I have been working on a newer version of these feeders through the close season, and I have come up with a much better version for the 2008 season. The Mark 3's are much easier to make with no searching around for caps or tops, as they are made totally out of the same mesh as the feeders below. The only real difference is that they are square, and I hope to re-write this page shortly, replacing some of the information to accommodate them..

 Shown here is the basic feeder, and another                                           This photo shows the Right Guard deodorant

loaded to just 2oz in weight.                                                                 cap drilled, cut down and fixed in place.

 Here you can see how well the elasticated clips                                       These are the big boys finished at 5oz. The added

should work through variable tension.                                                    leads should produce a nice anti-roll spot.

 The Reasons Behind the Idea.

Sitting on the river bank for many hours, as we Anglers do, we are able to ponder all sorts of things.  But the main question I wanted to get to grips with was how to pick any stretch on a river that’s deep and unknown, from a fish point of view, and set myself up in such a way as to give myself the best chance of hooking a barbel, that I couldn’t locate by sight.  There are some cracking looking stretches on the Trent, and just a glance would tell us that there must be fish there, but with no discerning features, shallows or creases on some stretches, how would we know where to cast.  I needed to find a way of producing a scent trail that would last for hours, ( because I’m a believer of leaving it in once it’s in ), and even if my rig rolled around before finally settling, the trail would always need to lead back to my hook bait and not it’s first settling point.  A tour round my local tackle shops didn’t solve the problem as there were no commercially available feeders designed to do the job that I would need them to do.  The idea was going to need some serious thought!

I’d fished with other anglers who had used PVA bags and method feeders, and even used a cage ground bait feeder myself, but none of these ideas were really to my liking.  If your lead/PVA rig or feeder were to roll after a couple of minutes, then your freebies/scent-trail would not lead back to your hook bait, and whilst you could add more lead using PVA, there is still the fact that even if you are managing to hold in a good flow, your freebies may well be quickly washed away downstream by the current having absolutely no benefit, and leaving nothing to draw the fish towards where they need to be.I wanted a cage feeder to keep everything together no matter what, so I decided to make my own feeders, using a shop bought cage, put a lid and a bottom on it, and weighted them to 2oz each.  The lid and bottom were the plastic containers that come with replacement single size shot in, and at this stage, I didn’t bother drilling any extra holes into them to increase flavour release.

First test for my idea was the 18^th of February 2006 on the Trent.  Chris Lyon’s chart had it as GRIM, temperatures had fallen to minus 2 overnight with a hard frost, and the river was shrouded in heavy fog.  I really felt the four of us would struggle, but the big bonus was a water temperature of 43f, maybe one of us would be lucky!  So I set both my rods up with the feeders, loaded them with 6mm halibut pellets, and hair-rigged 2 x 15mm HC boilies on one and a big lump of BP spam on the other. I know some anglers say that pellets and boilies lose their draw in the winter months because of the lower water temperatures, and I really felt that this would be a major test of both baits under difficult winter conditions, especially as I had never even fished the spot that I had chosen.  I dropped both rods very close to the bank inside a crease in about 9/10 feet of water with the river in fine form, put the rods on the alarms and waited.  Our hearts lifted along with the fog, when Danny hooked into a chub mid river, using a pellet and PVA approach, but he was struggling to hold position and had to keep increasing his lead.  By midday the sun was out, it was pleasantly mild, so the coats started coming off.

After having been in for a couple of hours, one of my alarms screamed into life and I lifted into a heavy fish which just seemed to plod around, but then it made a couple of quick short runs which told us what it was.  It was a nice barbel probably over 8lbs and it had taken the HC boilies.  A good result I thought as it turned out to be the only bite I had all day and the only barbel caught, although the river seemed to come alive in the sunshine with chub and a barbel topping regularly on the other side.  This was where I found a problem with the Mark 1’s.

I tried casting to the other bank, but found the feeder couldn't hold in the stronger flow along the far side. Adding more lead didn't solve the problem and I realised that adding more lead was only reducing the main area of the cage that I was relying on to release a scent. The Mark 1's, measuring about 40mm in length by 25mm in diameter were just not big enough, so it was back to the drawing board.  A trip out to another tackle shop yielded a nice wire mesh feeder measuring 45x 45mm in diameter, so I bought a few, plus various sized add-on leads.  Now I needed to find a lid and a bottom. The bottom was easy to find, because every time I picked up the deodorant, there was the cap staring me in the face.  The lid took a bit of finding because I needed something which would slide over the outside of the cage and fit tightly to keep it in place.  In the end, the perfect thing turned out to be a Wilko’s paint tester pot cut down in size, using the base not the lid.

Making a feeder. 

Seeing as both the caps used for the top and bottom need to be cut down, I have found it easier to do all the hole drilling work first, whilst there is still plenty to get hold of.  I also drill as many holes as is possible in each using a 4mm diameter drill bit, and smooth all the hole edges off as best as possible too.  First thing to fit is the extra lead to the cage, so decide how heavy you want it to be when empty and add the necessary lead.  I think having all the additional lead outside of the cage will form a nice anti-roll spot, especially on the 5oz models.  I have decided to make up several of these feeders so that I now have a choice from 1oz up to 5oz in weight, plus a couple of spare bodies with lids and bottoms that will only need lead adding to them on the bank should I lose one. 

I have attached the bottom cap in place to the cage, by tying it with 5kg braid.  This is where a baiting needle comes in handy, as I pierce the cap first, then push a loop of braid through the hole, put the cap onto the end of the feeder and then use the needle to pull one end out through the inside of the mesh.  Finally loop that end through the mesh again  back towards the outside of the feeder, put the two ends together, tie a few good knots and finish it off with some superglue to make sure that the knot does not slip.  I generally do this in five points around the base to make it secure enough.

Although the caps fitted quite snugly, they were difficult to keep in place, which I found out during the first trial run.  The internal elastic link that I made, ( like in some method feeders ) just wasn’t strong enough to keep the lid on, and wrapping an elastic band around the outside looked awful. A quick re-think led to me using No 14 pole elastic and a quick change link cut in half to make two simple catches to each feeder, meaning that the tension can be altered on each catch the more you stretch it, but the lid could also be removed well out of the way for filling and emptying.  The finished feeders are big and measure 65 x 45mm in diameter, but once filled with pellets, and boilies for hook bait, can be cast in and left undisturbed all day through the winter, and probably around 3-4 hours in the summer depending on pellet breakdown speed.  I reckon they will be a bonus this year and I will report through the gallery pages ( 2006 and onwards ) as to exactly which method was used to capture a particular fish.

                                                                                                                               Roll on June.

Here is a feeder attached. I've added a knot protector bead and a short length of anti-tangle tube.