Dale Jackson’s cage feeder tactics are guaranteed to up your catch rate on venues that have recently received a new introduction of the species
MANY commercial fisheries undertake stocking programmes at this time of year, and one species dominates.
Hundreds of thousands of small F1s have been introduced into venues as bosses top up their lakes while the weather is cold and dissolved oxygen levels in the water are high.
These fish have come straight from the farm, where they’ve lived a quiet life and received regular free meals without fear of being caught.
As a result, they’re naïve to the dangers when first stocked and are quite easy to catch in the early days of their residency.
Fish-a-chuck action is a genuine possibility in even the most testing of winter conditions, but it is far from a given.
Sparking a feeding frenzy is simple, but priming your peg so that they aren’t all darting around your swim frantically is another matter entirely.
Marston Fields Fishery boss Dale Jackson recently oversaw a mammoth introduction of F1s in the 8oz-12oz bracket at the Birmingham complex.
As well as managing the venue, he also fishes it regularly, and has experimented with several approaches to up his catch rate. He’s now settled on one which he believes is head and shoulders above the rest, and several subsequent match wins while using it have proved it to be the real deal.
“F1s are very curious fish, and as soon as anything breaks the surface they’ll race in to see if it is something that they can eat,” explained Dale.
“Give them too much food and it delays how long it takes for them to find the hookbait, but if you introduce plenty of attraction that includes no real food value, it’ll be taken pretty quickly.
“A groundbait feeder packed with a cloudy groundbait has worked a treat for me, and it’s outscoring other tactics by a country mile at the moment.”
Tactical theory
A large proportion of the new F1s at Marston Fields have been stocked into Sycamore. This lake has an island running down the middle that is approximately 25m away from the bank.
Depths close to the feature are
