I did an honest audit of my tackle bag recently, partly out of curiosity and partly because carrying it to the swim was starting to feel genuinely heavy. The result was a bit humbling: a large proportion of what I carry every session gets used rarely, if at all.
What I actually use, session after session: a modest range of hook sizes I’ve settled on over years (I could probably halve my hook wallet without noticing), one main line spool plus a backup, a small handful of float patterns that cover 90% of situations, and bread, corn, and maggots as bait more often than anything more specialist. That’s genuinely most of what produces fish for me on a typical session.
What sits unused most of the time: several specialist rigs I bought after reading about them once, a second rod I rarely deploy, and enough spare terminal tackle variety to cover eventualities that essentially never arise in my actual fishing. None of it is wasted money exactly – some of it earns its place on the specific days it’s needed – but the gap between “tackle I own” and “tackle I use on a typical session” is bigger than I’d have guessed before actually counting.
The practical lesson: if you’re a newer angler looking at tackle shop shelves and feeling like you need to own one of everything, you probably don’t. A modest, well-chosen core kit covers the overwhelming majority of UK coarse fishing situations, and the specialist extras can wait until a specific need for them actually comes up.
Gear that fits this
If you’re kitting out for this, these fit.
For floats and terminal gear, Camo Feeder Pack 30G, Preston Innovations Des Shipp Commercial Carp Paste Pole Float and Camo Inline Cage Method Feeder-Medium 30g are all worth a look.
Baits worth adding: CC Moore Fish Frenzy XP Instant Spod Mix, Mainline Match Activate Carp Coarse Pellets 1kg 2mm and CC Moore Mini Halibut Pellets 2mm 1kg.
On the reels side, EOS 10000 Pro Reel, 23 Emblem 45 SCW QD Reel and Lotus Baitfeeder 6000 Reel.
Rods: Middy Power Phase M120 Feeder Rod 12' 2pc, Acolyte Ultra Float Rod 11ft and Guru Aventus R Waggler Float Rod 13' 1-15g 3pc.
Dan Whitfield grew up in Liverpool and started fishing aged seven on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at the end of his road. He never really stopped. He spent his twenties and thirties on the match circuit – club level rather than national – before deciding he’d rather catch one decent fish than a net of small ones.
These days he mostly fishes the River Dee for barbel and chub (barbel personal best 14lb 2oz, from the Trent on a trip south), the Leeds and Liverpool Canal for roach and skimmers in winter, and the occasional gravel pit when tench are spawning and the surface fishing is too good to miss. He’s a former club secretary and coaches children on Saturday mornings at a junior section of a Liverpool angling club, where most sessions start with a float, a tin of maggots and a lot of patience.
At The River Bend, Dan writes the coarse species guides, river fishing technique articles, and the match and pole content.
Covers: Barbel, bream, roach, tench, carp (coarse context), river fishing, canal fishing, feeder, float, match/pole