The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Vole wrote:On one of TPBTW's forebears, a gent with a lovely collection of David Slater reels did a cracking article - I wonder if he could be found and prevailed upon?

Is this the article?
http://www.purepiscator.com/articles/ph ... reels.aspx

Hole in one, Sir!
Aren't they gorgeous?
Can dribbling into a keyboard cause electrocution?

Very intesresting stuff fellas and paints a lovely picture of the background and tactics involved with long trotting.

Thanks all......

Particularly liked your peice Vole.... :hat:

Top notch stuff here, gents! And very inspiring as well.
I will wear my TFF badge with pride when I go trotting for Zander (!!!) tomorrow. Never done it before. Encouraged by this thread, I just invented this new technique, that will be known as 'heavy trotting' with a Smelt for bait in fast flowing, very deep water. Thanks to the very interesting and also useful posts in this thread, I finally decided on the Wizard and a Mordex Major. Hats off to your knowledge, chaps. You made my week.

It may well be a new method in Germany, but Its not new in the UK, its a method that's been around before I was a nipper, 50 years plus. Its well worth trotting dead baits in moving water. You get to show the bait to more pike/zander, and also learn about the contours of the river/swims. Its best to get the bait mid water in summer and close to the bottom in cold weather, though be careful not to snag up.

Michael wrote:It may well be a new method in Germany, but Its not new in the UK, its a method that's been around before I was a nipper, 50 years plus. Its well worth trotting dead baits in moving water. You get to show the bait to more pike/zander, and also learn about the contours of the river/swims. Its best to get the bait mid water in summer and close to the bottom in cold weather, though be careful not to snag up.

It might not even be knew in Germany. I just made it up. I had not heard of this method before. It's quite challenging and not as easy as I thought it would be. Thanks for the tips, Michael.

Brilliant article Vole, nine years on !

My own experience of fishing the Trent for the best part of forty odd years is as follows.

I always a use a 13ft fibreglass rod ...match type with the capability of picking up a long line for those bites you get at the very end of the trot...roach especially. In recent years I use a 13ft Lee of Redditch Golden Jubilee Fyberon Glass prior to that a sealey black arrow
Line for me is normally 4lb,floats nothing less than 6bb but norm is near 8bb.Type of float ...crow quill avon or Drennan big stick.
Why-you need a heavy float ...to boss the flow with your float as you need to mend the line frequently and keep the float on track.If you fish to light the float gets pulled off coarse.A big porcupine quill with the tip cut back to the wider part of the quill makes a good visible tip at distance.
I normally shot the float shirt button style,however a trick shown to me by a old Trentfisher boy was to do this in pairs with single droppers in the last 2-3ft of line depending on the depth of swim.It's worked well for me over the years so I stick with it.
I always use a fixed spool or closed faced reel the latter are very good on windy days regarding line control.
When long trotting you get into a rhythm I cast slightly down stream ,this gives a nice angle to set the float on its way and make the first mend of the line to get the line behind the float.
Loose feed at the start is slightly upstream and a second down stream.On the Trent this is a constant pattern .


All the best
Nige.