In the days of bolt rigs and self hooking set ups, the traditional waggler is easily forgotten. But it can still be key to success and now is the perfect time to try it!

It would be incredibly fair to say that as match anglers, we all suffer from a touch of poleitis! In fact I can’t remember the last time I saw an angler on a match fishing with a traditional waggler on a Stillwater and it is a crying shame. 

The waggler still has a huge place in your match armoury and not only is it a match winning tactic in its own right, it can be a useful addition to your match plan along with a pole. 

So today I have brought you to the wonderful Springvale Fishery at Bevercotes. This has quickly become one of my favourite commercial fisheries and the amazing attendances suggest I am not alone in my opinion! It features several great lakes and what I like the most is the real mixture of quality fish of all species. It is not uncommon to catch 100lb weights of silvers here along with some cracking carp. 

Why The Waggler?

I guess the starting place is why should we fish a waggler over a pole. Well firstly I think it is important to say that rarely these days is just fishing a waggler all match the best way to winning. But when used in combination with a pole or even a feeder then you will get the best from it. 

Its strength comes in the winter when the water becomes clearer and fishing away from the bank and past the pole line can be an advantage. That quiet zone beyond pole range is the perfect place for fish to back off to and while the feeder can be a noisy, spooky option, the waggler is a nice discreet way to pick those fish off that hang out of the way. 

Better still we need to loose feed the waggler with a catty and that creates a decent area for you to cast and work around. This ‘patch’ means you aren’t catching fish from the same spot each and every time and they often feed with increased confidence as a result. 

Float Choice

There are some fantastic wagglers around now and the popularity of hollow bristles in pole float design has shifted across to wagglers and we now have floats that you can actually see! ‘Back in my day’ we used solid peacock floats with painted tops and on some days they were a nightmare to actually see. No such issues anymore and I’d urge anyone to grab some of the hollow types. 

I like the Drennan offerings (Visi-Wag & Insert Crystal) the most these days and pretty much always use the loaded variety. The nice thing about these floats is they are loaded to provide you with a casting weight, but also have a small carrying capacity meaning I can have eight No8 shot down the line to use however I see fit. Then no matter which float I grab the shotting remains the same. 

I carry a variety of weights but on still waters when casting to ‘loose feed’ range, a float of 2g-3g should be more than adequate. 

Interestingly the insert not only gives you excellent visibility and the bite detection it offers is essential. Many thicker waggler like straight peacocks are great on rivers when looking to trip a bait along the bottom. But on still waters where a level of precision is needed and bites can be delicate and insert is always the choice. 

You will notice I also have a bodied waggler in my collection. These rarely come into play these days but can be great when looking to catch skimmers and bream. They are particularly useful when you need to get more weight down the line and fish in a more static manner perhaps fishing one to two feet over depth in strong tows and winds. 

This is a forgotten art now with the development of feeder fishing, but there is something satisfying about conquering the bad conditions on the waggler and catching those skimmers over depth. Plus a slow moving hook bait can often tempt fish when a static feeder presentation doesn’t!

The Rig

My set up is simplicity in itself and thanks to loaded floats we no longer need the big locking shot like we once did. This makes things so much easier in terms of moving the float around and also means we now get less tangles. 

The float is simply locked in position with two gripper stops placed either side of a waggler adaptor (essential when changing floats). I then put two or three of the No8 stotz against these. They can be used later if I wish to bulk the rig down, but nine times out of 10 I am fishing with the rest of the No8 stotz spread along the mainline (eight No8 stotz if you remember). 

This set up is versatile, tangle free and simple. Using Stotz means I can move my droppers around easily and react to how the fish are feeding. As a started I will always have them spread to catch on the drop, but if small fish or an issue or I am waiting for bites then I will use a bulk and two droppers pattern to give me increased stability. 

A thin mainline makes waggler fishing easy and you should be looking for either 0.16mm or 0.18mm. I use DETEXION as it is simple superb and casts light floats effortlessly. The low diameter makes sinking the line and casting so much easier. 

Of course some of you will be worried about strength but when combined with a 13ft float rod there is so much ‘give’ in the set up that there is no need to worry, even when carp are hooked. 

Hooklength wise it is important to think about what you are trying to catch. Here for instance I am expecting mainly ide, skimmers and chub up to 2lb with the very occasional carp. So I am more than happy using an 0.12mm hooklength and size 16 B911 F1 hook. If there were more carp I would step that up but I know this balanced set up will cope with the odd rogue carp no problem at all. 

Rods and reels

In this day and age the 13ft waggler rod is nearly always the rarest visitor to the bank. Commercial anglers stick to 11ft models while the river anglers are now using beautiful 15ft rods that are lighter than 12ft models of yore. But for Stillwater ‘proper’ waggler fishing you cannot beat the traditional 13footer. 

I use an old Preston Super Float model which is a ‘tippy’ traditional action. This style of rod would always be my preference over the modern through actioned offerings. Tippy floats cast light floats better and also pick the line up superbly well when you do get a bite. 

The reel needs to match the rod and top be honest most of the modern reels are so light it’s hard to find one that doesn’t balance nicely. But a compact front drag reel that you can easily reach the spool with your fingers is all you need and then load it with 0.16mm or 0.18mm DETEXION and you have the perfect set up. 

Plumbing

Many river anglers and traditional waggler anglers of the past would actually rarely plumb the depth and just fish for a while making small adjustments until the hook is dragging. But I need to be more precise than that and a nice small 15g plummet can work very well for this purpose. 

A simple underarm cast in a smooth controlled style will get the plummet to where you need it and thanks to the gripper stops on the rig small depth changes can be made with ease. 

Once the cast has been made to the required distance, simply pay off a small amount of slack so that the float can pop up. If the float is visible, repeat the process removing small amounts of depth until the float disappears just out of sight. Then tweak it until the float is just visible and you will then have a precise depth indication. 

Just like then pole fishing I will mark the depth against the rod blank. Always do this to the tip of the waggler and not the loading as floats come in different lengths. 

Once I have found this ‘dead depth’ I will then add a float length and start fishing from there. I do think being a touch more over depth with a waggler compared to am pole rig is important. There is much more movement to work with and I want my bait to be as still as possible on the bottom. 

Presentation

To get good presentation on still waters it is imperative that you sink your line. So for this reason it is a must to cast beyond the feed zone by two or three metres, dip the rod tip underwater and give it a couple of quick winds drawing the float back into the loose feed. 

This will mean that your line is no longer susceptible to any skim that’s on the surface that could drag your float out of position too quickly making your hook bait appear unnatural. 

You can also sink the line with a quick flick of the rod tip but I prefer to wind back into the feed as I described. 

Let’s do some fishing!

Today I only have maggots with me, no groundbait or anything. At Springvale the lakes are regularly netted and the small removed so I know that I don’t need to worry about nuisance fish and simple loose fed maggots will more than do the trick today. 

Using a decent sized catty I am loose feeding to about 18metres which is that nice distance past the pole line. It is important to base your attack around the distance you can feed with a nice degree of accuracy. It is no good fishing at 22metres when you can’t get the bait there with any regularity. It is best to fish at 16metres and feed it well than 20metres and feed it badly – always remember that!

Loose feeding maggots will always bring fish up in the water especially when fed past the pole range as the fish will feed with confidence without the pole waving above their heads. This is where the spread shotting really comes into its own and today is the perfect example of this. In fact 90% of the bites are coming either on the drop or within a few seconds of the rig fully settling. I can imagine the fish feeding freely through the loose feed and a quick change to my feed pattern is made. The traditional way to fish wag and mag is to cast out, sink the line and then feed. But due to the feeding response and the coming high in the water I have started to feed before casting. 

This slight change works a treat and I am soon casting even faster than before. 

A nice light 2g float is working well in the light cross wind but I would not hesitate to up that to 4g or even 4g if I need something to ‘boss’ the conditions. Sometimes using a heavier float than you need can work really well and you should never be frightened to use a heavy float. It does make casting and control easier especially in cross winds. I think we have become so accustomed to using light pole rigs these days that we struggle to get our heads around using 3g, 4g or even 5g floats in the same depths as we are using 4×12 pole floats. But it is totally different and you need to boss the water so don’t be frightened of weight. 

It is outstanding fishing here at Springvale and after a few hours we have well over 30lb of lovely silvers. It’s an amazing fishery and even on the coldest days there are fish to be caught and the waggler is a great way to catch them!