Over the last couple of years I have been fortunate enough to watch some of the very best anglers in the business. Be they top-flight match anglers, the super-stars of carp fishing, or the very top of the specialist fishing pyramid, one thing separates them from the rest of us – precision. Whatever they do, and however they do it, there is as little margin for error as possible. This precision is manifest in many aspects of their fishing, but  one area that we should all be able to replicate is the accuracy with which they cast, bait up and feature. The importance of mastering these skills should not be undervalued. Being able to get right on the money, not just once, but consistently will revolutionise your fishing.

Fortunately, there are lots of easy ways you can improve your accuracy these days without spending hours and hours practicing. It wasn’t always like this though! When I was a lad I spent every spare moment waggler fishing for chub on the backwaters of the Thames. This was in the days when the ABU 501 and 506 closed face reels ruled the roost, that had no line clip, or easy means of trapping the line. Getting the rig to land a close as you dared to the far bank overhanging canopy was simply down to practice. And boy did I get some practice that year! By Autumn I could cast to within a hairs-breath of the far bank bushes every chuck. Needless to say, my catches went through the roof. Today I could simply use the line clip on my reel to do the same job, three months of practice replaced by a tiny piece of plastic!

Are you using the right gear?

Let’s start by looking at the tackle we are using, and whether it is actually up to the job of fishing accurately. It might seem like common sense, but it is essential to get the balance right between the rod, reel and line that you are using to allow it to perform effectively. It is surprising how much each of these three components can vary in their weight, feel and action, so it important to try a few combinations and see which suits you best. That’s easy to say, but I can’t think of many tackle shops that are going to let you try before you buy! In golf, and even in fly fishing, this is common practice though because of the importance of finding the right kit. So what can we do? Firstly, start with the rod, find one that has the right action for you and that hopefully has the right ring spacing. Now see how it balances with various reels and check that the reel actually fits the reel seat properly (some don’t!). Having a reel attached will completely change the feel of a rod, yet I rarely see anyone actually trying the two together!

Whilst getting the balance of your tackle right is relatively straightforward, ensuring that your rod has been rung correctly, is a little more tricky. With the exception of a small number of top-end rods from companies like Shimano, all rods have a spine where the sheets of carbon cloth are wound around a metal mandrel to form the blank. This creates slight differences in the wall thickness of the blank where the sheets begin and end creating the spine.

A quality rod builder will always ensure that the rings are placed opposite the spine to ensure that when the rod is loaded it doesn’t twist. Failure to do this can cause the rod to deflect to one side affecting casting accuracy. Normally you get what you pay for and the more expensive a rod the better chance it has been built correctly. You can check for the spine by placing the tip section on the floor and under slight pressure slowly twist it. You will find that the tip will always try to spring round to the spine. By the way, if the tip looks to be slightly curved when you look down it this doesn’t necessarily mean that it hasn’t been built on the spine, as it is very common to get a slight curvature of the tip as it cures.

Another minor point is that I prefer smaller, lighter rings on my rods than the current trend, particularly on carp rods, where huge rings are all the rage. I find that bigger (heavier) rings not only make the rod  top heavy but dull the feel when casting. It is amazing how much difference things like ring size, spacing, single and double legs rings and even the type of whipping and varnish used can make to the feel, the devil is in the detail.

The bit on the end

Whether you are float fishing or ledgering your terminal tackle is going to have a bearing on accuracy. Bulky rigs that can catch the wind, unaerodynamic feeders, and even bent floats (not such a problem in the age of modern plastic rather than quill) will all count against you.

The effect of the end tackle is probably best illustrated by fishing a waggler in deep water. Often in deep water you will want to have plenty of weight down the line to get the bait on the deck where the fish are feeding. Having the bulk shot down the line, plus a float a good distance up the line, will cause you to lose accuracy for two reasons.  Firstly, the bulk weight will be too far from the rod tip to be controllable on the cast. Secondly, the float and bulk weight will see-saw in the air.

Whilst it might not be fashionable, I am a great believer in fishing a slider in water of eight feet or more, simply for the increased accuracy. With the float sitting against the bulk shot during the cast you have one weight centre that you can bring up to the correct position from the rod tip and that will not fight with the weight on the cast.

Even with something as heavy and unaerodynamic as a swimfeeder the shape can still have an effect. Side fins might look pretty, but in any side wind they will cause the feeder to veer off course, causing big problems. Some shapes also tend to cast better than others, with a standard round profile tending to be best in my experience. Actually, the best feeders that I have come across are those used in Holland and Belgium on the massive canals that the match anglers in these countries regularly fish. With a heavy weight concentrated in the nose and the line attached centrally, rather than to the side they cast like a dream. The Dutch are probably the best feeder anglers in the World, so it is no wonder that they should have developed the longest casting and most accurate feeders around.

Another great way to lose accuracy is to attach a PVA stick to you hook. In just the same way that the deep water waggler set-up mentioned above has two weight centres, so does attaching a PVA bag. If accuracy is what you are after then having anything dangling is going to cost you, so instead go for putting the whole rig inside a solid PVA bag, giving one concentration of weight. If you find using solid bags too much hassle, then instead use a stick but slide it up the hook link, rather than have it dangling from the hook.

If we have a look at the real expert casters, the beach anglers, then it is also worth noting that where the lead is positioned can also have a dramatic influence on both accuracy and distance. Without fail, beach anglers will have the lead on the end of the line, with the rig clipped above it. This is primarily for increased distance, as more energy is transmitted directly to the lead and it is more streamlined, but it also improves accuracy. Another area that beach anglers are far more advanced than freshwater anglers is in using clipped rigs, where the bait is held securely until impact with the water. Again, this increases distance and accuracy, and I am sure this is something we should be developing more for freshwater use.

Finally, trying to fish beyond a comfortable range is going to have a severe effect on your accuracy. Much better to fish shorter and be able to hit the same spot regularly than chuck it and chance it. Also, bear in mind that conditions can change, what seems achievable now, might not be if conditions change. I can think of numerous times when I have seen people get everything else right and then be thwarted because the wind has gone up and stopped them from hitting a distant mark. Obviously, the shorter the range the better the accuracy you can achieve, I don’t feel any more achievement in catching at long range, but I do get a lot more frustrated! Accuracy starts to suffer when you are trying to hit maximum distance, particularly when the wind gets up, so it really does pay to stay well within your limits.

Be consistent

Having the right kit for the job is one thing, but you need to think about how to keep everything nice and accurate when you are on the bank. First off, have a look around your peg. From where you are going to be sitting or standing to cast are there any obstructions that are going to get in your way? If you are standing up then make sure that you are going to be able to stand in the same place every time and perhaps mark the spot with a stone.

Pick a marker to aim at on the far bank. On some venues this is obviously easier than on others, but it doesn’t have to be a pylon or tree, it might be a tuft of grass, or even a rat hole on the far bank, as long as it isn’t going to move you can use it! This really is critical, as the further you cast the easier it is to veer to one side, and as distance increases so any slight change in casting angle will have a greater effect on accuracy. Line it up, and if you aren’t happy that it is in the right spot do it again.

The same applies of course when casting at a marker float. If you are going to go to all the trouble of finding a spot with a marker then the least you should do is to bait up and then fish as tight to it as possible. One tactic that I have used a lot over recent years is to dispense with a marker and spod rod completely and instead to use my fishing rods instead. First off I find a spot with the marker, then using a small spod get some bait out, before finally clipping on a rig and getting a bait out there. The result is much more accurate than the normal approach.

Clipping up

I used to spend the old close season making bait and practicing my casting (god it was a long three months!), fortunately we can now fish all year round and some genius invented the line clip. This tiny piece of plastic overnight revolutionised casting accuracy. Now all you had to do was cast until the line hit the clip to get the same distance every time. As time has progressed reel manufacturers have slowly listened and created ‘line-friendly’ clips they do minimal damage to the line, so now we are in the happy situation where almost any reel you pick up has a useable line clip and so there is no reason not to use it.

So having found the right distance and direction, all we have to do now is put the line in the clip and away we go. Each and every cast right on the money. That said, it is still very important to be able to judge the amount of effort you have to put into the cast. Too little and you won’t hit the clip, too much and the rig will bounce back towards you. So perhaps all that practice wasn’t completely wasted after all!

Line marking

Using the clip is all well and good, but what if you are expecting big fish, or want to get your head down? Either way, leaving the line in the clip is going to spell disaster, so you are going to have to mark the line in some way.

There are several ways of marking the line, with some being more permanent than others. The simplest to remove is probably tippex painted along a short length of the line. This is fine if you are only fishing for a few hours, but it does tend to wear off too fast for my liking for anything other than short-session feeder fishing.

Electrical tape is a good alternative, that has the benefit of being easy to remove, but will last quite a considerable time. The only downside is that there will always be a tag of tape left and this has a tendency to catch the coils of line on the cast. If I was using a bait boat regularly then tape would be my first choice.

For a traditional stop-knot fine pole elastic or power gum are reliable and do little damage to the line. With a knot picker they can also be removed quite easily and if you wet them can be moved around. They do suffer a little from catching on the cast, but not as much as tape.

Although it is the most permanent method, and a real pain to remove, I find myself using a stop knot tied using nylon (normally take straight from the reel) for most of my markers. These are difficult to remove, but they are the least likely to catch on the cast and once bedded in tend to stay put. For those reasons I am willing to put up with the inconvenience of re-spooling every so often.

Line markers can move and occasionally come off, so I always use a pair next to one another to give me an extra margin for error.

Recording the distance

Once you have found a spot that you are happy with, it makes sense to make sure that whatever might happen you can set that same distance again. Just imagine that you have spent a couple of hours getting everything nice and accurate, got a spot baited up and then you have a crack-off. How are you going to ever find that spot again? Unlikely? Well it has happened to me on more than one occasion and I have learnt the hard!

To get a rough gauge of the distance the easiest thing to do is to cast out, let the end tackle settle, tighten up to it, then slowly wind in counting the number of turns of the reel handle. Although this is a dead simple method that takes only seconds, and is relatively accurate, I tend to use it when being absolutely dead on the money is not critical. When trying to build a bag of bream on the feeder I find this method fine as the fish will be spread out and generally feeding in open water.

As  soon as placement needs to be spot-on, for example if I am putting baits out for the night in tiny holes surrounded by weed, then I prefer to measure out the line along the bank and use pegs to fix the distance. This might sound a pain in the proverbial, but really it only takes a couple of minutes to walk the line out until it hits the clip and put a peg in the ground. Obviously, you can only do this if you have plenty of open bank, but a neat alternative is to put two banksticks a rod length apart and then wind the line around these. This has the added benefit that it is easy to replicate between sessions, as you have the rod to get the distance between the sticks spot on every time.

And after you have gone to all the trouble of finding a spot and marking it, make sure you write it down! Better, still draw a little map of the swim, noting the far bank markers, where to stand and the distances, you never know when you might want to fish the swim again.

Feeling the feeder / lead down

One final point to make on clipping up is that how you feather the cast as the end tackle enters the water can not only have an effect on your accuracy, but can also effect the chances of the rig tangling. What I aim to do is to try and gently feather the rig as it is about to hit the water, rather than either let it land in a heap or bounce back as the line hits the clip. This takes judgement and practice, but is well worth mastering as you will notice the difference.

As you cast point the rod tip at a slightly raised angle, following the trajectory of the line, right up to a split second before the line hits the clip. Raise the rod tip sharply back up to the vertical and hold the rod lightly in the hand. As the line hits the clip the momentum of the rig will pull the rod tip forwards cushioning the impact and straightening out the rig. Get it right and even a heavy feeder should land with quite a small splash. The other advantage of this method is that you will end up with a few turns of line back on the reel once the line has sunk. If you are fishing with the line in the clip this can be just enough slack for the first run of most fish, meaning that you don’t have to unclip every time you hook a fish.

If you are used to just chucking and chancing then all this accuracy stuff can seem like a lot of effort just to catch a few more fish, but on many venues it really can mean the difference between success and failure. Whilst I certainly don’t go to all this trouble every time I go fishing, when I am really on the ball then I know that the effort will definitely be rewarded. Of course, there is no need to adopt everything in one go. Each little improvement that you adopt will improve your accuracy, and that will ultimately catch you more fish.