Phil Spinks - A Quest For Rudd

This entry was posted on 23rd July, 2018

After a successful spring chasing carp, when June 16th came round I fancied something different fishing wise. With the weather being so hot, and no rain, it hasn’t been great fishing conditions. But one species that is willing to play ball during the hot weather is rudd.

Wandering along the Fenland drains and rivers with minimal tackle, looking for surface feeding rudd is a style of fishing I really enjoy.

At times it can be very challenging, with the banks often being overgrown with stinging nettles, lots of hungry horse flies, and miles and miles of walking. But well worth the effort when a group of big rudd are found and start exploding on the surface as they take pieces of floating crust.

I can’t complain about the bank fishing too much though as a lot of my rudd fishing is now from a boat. Fishing buddy Jason has the perfect fishing boat, a sixteen foot Seastrike, fully kitted out with a bow mounted electric motor that allows us both to stand at the front of the boat with our polarised glasses on, slowing down and quietly creeping along, looking for big rudd in the clear water.



Decent sunglasses make a huge difference. I recently up graded to the Fortis Vista glasses. They have much higher quality lenses that not only allow me to see deeper into the water, but give me the experience of essentially watching the rudd in HD.



On a bright, clear day the big rudd can be clearly seen and by stopping the boat up river slightly they can normally be persuaded to take floating crust. It may take 15 minutes of feeding crust to grain their confidence, but normally rudd are very greedy and finding them is the hard part.

Tackle is kept simple, big loaded floats attached to the line via a float adaptor. With 4 lb line straight through to a fine wire size 10 hook.

The rudd fishing has been very kind to me over the last few weeks, with numerous rudd over 2lb gracing my net. In fact, one baking hot Sunday evening, I managed nine rudd over 2lb including a new pb of 2lb 15oz.



As well as the 2lb 15oz, I’ve manged rudd of 2lb 14oz and 2lb 13oz. Surely the magic 3lber isn’t too far away? But one thing I have learned is if I did catch a rudd that weighed 3lb it wouldn’t look too different to a 2lb 15oz. They are all beautiful fish.



The sight of a big golden rudd waving across the surface then exploding as it grabs a piece of bread crust has to be one of the best sights in summer fishing. I have a feeling the carp rods may get very dusty for the rest of the summer.