Feature Finding And How To Do It!!

How many times have you turned up at a venue, set up your rods and just cast out into the middle of the water without thinking about what lies beneath the surface? If you are lucky, then the swim you have chosen has a visible feature to cast to, such as an island, lily pads or a reed bed. Maybe it has resulted in a fish or two for you. But what if there are no visible features, you are just facing an open expanse of water or what if there was a nice gravel bar just to your left, and if you was fishing on it you could be catching all day (and night) long?

Many UK carpers keep a separate rod made up just for marker work. Because its best that you use the heaviest weight possible, rods with 3.5lb plus test curves are popular. There are even rods made specificaly for this task. Furthermore its best to use a braid mainline due to its lack of stretch. This set up will also help you find out the composition of the lake/river bed. To do this you wind the float back tight to the lead with the rod directly in front of you. You then horizontaly pull the rod back through 90 -120 degrees to your side, watching how the rod tip behaves. If its a smooth pull, you're pulling the lead over silt. If it taps noticeably you're pull over gravel. If the rod is hard to pull round you're in weed. Furthermore you can use it as a marker for casting to and aiming groundbait once you've found the depth and spot you want.

The principle is easy, like all good things. Basicaly you have a free running lead set-up, however instead of a leader you attach a very bouyant float to your mainline. It works like this - ( cue advanced computer graphics....)

1. You cast out the set-up, and reel in untill you feel the float hit the weight swivel.
2. You give out line from the reel a foot at a time ( it helps if you have a mark on the rod to get the length right ) counting as you go.
3. Once the float hits the surface you have found the depth.

Heres the gear you will need to setup the marker Rig.

1. Marker Float. There are specificaly made floats like these, but any large and bouyant float will do as long as you can fix it to the line so it doessn't slide about.
2. Lead weight - the heavier the better ( at least 3oz/85g )
3. Cork ball - don't worry if you can't get these. Just trim down a piece of wine cork.
4. Large rubber bead
5. Run ring. A wide bore swivel will do the job also.
6. Stiff monofilament ( the stiffer the better )

Tie about 6" of stiff mono to your weight. Thread on the cork ball and tie on the run ring. Then slip the corkball over the end of the run ring. The corkball helps keep the run ring up in the water, making it easier to give line. The joy of this set up is that once you've tied it, you can store it made up like this for future use.

Thread your mainline through the run ring and the rubber bead. Tie the mainline to the float, and push the bead over the knot on the float.
Job done

Tips

For your marker rod, you can realy use any spare carp rod and reel, although any rod used outside its TC with a weight over its max casting weight will always be a compromise, but I will suggest that you just use an old carp rod.

As you come across a variation in the bottom you can then pay out measured lengths of line from the reel, until the float breaks the surface, to ascertain the depth. Doing this across the lake bed will build up a picture of the depths and types of bottom that make up your swim.

• Generally, silt will feel like a smooth pullback, but with resistance.
• Weed will just be a heavy and solid resistance.
• Clay will make the rod tip bounce gently with occasional smooth pulls.
• Gravel will vary depending on the size of the stones.
• Fine gravel will give sharp, rapid and pronounced taps on the rod tip, where as larger stones will give very pronounced raps to the rod tip.
• Experiment on some marginal area that you can see, so you can tell what the rod tip does.