Top 5 River Fishing Tips - with Ade Kiddell

This entry was posted on 25th September, 2020 by Anna Cooper

Sunday 27^th September 2020 marks World River’s Day and as anglers, we here at team AD thought a great way to celebrate was to share some river fishing tips with you from our very own Ade Kiddell.  

When you are on a fishing holiday anywhere in the world, whether it is in the UK rivers or across Europe or even in other continents, it can be great fun to try to catch fish from the local river, but before you cast your line, remember to check that it is allowed to fish and obtain any licence or permit required before fishing.

1) Use Natural Fishing Baits

Rivers respond well to natural baits, so maggots, worms, bread and corn are my go-to baits when fishing on any river. Bread and biscuit based groundbaits work best when targeting silverfish on rivers such as roach, rudd and bream.

Foraging along the riverbank can provide some special baits for a days fishing, for example, slugs make great bait for chub and barbel. Late summer look out for elderberries and blackberries growing close to the river, the fish will get used to these as a food source and some great catches can be made using the berries as bait. Chub and roach especially can’t resist a fruity treat!

2) Fishing on rivers with groundbait

Groundbaits for the river needs to be a heavy or sticky mixture, fine and lighter ground baits can often be washed away in the flow before ever they reach the riverbed, taking the fish away from the desired area. Try to make your mix well before fishing and make sure it's evenly mixed with no dry particles.

3) Dealing with fast-flowing waters when river fishing

When feeder fishing on a river it can sometimes be a problem to hold bottom, the force of the rivers flow will continually make the feeder move out of position, a simple tip to help hold bottom is after casting, once the feeder hits bottom-feed out some extra line. This could be a couple of metres or maybe even ten or 20 metres, experiment with how much until you reach a balance. Bites using this method will often be a sharp tug followed by dropping back of the tip.

4) Fishing in Flooded Rivers

Many anglers avoid rivers when they are flooded but providing you take extra care on muddy slippery banks then the rewards can be worth the extra effort. Look for areas of slack or slow-flowing water, areas behind fallen trees can be very good. Larger high flavoured baits work very well but worms can be deadly.

The pole feeder is a great method and very effective in flooded or coloured rivers, use a carp style pole rigged with some 8 or 10 elastic and a basic feeder rig. The method involves lowering a feeder directly below the pole tip and feeling for bites, Nisa feeders produce tackle especially for pole feeder fishing like the Nisa Bitemaster Indicator

5) Consider Fishing an Estuary

An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river and sea. Estuaries make great places to fish and can be tackled with heavier style coarse tackle or light sea tackle. For bait use, small pieces of fish or mud worms dug from the estuary. Take care of the incoming water as estuaries are tidal and whats dry at low tide can be deep water at high tide. Give it a try some time some great sport and maybe a few fresh fish can make a nice meal, as it's possible to catch both fresh and saltwater species from estuaries.

Extra Useful River Fishing Tips:

•  Urban River Fishing

Rivers in town centres make great winter venues, fish that have spent the warmer months in the wilds of the river system will often migrate into the more urban areas during the cooler months. The buildings and roads provide heat which in turns raises the river temperature by a small amount but enough to provide the fish with a winter home. Even small rivers that seem devoid of fish in the summer will often hold fish in the winter, give it a try.

•  Pick a good spot

Look out for areas of the river where people feed the wildfowl, a lot of the bread that’s thrown for the ducks and swans will not get eaten and will become fish food and a free attractor for the angler. Try fishing these areas with bread as bait and some great catches can be made. Take extra care when fishing theses areas to avoid problems with wildlife getting tangled in your fishing tackle.

•  Check Permits, Licences and Closed Season

As many river anglers know, in the UK it's forbidden to fish a river for coarse fish from 00.01 on the 15^th March to 23.59 on the 15^th June, to give the fish time to spawn. There are some exceptions but make sure if you plan to fish rivers that you have the correct licence and follow the bylaws for the place you are fishing.

Going fishing is not always about the biggest or most fish, for a fun challenge try catching as many different species of fish as possible from the same river. Good tactics involve changing bait and methods to attract different species. With somewhere around 50 different species to catch it’s a great challenge. 

You can test out all these fishing tips across plenty of river venues. If you need some inspiration for where to cast your fishing line next, check out my top 3 river venues or the fishing location guides found on the AD blog.