I have been fishing for over 30 years and in that time tackle, techniques and baits have changed so much at times its difficult to keep up with them. There have been some fantastic improvements in fishing tackle which has undoubtedly enabled even the novice angler to catch large weights of fish, especially at many of the new venues springing up all over the country. It seems nowadays if you have some land dig it out and fill it full of fish and charge between ?5 and ?10 a day and you are made, don't get me wrong some of these venues are cracking and you will catch a lot of fish but I have literally seen what I call 'wholes in the ground', no features and not very picturesque either!, these are not my cup of tea I would much rather fish a natural lake, river or stream I get far more satisfaction catching my fish form a natural environment.



Ok, so back to basics I have mentioned how fishing has changed dramatically over the years and at times it seems like you need a degree in science to catch fish, this is not the case, the methods may have changed but fish have not, find them, offer them a tasty bait with the right method and you will catch them, its as simple as that!.

I have read many fishing books and articles over the years and I rarely see people talking about the importance of plumbing the depth which is astounding really it is one of the most important things you must do when you start fishing. Think about it, you arrive at your peg and start to bait up the area you are going to fish in, what happens to the bait you are throwing in, it falls through the water and sinks to the bottom, the fish find the bait and start chomping away, the more bait you feed, usually the more fish you will attract but never over feed, when I start to get bites I usually feed a small handful of bait about every 10 minutes, this will keep them in my peg and stop them from moving off in search of other offerings, usually the bloke fishing next to me!

So not to pluming the depth, this is a really simple thing to do and I see so many young anglers completely ignore it, they set-up cast in and start fishing at any depth, they are usually nowhere near the bottom and are fishing mid-water, and yes they chuck in loads of bait which sinks to the bottom and that where the fish are but there hook bait is not, big, big mistake.

This is how we plumb the depth. We attach our float and hook and nothing else, NO shots yet, just the float and hook, we take a guess at the depth, always go shorter than what you think the depth is, there is a reason for this. Now we get a plumb bob, you can buy these in any tackle shop, they are simply a weight with cork in the bottom to stick your hook in, if you don't have a plumb bob use a weight that is heavy enough to pull the float under, most cases a big swan shot will do the trick.

Now we cast in with the plumb bob attached to our hook and out float about 2 feet deep, what happens now is the weight sinks to the bottom and the float disappears if the water is deeper than the two feet we set from the float to the weight. Reel in and push the float up the line and try again, can you see the float sitting on top of the water yet?, if not you are still fishing to shallow, reel in and push the float up the line again and re-cast, eventually you will have the weight on the bottom and you will see your float sitting nicely on the water, TIP if the float is lying flat on the water you are to deep, move the float down and cast in again you want the float tip just showing in the water, perfect now you know you are fishing exactly on the bottom where all your bait is and hopefully the fish!