Transform Your Method Feeder Fishing

The Method Feeder is an amazingly successful tactic, used by many anglers. However, believe it or not, there are many ways to transform it from a great technique to an incredible one.

The Method is so effective at putting fish on the bank that some anglers would be happy to use it 365 days a year. Apart from fishing the long pole to the shallow margins of an island, few other approaches place the loosefeed and hookbait with such precision.

Preston Elasticated Flat Method Feeders

The Method also provides the angler with the best chance of a bite because it always offers a perfect presentation. It never tangles, and it covers the feeder and end tackle when the payload breaks down. It is also child’s play to set up and fish. What could be better?

There are many different ways to approach a session, and all are very good on their day, but you have to go a long way to beat the Method. It will help you to catch fish from all waters in all conditions with the minimum of fuss.

Method Feeder Rig

The positive aspect of feeder fishing is also its simplicity. There are no complicated shotting patterns to consider, and everything is pinned down, so there is little to spook the fish. Of course, there are still a few tips and wheezes you can adopt to turn something great into something incredible.

The following five points are things that some of the most successful anglers in the country have developed over the years.

Match Your Payload To Your Target Species
Groundbait or pellets? It’s a question as old as the Method itself when it comes to which bait you should load the feeder with and something that causes a lot of confusion.

Keep things simple. If you are specifically targeting silver fish and F1s, use groundbait. If the target is carp over 6lb, then these big boys need feeding, so use 100 per cent moistened micro pellets. For every other scenario, it is an 80:20 combination of ground bait and micro pellets. The groundbait creates a cloud in the water, which attracts the fish and encourages them to feed with confidence. The pellets then leave them something to eat and hold them in the swim for longer.

Swim Stim F1 Sweet

For example, you could use a mixture of Dynamite Baits’ Swim Stim F1 Sweet. Don’t let the name fool you. It is a range designed for F1s, but all fish, mainly carp and skimmers, love it. F1 Sweet is packed with all the same tastes, flavours, and attractors as the rest of the Swim Stim range, but with the addition of a sweet palatant. To increase the flavour, you could also add a glug of Sweet Tiger CSL Liquid to both the groundbait mixing water as well as the pellets.

Dip The Feeder
Once the feeder is loaded, dip it into a little more of the Sweet Tiger Liquid. Fish feed more confidently in a cloud, even in the highly-coloured water of commercial summer pools. The cloud also puts loads of smell and attraction into the water, which drives the fish wild, looking for something to eat - that something is your hook bait!

Dip The Method Feeder

Stop Baits Sticking To The Mould
With the development of moulds, Method feeder fishing has never been so easy. But you still need to prepare your groundbait and pellets correctly to prevent them from sticking in the Mould after you have loaded the feeder with either.

Method Mould

An easy way to stop this from happening is to cut a length of heavy-duty plastic, lay it across the Mould’s pan and then tape it around the base of the feeder. This means that the payload will never get stuck in the Mould and you’ll get a perfectly-loaded feeder every time. Regarding the plastic, use a strip from a big food bag because it is thick and will last longer, but any plastic will suffice.

Try Different Hookbaits During The Session
When it comes to hookbaits, always load up with a wide selection including dead maggots, corn, Dynamite’s Durables and their Slow Sinking Nuggets. The reason is simply that every day is different. Some days the fish want a small, light bait. Other days it’s a high-viz one or even a hookbait that matches the hatch. But, by carrying a range of alternative hookbaits, it is easy to chop and change to discover what is working best on the day. On some days you might decide to use dead maggots, but you can even change these from using a single one to two or three on the hook.

Dynamite Durables

Slow Sinking Nuggets

Also, it is even possible to change the same hookbait, and it is something that can make a massive difference at times. Dead maggots are really good because they are almost weightless, so the hookbait goes into the mouth of a fish without them even realising. The bites, therefore, always tend to be very positive.

Loosfeed Corn For Bigger Carp
When it comes to Method feeder fishing, most anglers fish a single line – either into open water or to a feature. This is great, and you will catch a lot of fish. To catch even more, fish a couple of extra lines to target the larger fish.

Using Double Maggot

On many waters, the Method seems to catch more of the ‘stockies’ as opposed to the bigger carp. To this end, you can use loosefeed corn either just over the marginal shelf or in the margins. These are both classic big-carp areas and places where they only ever encounter pole and waggler rigs, never the Method. By fishing a payload of pellets or pellets and groundbait, with a yellow Slow Sinking Nugget on the hair rig, you can get through to the larger fish in the lake because the particle-only approach made them bully the little ones out of the way.

Although there is nothing here that is radically different or mind-blowing, adopting these few little tips and tweaks will improve your Method feeder fishing immeasurably.

This article was brought to you in association with Improve Your Coarse Fishing.