Monday Top 5 - Fishing A New Venue

This entry was posted on 26th February, 2018

It’s exciting heading to a new venue. The prospect, potential, and relative unknown of a place where you haven’t wet a line before. It can often be tricky to get that all important first bite on somewhere new, so here’s a few helpful hints to ensure that, when you head to a new venue, you give yourself the best chance of catching.

Tried and Tested

What’s that familer saying… ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’

The same goes for your choice of tactics approaching a new water. Make sure you play to you strengths, and select tackle, tactics and bait that you have experience using, and confidence in. There’s nothing worse then heading somewhere new and trying a new bait and new rigs, because you have no idea what has gone wrong and what to change if you blank; you just end up messing with your own head. Stick to what you know and what you do best and you’ll put the odds in your favour.



Homework

Before heading to a new venue, make sure you do your homework. The beautiful thing about the internet and social media is that there is often up to date information on captures and where fish have been coming from on particular venues. There are also often swim maps, fishery rules, and other essesntial information that you need to familiarise yourself with before you head to your new venue. After all you need to ensure you are fishing within the rules and giving yourself the best possible chance to catch on your first visit.

Water Watch

Arrive as early as possible, and stay as late as possible. Never let your eyes leave the water, no matter how much you want to relax. If you see showing fish, cast to them or move to an appropriate swim if possible. If it's safe and within the rules, get some elavation via a tree; this will help you see not only hopefully fish ,but features such as shallow bars and areas of weed over a larger area of the lake. Don’t forget your polarised glasses, too. If you have the location correct, often the rest will fall into place. At the end of the session mark down, via a fishing diary or one of the fishing specific apps, where you have seen fish activity or caught from; this will help you when approaching the venue on your next trip, or at the same time of year the following season.



It's Good to Talk

Have a chat to other anglers at the venue. Now, I don’t mean demand to see their rigs and analyse their bait, but often anglers are more than happy to chat about their approach, and the successes they have had on the venue. This can help you gauge an approach that will help you get that bite, as well as giving you a wealth of information to help piece the puzzle of your new venue together.



Orientation

Get an idea of where the north, south, east and west banks are. This will help you narrow down areas; for example when a cold northerly wind is blowing, you'll kknow where all that cold air will be hitting in relation to the lake. This also means that having an eye on the weather prior to and at the time of your trip is important, and once again it's another tactic that can massively help boost your chances of catching.

Above all else, enjoy a new water; the magic of that first bite is awesome, and we are so fortunate to have so much water to go and fish nowadays.

I hope the tips above help you when you are heading to fish a new venue!