Nuts about Carp
Everything Carp & Carp Fishing!!
Snag Fishing
This topic is regarding fishing to and in snaggy water. Fortunately 95% of fishing in the UK is done in pretty well organised relatively snag free waters. Step abroad to many foreign waters such as the world record breaking Radutta or Rainbow and you enter a totally different world. Rainbow Lake for example is the product of a 120 acre obselete carbon mine with brackish water. This lake is stuffed full of sunken pine trees and all manner of submerged obstacles. Lake Radutta, Cassien and famously Lake Orient in France are renowned for containing sunken forests and even small villages! How the heck do you think about fishing these places!
Well, lets have a look at a few standard practises for these kind of obscenely difficult venues.
Fishing to snags is something we do at home regularly when slapping a bait under a tree root or pads. This first requires some tasty casting and secondly requires us to fish with the rods and reels cranked up tight. This will require also for your setup to be very sturdy and able to withstand a violent take. A snag style setup like above is needed with at least a set of dual banksticks or a pair for each rod.
Casting is the easy part if it is done correctly. Firstly I would make a cast to my chosen spot by making a mark on the ground in front of me, solely as a standing position. Remove any baited rig and leave just the lead on the line. Cast as tight as possible to your chosen spot if it is shy of the mark by 3 feet pull off 2 feet and use the line clip on the reel to now mark your spot. Re-cast to your mark and see how much tighter this cast is. Continue this process untill you get the exact position. Remember that adding your rig and a PVA bag will stretch a mono line so it's worth taking maybe 1-2 feet off the cast length to allow for this. Also remember to remove the clip after casting. You can keep this mark by now tying on some floss around the first rod ring.
When trying to fish as tight as possible to a snag, maybe a willow tree.
You might wish to try and get under a bush or similar, it's best to fish a much heavier lead than normal as when you feather the cast to slow the leads flight down a heavier lead will drop quicker into your chosen spot. Also remember that a flying objects trajectory from the rod is the same angle at which it will hit the water. Bearing this in mind, a cast with a release of around 11.00am will have an impact entry of 1.00pm on the water...So to get under a bush you'll subsequently need to release a little later to get a lower angle of trajectory. See the section on Distance fishing for Trajectory Info.
When fishing over snags we are presented with a completely different kettle of fish
again....This time we have for example a large bed of tree roots which extends from the lake bed by 8 feet shall we say. This makes conventional angling techniques impossible. We need to now fish with our rods firing directly up toward the horizon to keep the line off the water as much as possible. We also need to impliment the use of a bouyancy aid to keep the line well clear of the snags. Some of you may be saying "If it's that snaggy you shouldn't be fishing!" This may be true and in some situations I would totally agree, but for certain occasions this kind of fishing is a thoughtful and respectable way to get to our quarry.
We need to still pin some of the rig down near the hook bait so the use of maybe 6-8 feet of leadcore would be a sensible choice. Coming back to the bouyancy aid, this could be a simple device made from a clear Cola bottle or a Kinder egg casing. Most of these situations would require the angler to be placing his baits out with the aid of a dinghy as well. Not just for baiting situations but for safely landing fish too.
The other side to this style of fishing I have seen put in to practise is the use of banksticks positioned in the lake to allow anglers lines to be fished around an obstacle or snag. This can make fishing totally unreachable spots now practicle.
Please remember when performing any of the above practices that we must consider the wellfare of our quarry before we even think about our beloved trophy shot! We must make sure that what we are doing is not going to cause immediate or direct harm to the fish. Secondly we must stay safe too. Wading and boats are great tacticial approaches but both carry inherant risks and you should always practise these as safe as possible and certainly don't take any silly uneducated guesses. STAY SAFE!
Well, lets have a look at a few standard practises for these kind of obscenely difficult venues.Fishing to snags is something we do at home regularly when slapping a bait under a tree root or pads. This first requires some tasty casting and secondly requires us to fish with the rods and reels cranked up tight. This will require also for your setup to be very sturdy and able to withstand a violent take. A snag style setup like above is needed with at least a set of dual banksticks or a pair for each rod.
Casting is the easy part if it is done correctly. Firstly I would make a cast to my chosen spot by making a mark on the ground in front of me, solely as a standing position. Remove any baited rig and leave just the lead on the line. Cast as tight as possible to your chosen spot if it is shy of the mark by 3 feet pull off 2 feet and use the line clip on the reel to now mark your spot. Re-cast to your mark and see how much tighter this cast is. Continue this process untill you get the exact position. Remember that adding your rig and a PVA bag will stretch a mono line so it's worth taking maybe 1-2 feet off the cast length to allow for this. Also remember to remove the clip after casting. You can keep this mark by now tying on some floss around the first rod ring.When trying to fish as tight as possible to a snag, maybe a willow tree.
You might wish to try and get under a bush or similar, it's best to fish a much heavier lead than normal as when you feather the cast to slow the leads flight down a heavier lead will drop quicker into your chosen spot. Also remember that a flying objects trajectory from the rod is the same angle at which it will hit the water. Bearing this in mind, a cast with a release of around 11.00am will have an impact entry of 1.00pm on the water...So to get under a bush you'll subsequently need to release a little later to get a lower angle of trajectory. See the section on Distance fishing for Trajectory Info.When fishing over snags we are presented with a completely different kettle of fish
again....This time we have for example a large bed of tree roots which extends from the lake bed by 8 feet shall we say. This makes conventional angling techniques impossible. We need to now fish with our rods firing directly up toward the horizon to keep the line off the water as much as possible. We also need to impliment the use of a bouyancy aid to keep the line well clear of the snags. Some of you may be saying "If it's that snaggy you shouldn't be fishing!" This may be true and in some situations I would totally agree, but for certain occasions this kind of fishing is a thoughtful and respectable way to get to our quarry. We need to still pin some of the rig down near the hook bait so the use of maybe 6-8 feet of leadcore would be a sensible choice. Coming back to the bouyancy aid, this could be a simple device made from a clear Cola bottle or a Kinder egg casing. Most of these situations would require the angler to be placing his baits out with the aid of a dinghy as well. Not just for baiting situations but for safely landing fish too.
The other side to this style of fishing I have seen put in to practise is the use of banksticks positioned in the lake to allow anglers lines to be fished around an obstacle or snag. This can make fishing totally unreachable spots now practicle.
Please remember when performing any of the above practices that we must consider the wellfare of our quarry before we even think about our beloved trophy shot! We must make sure that what we are doing is not going to cause immediate or direct harm to the fish. Secondly we must stay safe too. Wading and boats are great tacticial approaches but both carry inherant risks and you should always practise these as safe as possible and certainly don't take any silly uneducated guesses. STAY SAFE!
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