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I met Chilly at the big one show last February, what a thoroughly decent man. Made time to have a good chat with my son and I. made my day getting 10min of his time

Afternoon all, so I managed to get a free pass to get out and dunk some boilies in a pond last night, so I chose to head to my local tricky park lake. now I haven’t been there since the start of the season, and due to extremely low water levels, the club made the decision to shut the water for fish welfare, so last night was my first trip back in a while. on getting down to the lake, I found it was fairly busy, but everyone was on the opposite bank. I headed around to a small, neglected swim that is often ignored, which coincidentally is my favourite swim on the whole lake! there were a few signs of feeding fish, so I got the marker out and located the area of smooth harder silt that does the bites and soon had the rods clipped up to the range. tackle consisted of 3 x 12ft fox horizon X4S TT carp rods with fox EOS 12000 reels spooled with 12lb esp synchro main line. Rigs were leadcore helicopter rigs with 10” fox cortex soft slip D rigs with size 6 ESP barbless Clawhammer hooks. Bait was my usual premier superaminos/shellfish sense appeal offering made in the shed. 3 rods were dispatched to the spot adorned with 7 bait stringers, and with that i broke out the spod rod! I’m not quite sure what possessed me, but I ended up putting out a whole bucket of hemp, boilies and mixed pellet with lashings of salt which is a lot of bait for a quick overnighter, but my gut said it was the way forward, so in it all went! rods out, about 100 spods (so it seemed) done, it was time to chuck up the bivvy and get the kettle on. as the sun sunk beneath the trees, the swim came alive, with bubbling and swirling all over the spot. I was getting liners like nobody’s business and it was getting pretty obvious that something was going to happen… …well it did, bream after bream! I was hammering through the rigs as slabs of 3-5lb came gliding in, it was simply a case of hitting repeat and getting the stringers out there. as an aside, some anglers try to avoid the bream, but I welcome the activity, all that feeding soon draws the carp. at 11pm, the left hand rod pulled tight then dropped slack, as I was crouched next to it trying to decide if it was a liner or bream, the middle rod picked up and tore off! after a spirited fight, I soon slipped the net under a pretty linear that just scraped 20lb I don’t know what happened, but I look deranged in the pics! I sorted the left hand and middle rods and got them back out there, lucky 7 bait stringers attached and tried to get some sleep. I was awoken by a single bleep at 1am and opened one bleary eye to see the middle rod rip off again, this fish felt slightly better, taking me through every overhanging bush in the near margin, but the trusty horizons soon had it beat, and at 25lb made me a buzzing lil carper. pressing repeat again the middle rod was back out there, new hooklink attached. I finally got some shut eye at 2am for a whole 90mins when the middle rod decided to trundle off again, the strike met with a determined slow plodding weight that didn’t really give me too many dramas, just refused to come in. eventually, it succumbed to pressure and rolled into the outstretched net At 30lb it made the trip really! Big high shoulders, broad across the back, it was a pearler. (Cue stupid face again) it was so wide over the chest, I struggled to hold it properly. that rod replaced, I climbed into a damp, carp slime encrusted sleeping bag and got some kip. on dawn, the bream reappeared as the carp retreated back into their day areas, the sun started beating down so I decided to wrap it and head home, well happy!

I met chilly at the carp society event at sandown Park race course must have been 2018 , I randomly bought one of his books ( light my fire) from the tackle exchange in Walton the year before and loved it, what a great book. So while I was there got him to sign all of his books that I had bought prior to the event 👍 absolute top fella and proper down to earth.

I'm guilty of number 3 😂😂

I'm a subscriber to surfers against sewage too. I've been following this travesty for a long time . Thames water are prolific at discharging into the Thames, and United utilities up here in the North West have been polluting the lakes in the lake district as well. I've signed countless petitions but it never goes anywhere. Those feckers in parliament and the EA do nothing. All the years I fished the Thames and paid for a three road licence and never once see or met a bailiff. It's disgusting!

Thank you so much that's awesome information. Can't wait to get back out there now 😁👍👍

Yes, they are fragile. This should not be a problem when float fished near the marginal reeds where perch lurk. For carp, mount a prawn on the hair with its tail closest to the hook. For anything other than short range, it can be cocooned in PVA to withstand casting. Prawns are outstanding until into October when the carp change their food preference.

Funny you mention that , I have quite often given that some thought over the years . I've never tried it as never thought the prawns would stay on the hair ? Also thought of muscles too . For the prawns as they differ in size would I need to make a rig to suit the size of the prawn as in hair length?

Uncooked prawns (greyish) at this time of year, deadly for perch - and carp

You know what I've never thought of going for the perch 😕 nice one 😜 👍

Good luck fella, I'd be having a go for Perch on lures with all those fry you mention it must have some big ones. 👍

It's teaming with fry , it has its fair share of bream as those beggars keep waking me up during the night but I figured that spombing chilli hemp was the cause of that. I use 16mm krill boilies with a corn pop up on top with a hair rig which has been good most of the time on other waters but the carp there are hard to catch and that's why I like it other than the views . Definitely gonna go up a size in boilie next time , managed to get hold of a session pack of nash citruz cultured 20mm pop ups as I had great results with the pink citruz boilies back in the day, will try a different spomb mix too 👌

No idea sorry, but looks a lovely setting, I guess nuisance species might be an issue with all the roach etc. I guess hard hookbaits and/or bigger baits will help.

Thanks buddy 😁

Welcome to the forum fella 👍

I know Leatherhead quite well , dorking , box hill etc. I was a member of Guildford angling society for a number of years and mainly fished brittens pond off salt box road guildford . Done a couple stints at farlows and thorney weir & the Mets but my favorite was dessbourogh island on the thames between walton and weybridge . 👌 Why did I move to Manchester 😂

It is a lovely place to chill , it's a hard water and that what I like about it , being new I e noticed a lot of the threads are quiet ..

Welcome. Walton on Thames. I know it well. I'm based over near Leatherhead. Which waters did you fish/clubs were you a member of? Were you a Thames exclusive fisherman? We're usually a friendly bunch and don't usually bite..... usually. 😜

Looks lovely. This thread's been a bit quiet this year....

This was Shingle Street last Wednesday. A high tide at 23.09 so I arrived at 5pm so I could set up in daylight, and see the low water mark. I normally aim to fish until 3hours after high. As you can see it is a high, deep, shingle beach, no real need for long casting, although I do put a big bait as far as I can 'just in case', and that was the one that produced the thornback ray on prawn and squid on a size 5/0. The short range rod, at probably 50metres produced a few dogfish, a tiny smoothhound and the conger eel all on ragworm and squid. No bites until around 10.30, the first doggy, the thornback came just after high, and the last fish around 1.30.

This year has been tough sea fishing. No major blowy weather, calm seas and clear water. Night time is the best time to be fishing. Lug worm and rag worm are easy to hook, put them on a hollow straight baiting needle then thread them onto the hook. Best then tipped with a bit of squid or fish. As with coarse fishing, don't overcast the fish, at night more bass and sole are caught within 30metres than at longer range. And don't think bigger is better, a size 1 or 2 hook is as big as you need for sole.

A belated welcome to Carp.com.

Very nice!

A couple from France, double take madness 🇫🇷