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When I first started carp fishing, I bought my first set of bite alarms. They were wired to a receiver as that's all I could afford. Anyway... I got a run in the middle of the night and the receiver blurted out the tune to jingle bells.

Yep, the dove cote bank was great for tench, loads of lovely lillie pads back in the day...... On one of my last visits they had all been sadly ripped out..... probably to cater for the new generation of 'pot noodle carpers'! ☹️ Never fished the main lake again after that

Don't be shy I won't judge ,well not really ! We've all done silly things ,hopefully learnt from them ,and moved on ,this aimed at us all regardless of experience or skill set .. Here's mine ,I got left a clip on plummet by father ,it's a lightweight job... I used it yesterday to plumb a marginal swim ,learnt its not heavy enough to give correct depth readings ,the rest you can guess..lol What's yours !

I've got my father ,and two uncles and Graham Rowles ,netting a private lake in East Sussex on film in the late 60s ... The lake was known as Strowgers ,I used to get taken there before the tench got put in Bury Hill main lake .. Fished as a child by the white dove cote ...on Bury Hill.. Long way from home in those times ..

What.????? Did you mean, pay us back Boris?

@welder puts it very nicely. While PTFE may be very 'slippery', your swivel is landing on silt, clay, gravel, or sand or whatever else is on the lakebed, any of those are enough to 'jam' the swivel and stop it rotating. Add to that, your rig is in a direct line from the mainline, be that straight out on a pendant or inline set-up, or at 90% on a helicopter set-up. The swivel is basically a simple way to attach your rig to the mainline. It doesn't really need to swivel at all, unless on a helicopter or Chod set-up when it may need to spin during the fight.

Could always dull it down with a sharpie coloured pen.

Thanks mate

Just my opinion? Use a standard size 8 swivel. Ok, so PTFE has the lowest coefficient of friction known to man but we're asked to believe that this helps with rig alignment when this relatively small device is lying amongst whatever detritus is in the area of the landed rig. The PTFE thing is more a marketing ploy than a mechanical advantage. Once again, just my opinion. Ian.

Hi, Has anyone used these in a size 8 on the business end of a rig? I've used them in size 11's, but 8's look a little blatant because of their shine. I don't get on with putty, not sure if i'm best off with a standard size 8 swivel or are these size 8 PTFE swivels that are meant to spin better elite and I'm over thinking it. Cheers fellas.

Thanks for the detailed info, it's much appreciated.

It isn't.

Come back Boris all is forgiven 😂

Exactly right @Roughtor it was famous, I fished there twice with LDAS, probably late 70's! At the time none of us had any real idea about the hidden secrets the place had. When it was finally closed to fishing clubs, i think the main lake was netted and the Crucians were distributed to various lakes in the surrey area?, Milton lake at Bury Hill received lots - maybe a certain Mr Rowles - was involved too? 😀

Cork ball quality has changed, and gotten worse over the years. Over harvesting of the bark, less than 9-12 years, and drought in the Mediterranean has meant that top rated cork is no longer used for cork balls, so lesser grades are being used. The basic answer is that where a 10mm cork ball would pop-up a 16mm bait, now they struggle with a 14mm and 12mm is the real limit. I've mentioned it in the long distant past about making cork ball pop-ups, and the best results I got were sieve the base mix, remove any lumps before adding your liquid and mixing. To your base mix, if you can add 10-20% of sodium caseinate, it is a buoyant ingredient and will assist with making your pop-ups pop-up. The smoother you can get the skin the harder it is for water to get in and affect buoyancy, and even make the boilie mix come away from the cork ball. Not fun reeling in just a cork ball, and I've done that a few times long ago, hence my pedancy for getting it exact. The next thing is testing every pop-up against your hooks. Dry them after boiling, test and then dry again. It is quite possibly why I prefer tying cork ball baits on over piercing them. It reduces water getting in to the bait. As water gets into cork it expands slightly meaning the skin gets pushed off. Pedancy, or pedantry, both correct, and definitely disapproved...

Hello there, It all depends on your hook size/weight of hook, It certainly wouldn't hold up a size 4 Korda chod hook which I use as even when i've used 12mm cork balls (gardner) and made them into 15mm cork ball pop ups they have flopped on me in around 14 hours.

You can get castable weed rakes 😉

I've just ordered the small version of the Plumb-Ezzee , Framey . Looking at the video it could solve the problem I sometimes have with Polaris floats when my mono has gone crinkly and the float jams . Or I could just use braid .

Ahh , I feel a plan forming ! . I've got a Weed Rake , but I can never throw it out as far as I want . So go Breakaway Lead with the prongs and I just might clear a neat little path for my line lay .

After not going carp fishing since August due to having personal issues to deal with regarding my dad I managed to get a couple of trips on the bank this month. Last week was Wednesday to Friday. I got to the lake, and fancied an area towards the shallower east end of the lake. I did have an angler on the opposite bank slightly to my left, so I made sure I wouldn't interfere with his fishing, and got myself set up. Sorting out my dinner I realised I had left my cutlery set at home, no major issue as I had a fork in the spares pocket of my food ruckbag. It did mean that I had to gauge 2 teaspoons of sugar in my coffee though. The more important issue was the bucket of birdfood to get the ducks and swans to clear some weed if the carp didn't eat it, and worse Sky's food bowl. I was in the sleeping bag for 8pm, but awake listening for fish. A few crashed between Dave and I between 8 and 10pm when I eventually fell asleep while the frost was forming. Sky refused to come in the bivvy, and slept outdoors. Thursday was a walk around looking, but nothing made me want to move. That night was most definitely warmer, but nothing crashed, so Friday saw a slow pack up with a blank. I wasn't intending to fish again for a week, but Sunday I got back to the empty lake, complete with garlic soaked birdfood particles. I hadn't forgotten anything this week, set myself up in the same swim, although checked the wind forecast to the 3nights and had the back of the bivvy facing North West. Two quiet days, despite searching and walking around the lake with Sky on Monday and Tuesday. The only action I saw was the swans, tufties and coots mooching around the particles, although they never picked up a hookbait Tuesday night, just after dinner Sky decided to come in the bivvy, so I knew that the rain and wind forecast was coming that night. Around 8 I crashed out for a couple of hours, but at 10 got woken up to the short bivvy pegs being pulled out of the soft ground by the wind getting up to 50mph. Sky was sitting on the umbrella skirt/groundsheet join, so it didn't blow away, but it was close! I got out my long pegs and bank sticks, and went out to swap pegs and push them in at least 50cm. Managed to get sorted, but stayed awake until 1am, when I realised that my 20year old Aqua rod holdall had been blown away, and is likely to have sunk. This morning was a bit of a pig to pack away, my mix of banksticks, tent pegs were difficult to pull out, and obviously trying to juggle loose rods, landing nets, slings and throwing stick into the car. The sad part is that the historical black poplar has finally given in to old age and nature. Expectations or hopes were a fish, reality was a near disaster.

I nearly always use a tournament or plain pear lead on the marker rod. I've always got some handy for a bit of clearance, a couple of 3's and 4oz.

If you want to get a bank loan for leads the fox gripper leads are good. If not any will do I found the ridgemonkey ones awful though I couldn't feel the drop with those for some reason. I quite like a coated lead but the rough sort as they pick up any clay off the bottom. But basically any will do.

Thanks , everyone . I have used " prongs " before , but I can't remember why I stopped ? ,I may well have another go .

That could be just the job , Framey . I have used polaris floats previously . I'll look more closely later . Thanks very much .