Catching Winter Livebait

Trying my best to catch Roach from Leeds Canal but from where they were in Summer it is proving very, very difficult at this time of year. I have a whip and Maggot and groundbait but after first light, I can't seem to get anything until sometimes the last hour of light.

Is there a time of day that anyone recommends? A different set up? Any way to get them feeding during the day and other techniques to get hold of Livebait?

I've tried where they might shore up (under boats, outlets etc) but I'm really struggling to get any at...

Any help would as usual be greatly appreciated!

try soggy bread groundbait and bread punch on the hook. sometimes gets results in even the coldest conditions ;-)

rozzo wrote:try soggy bread groundbait and bread punch on the hook. sometimes gets results in even the coldest conditions ;-)

Scuse my ignorance as it's all new...Soggy Bread, is this just wetting large chunks of bread and throwing it in?!

put some slices of white bread in a liquidiser till it,s really fine , just feed a small ball of it [golf ball size] every now and then and fish punched bread on a small hook [18 or20] and a fine hooklength of about 2 pound, dot your float right down so you,ll see the slightest of bites mate, but if it,s cold it will still be hard , might be better trying for some small perch on the dropshot

The hook bait isn't that important. It's find the bait fish. Roach will take a maggot as well as anything else and it's a nice durable hook bait. Find the shoal and you'll catch. Finding the roach will also most likely locate the pike so it's time well spent.

I have had a float rod out trying for live bait for a few weeks and all i have had is 1 baby pike, my friend having only 1 perch. We move around a lot and hit different spots of the water. Its tough fishing this time of year for small fish i find.
Summer i can catch 10+ roach in a few hours....

If any advice i could offer would be stick to the centre bottom, i fish canals all the time and see match fishermen pulling out from the very middle on bread punch or caster.

Catch in the autumn and store at home, Illegal maybe, unethical surely, best way definitely☺

Might need a defibrillator to bring em back round for the winter

The sight of 700 teeth wrapped in a Pikes jaw soon brings them back to life mate lol

HDangler wrote:Might need a defibrillator to bring em back round for the winter

I used to have this problem in winter , but a started to use deadbaits big ones too and that decision years back to switch to deads payed off , I started catching bigger fish , don't get me wrong they did not turn up every session , but made a difference enough for me to swap to deads......