there.

As for Sensitivity, not only does a larger bodied float lose sensitivity because of the extra weight needed to sink it deeper but also because of the extra weight in the whole rig that takes more force to get it to move. Then there's poorer streamlining of the larger body and shot......

On the plus side your right, your good big buoyant tips do give a float more load carrying ability (but less sensitivity), but probably not more than a lot of the long trotting crow quill avons in my box with 20, 25 maybe even 30mm tips and carry over 10bb to get to that. I'm sure I could make bigger if I felt the need, but hey-ho, I don't.

 

[tigger]

You gonn'a get out on Friday Brian?

 

[lutra]

You gonn'a get out on Friday Brian?

Not planning on it Ian. The rain has wet my appetite for a silver tourist this week and I'm not overly hot on fishing the first few weeks of the river coarse season anyway. Going on the Severn for a week in a few weeks, so may kick start it than.

Will you be there?