Questions to Sven and Yacob

Sven and Yacob's Fishing recieves many questions from visitors to our site.

This page is dedicated to some of our answers to these questions.

If you have any questions you would like us to answer, please email them to us through out 'Contact us' page.

What is the best way to float fish weedy canals?

Canals tend to be fairly shallow venues and as such are ideal places, especially during the summer months, for aquatic plants to flourish. Often to the point of choking the entire venue, making fishing in general very difficult.

One way to tackle the problem is to find holes in the weed and fish in them. This can present many problems, not least that when you hook into a fish you will have to try and bring it through the weed to your net. It follows, then, that upping the scale of your tackle would be beneficial. As a tactic when you hook a fish, using your stepped up tackle, play the fish hard out of the weed, and keep the rod high.

Another problem with float fishing in the small holes in the weed is that the width of the hole in the weed may be wider than the depth of the water, so that when you cast into it, the end tackle will drift down into the weedy outskirts and not down to where the fish are.

To overcome this, try using a sliding float set up with bulk shot about 2 feet from the hook and a dropper shot about 6" up from the hook. This means that you can cast within 2 feet of the weed without becoming snagged. Another tip is to use large bodied waggler floats which are more stable in the water meaning your rig will not drift into the surrounding weed.

But by far the best way to fish a weed choked canal is to remove the weed! Drag the swim with a weed rake and keep doing this until no weed comes back from your swim. You can buy garden rakes and adapt them to your own use, but it is better to make your own, specific for the purpose.

Not only will you swim be clear of the troublesome weed and much easier to float fish, but also the rake will stir up the bottom of the canal and encourage fish into your swim to feed on all the goodies revealed by the aquatic plants removal.

Sven