All Activity

Yes.... 👍

I used to do try and avoid casting and still would mainly at first light, but if something is niggling at me that it isn't right, I will now just recast, and I'll spomb at first light too if I need too quite happily, I quite like knowing my spot is bang on and freshly primed for the morning bite time.

The last thing I'd be doing is recasting at first light as that was a predominant bite time on the lakes I fished. I'd recast in the dark with no issues, as long as I hit the clip and felt that lead down with a thump I'd be happy. Be that wind, rain or what.

As far as I am aware I don't think a Carp / Bream hybrid is actually possible. Deff get a Roach / Bream hybrid. Also with the Carp family there are so many hybrids: F1s - Crucian and Common carp Fan TaiL Crucian - Crucian and Goldfish Ghost Carp - Carp and Koi Sure there are many more too? One thing that is a real shame is I very much doubt there are any true 'wild carp' left, long lean bodies and always common carp. I think I actually caught some wildies many many years ago from a lake in surrey, now long gone tho

Not sure if twitter inspires me to get out for a few days or put you off, one poor chap is struggling with the wind, got the alarms on lowest sensitivity the wind is still being a disturbance. Rod tips in the water with heavy bobbins would fix that? think he would of been better off bringing them in myself till day light something I do on most sessions if I have a fish or a problem and a rod needs recasting I will wait till that first twilight bit so I can see how the cast went into the water, only reason I do that is, if I cast in the dark, come first light I will be more than tempted to bring that rod in for a recast.

Walk round the other side of the lake and check your margin lol bet it looks just as carpy

Definitely silvers stocked for the match angling, there are silvers in the canals near me alot of hybrids as well, sure one lad had a carp bream hybrid out the canal it was a bream but with a carp like mouth, didn't think you got carp hybrids.

Agree 100%, Done to death but makes me laugh when I read casting as close to far bank margins,,,, err they are under your feet, obviously depends on venue but seen it, done it and works too

Margin fishing the most overlooked feature on a lake

Always good to fish margins with a float rod, and can't go wrong with corn 👍 Actually Silver Bream are very rare, are you sure they were not 'skimmers'? Only place I knew of for Silver Bream was a day ticket water in Sussex, sadly probably carp soup now, if it's the same place. the front lake was crucian heaven!

Just got back from my birthday trip to benidorm, we spent most of the time at the strip, I can't drink like I used to 🤣

That one is a beaut.

This side looks knarly already lol Some lake ❤️

Awesome @kevtaylor.

Indeed I am, nice reels solid with a good line lay 👍 Today Iv had them returned to me I lent them out to a mates kids they had them for around a month to try out carp fishing the one lad is keen and looks like he’s going to give it a go the other is defo not. Been awhile since I got all them all together so I thought a family pic was in order, all Okuma

Looks a belter 👍

Cracking fish well done Kev.

New swim, more work done, a fish but overall frustrating 48hrs. The quicker they spawn the better imo.

Mind boggling session on the syndi, arrived 6am Friday to beat the crowds and more importantly beat the long awaited weather change to westerlies. Whilst the lake was fairly busy noone was at the East end of the lake and I got the swim I had hoped for. The Easterly wind had died off and it was nice and calm whilst I quickly found some spots with the boat as you can't cast left with the overhangs. It was very weedy at 5ft to half way across but then when it dropped into an 8ft gulley the weed became more clumps with clean holes dotted about. I got 2 rods out and was baiting the last when the first was away after 10 mins and I landed my first of the year - a cracking little stocky, already looking nice and dark. The wind started up soon after and to cut a long story short I spent the next 48 hours watching the most banging conditions of the spring come to absolutely nothing, they just didn't turn up as expected. Plans to do an extra night were ditched Sunday lunchtime. I can only assume they are waiting to spawn somewhere out of sight, come Sunday afternoon the lake was almost empty.

Vitalin has gone, but Gladwells at Copdock Mill sell a very close equivalent called Vitacarp. They purchased the ingredients list and market it themselves. I don't think it contains quite as much flaked maize as it did, and it is not quite so 'sticky'. I know of a couple of 40's. It was @shakey on here who shared with me some pics of his dad with a decent 40 and a big heavily scaled fish he caught from there when I was fishing there. Dave Lane also did some time on there. The 3 biggest fish I had were all 24.12, a fully scaled, a proper leather and a prehistoric looking mirror. Ardleigh was the place I took B&F Co's Particle42 as my first field test bait, and caught from the off. Sadly Bait and Feed then decided to cut base mixes with extra semolina to customers on the baits they rolled. I stood up for them big time, and got my fingers burnt when they did it to a named angler and base mix manufacturer who tested it. They did make some very good baits that I was in on: Smokey Mackeral, Smokey Bacon (actually a ham flavour on a meat and birdfood base) and obviously the Particle42. They also rolled my Spiced Garlic pop-ups for me, which they hated as doing them everything stunk for ages of Megaspice and garlic oil. I still use them and roll them myself now. Now for some reason that Megaspice and Garlic oil does not seem to stop producing on various waters, although I've not had a repeat capture, its worked everywhere.

Actually walked around that place years ago, guessing now after the Carl and Alex video (big res carp) done years ago it is probably a secret gone? Vitalin also gone, now started to use flaked maize and extras to bind it in my method mix.

FYI: One of the main men behind Premier back then is now Active Bait Solutions

That's it, Addit Taste, Digest and Attract. I never liked milk protein baits unless The Addits (and/or Bengers) were in there as I didn't think that milk protein baits are easily digested by carp (or most humans!). Giving the additional protein breaking down enzyme helped with the digestion. There is a big theory that in some animals carbohydrate is unusable for energy, they can only utilise fats and protein, so balancing them is the important part of a bait. I mentioned that the 'prebaited food source' baits are not used like they used to be. I have seen a good bait dominate waters, Protavit Liver, Trigga, BFM, Premier, even Activ8. Not using them you may as well accept the occasional inquisitive fish rather than catching regularly. I know that numbers of anglers have written about it, with named waters, named anglers, and I have managed it myself, even a slightly tweaked bait being an improvement over the standard ready made (freezer or shelf life). The Method, underrated and now underused. It produced a number of decent carp for me on Ardleigh , where the size of the water made using a food source bait impractical. Baiting up with buckets of Vitalin and fishing balls of that moulded around the lead meant I had groundbait around the hookbait rather than casting 'blind'. I've never found a 'wonder' hookbait, or found plenty, but they only have a limited life; sweetcorn, or pop-ups, green zing, pineapple N-butyric, Monster Crab, Squid and Octopus, until the carp avoid them. It's that 'digesting a stone' point, sooner or later carp will discover it's going to result in a hook in the mouth, or it's not doing them any good. The carp rarely eat pop-ups! I think we do do sensory overload. In a water there is a natural pH, be it between 6 and 9, and attraction is a specific 'distance'. Too strong attractors, too high a level (say 5ml of flavour compared to 2ml) may create a feeding zone or acceptable level not at the bait itself, but metres away, or even become repellant.

It's a wierd thing, but as you can guess I am harping back to old times, yes I used to buy the Nutrabaits catalogues, but in the day was a Premier Baits man, now sadly gone in all but name. Just makes me smile when I read (on another forum, sorry), about so called wonder hookbaits, and the domination on certain topics this person now seems to have on it, so glad this forum is a lot more chilled and sensible. Anyway, now getting back into method feeder for fishing for carp on a Sussex lake, seems to be working, well when the lake is open again after spawning again. Remember the big method feeders on Horseshoe so many years ago and did very well on them, sometimes I wish things were a lot more simple for carp fishing, but unfortunatly the floodgates have been opened and I just chill on the bank when I can..... sorry to go a bit off post

Taking a wild swing I think Digest may have been papain based but dont quote me on that, that would laso fit with your observations above