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Well as purchases go they don't come much more exciting than a new home and a return to my beloved Nene Valley. Carpy in more ways than one; I'll be 3 miles way from the Valley itself and there's also koi to 30lb+ swimming around in the back garden! Offer was accepted on Friday so now I just pray that nothing goes wrong and we're not waiting too long.

Across the border, forgot my passport and facial recognition but made it...OK.. lol

22lb common caught today

Then back on home territory and ,part of a 7 carp hit ,using single bottom baits over a scoop of dried maize

Father’s Day fishing trip 👍🏻

How you doing? This session was a rather decent one, despite managing to leave my hookbait bucket at home with my medium Spomb in it. I spent an hour cursing and swearing as I used the small Spomb to put a bucket of maize and birdfood in. The first night produced a tench of around 6lb on a straight out of the bag bottom bait, which somehow managed to go across the middle rod. The 2nd night was quiet. Last night around 11pm I had a strange occurrence on the middle rod, it pulled to the right, with what appeared to be a run, but there was nothing there, so I recast with a fresh stringer. At 3am I had the same thing happen again. I think that it was a goose or swan swimming through the line just in front of my rod tips, or a swan picking the hookbait up. A couple of miscasts with stringers, but 3rd time lucky. I was sat drinking coffee and eating breakfast when the rod went with a 22lb mirror, one of last years stocking, and a 10lb weight gain. Caught on a 360 rig with a meshed 15mm Nutty Bait pop-up with a stringer of 6x 18mm Nutty Bait boilies. This morning I was starting to tidy up ready to pack up when the right hand rod went, which was the rod over the maize, and managed a rather nice 26lb mirror on the 'sliver' of Monster Crab pop-up on a reverse combi rig. This fish was from the 2021 stocking and went in at 11lb.

Then a night float fishing with prawns ,after eels ,not a carp I know !

Managed to get over to the syndi this week. Tough going but I managed to get on them eventually. Spotted 3 of the bigguns so was pretty excited. Had to wait until an hour before home to get the bite..... a little fully about 10 lb 🤣. Chucked it back without a pic. Just on pack up I got another take.... lost it in the weed🤦‍♂️. Such is life. Roll on next month for more punishment.

A 31lb 12oz mirror from the weekend. Also managed a 25-4 and 18-10. After a windy start on Friday, it got really hot but managed a bite on all 3 rods by boating out about 20 Creamino boiles and a bit of pellet every 3 hours tight to an Island.

I think the quote to be used here is don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.. typical journos

I got a Korda Spring Bow net delivered last week. I have a thing about real decent nets and have inadvertently amassed a bit of a collection. It drives the Mrs mad. A pal of mine showed me his Spring Bow a while back and I was well impressed so I've had a search set up on fleabay/marketplace for a while. The right deal finally came up so it's now racked up with the various Dymags and Chris Brown nets in the fishing room, much to the Mrs' annoyance. I'll use it on my next session out of principle and then decide if it replaces the Dymag mk2 I tend to use most of the time.

Visited a couple mates fishing the river yesterday and seen this, how cool 👌🤣

Don’t care what anyone says, There is no fool proof lead set up the best you can hope for is to minimise any problems if and when it happens underwater, anything can happen once the line has snapped off.

That's amazing - and the cheeky sods! My mate spends a lot of time looking for stuff on facebook etc got the collecting bug from another friend. I've not got a fishing room, just fishing kit in every room, garage and attic 😀

After a chat on here about mats I treated myself to the Thinking Anglers mat, its very light and actually will be great for stalking 👍

For years there were no problems at Taverham, then more anglers started fishing it when Anglian Water took it on and litter started becoming a problem. Klaus bought a brand new bivvy and rats chewed their way in through the groundsheet and into his bait and food bags. He found a chewed pack of bacon dragged outside the bivvy. We get a few rats on the syndicate now, not many, and as you can see, they don't cause me any problems, thanks to Sky. How she can wait patiently on the lead until they get close enough to her to attack them amazes me, she's normally head down and charge.

I must confess I do keep my bait in buckets, not just for rats but to keep them away from Sky. She does however act as a good rat deterrent:

Just ordered a fireproof charging bag (Amazon) for my fishing batteries, big enough to store them in too. Too many horror stories, should have bought one long ago.

I'd say my first 3 or 4 years on there were my best, it then became a circus and at times unpleasant. Sad really , as Yonny rightly says, " it's just fishing".

Finally finished the van build, reckon a few laps of a big lake Is due

I can guarantee you right now that they will sell. They've drummed up loads of interest. It is a complete no-brainer to offer one with a speaker. For every guy that prefers the speakerless version, there's one that prefers a speaker. It's a win-win for them to offer both. Their only other remote alarm is based on a design that's nearly 30 years old (TLB+), and even that needs the ATT receiver.

Been making do with a folding camping chair since i came back to fishing, but fished yesterday and was so tired kept thinking need a recliner to snooze in mentioned to my mate on the lake Smithy and he sold me his JRC recliner chair in mint condition for 40 notes ideal

Believe it or not I can possibly beat that 😅 I have a full size faux taxidermy carving of the ex record carp, Two Tone, fully mounted in mahogany case. The centrepiece of my fishing room. There's a funny story that comes with it too. I came across it on ebay. It was advertised as a carving so clearly not the actual stuffed fish. I bought it, knowing full well it wasn't real, for the fishing room and thought I'd see if I could find some info on it. I posted it on the old Anglers Forum but no-one could tell me anything about it. But, the Anglers Mail got in touch and asked to do an article on it. Me being me, I told them I don't really want to be in a magazine, and turned them down. So rather than just leave it.... they made a story up. They published an article, using the picture I'd posted on the Anglers Forum, that said the buyer had purchased it thinking it was the real thing i.e. the actual stuffed Two-Tone. The cheeky gits. Naturally, I went back to them and called them scum of the earth A) for making the story up, and B) for stealing my photo. Needless to say they never replied. This was maybe 10 years ago but the story was still available online not long ago. I just Googled it and found the image but the link no longer works.

Bivvy fetishism struck again !

So to start the thread I mentioned the steak, so here is the real deal. And that is a Fishing Dinner: Rare rump steak with mushrooms, sliced green beans and sliced fried potato, a dash of mixed herbs and a crushed clove of garlic.

Why not just use a bucket? they've never breached my ridgemonkey yet. I never leave my bait in the bivvy either. And always close my food bag, then I throw boilies in other people's bivvies works a treat 😂

At least they paid £2 for a premium lead though.

Me too. On the water I'm fishing there's no way you'd be able to fish a running rig. If the fish takes lines on the take you're halfway to losing it already such is the severity of the weed.

I've bought some prepared particle as I was too lazy to prep it myself 20kg of carp particles dark mix and some garlic oil.

I use lead clips all the time and will continue quite happily, I can see some danger but happy to live with that as I fish heavy gear and fish sensibly. If we were that concerned we'd use lower bs hooklinks than the line regardless like match anglers. Snapped line springs back into a birdsnest, so even the running rig potentially tangles and tethers.

They do make good putty, I know I know sorry man - I feel dirty, gonna go shower! Was the excitement of being at my first angling show. I'll never do it again - the shame 😭🤣

Yeah nothing from OMC allowed onsite 😆

Cracking news mate, are you going to ban the magic twig on your water?

Next social in your back garden then mate?

They were savage. They were in fact brother's and had fished dinton for years . They hated the fact that it had become "known" about and that several "names" were joining the syndicate etc. Bearing in mind this was early 2000's and the likes of terry hearn, bernie Loftus and others had dabbled with the days in previous years. I'd heard about these two brother's prior to my arrival and I met one on my second trip there. He introduced himself in the car park and we pushed our barrows out of the car park to the lake and I thought to myself what a sound bloke for him then to say in no uncertain terms that a particular swim was his and God help me if I jumped in it 🤣. The brother's ultimately fell out and ended up weedkilling and soaping each other's swims. Proper nut jobs/green eyed monsters.

couple of rods out on a little pond I found ten mins from the hotel I’m staying at. On a week residential course for work.

He's certainly not my cup of tea either. As you say, to loud for me and in your face. Missing a parents birthday isn't good either. That said, when I was on on a mission, in total I've missed 3 of my mates weddings, the odd Christmas and new year celebrations and my niece's birthday most years as it's at the end of September when I always have the week off. She understands 🤣, though my sister doesn't.

A simple stir fry ,nothing amazing ,but I live 2 mins from the lake ,and could get my lady to bring me dinner down,but I like to eat on the bank...

I was talking to someone yesterday and he just came back from a week in France he actually witnessed a delkim melting in the heat lol that one definitely won’t be waterproof

I don’t think you can fault the Fox Micron range. They just work and the new basic ones are perfect value for money £25 each ( why pay more ) !

PB products hit n run lead clips have become an essential part of my set up lately. From a safety POV, they are smashing, in the event of a crack off or cut off type incident the fish will only ever be left with the rig in its mouth and not trailing loads of line, and because it's essentially free running they can't use the weight of the lead to help eject the hook. I've had a lot of screaming takes since switching to them.

Some of the rigs people throw out are shocking tbh.

I still have a set of original sx and dxr alarms as my “go to” sx have been modified to wireless with the att system inside

Sorry don't know about these specifically but for what it's worth I've got the old Micron M and MX from years back and they all work great. Then bought the dream alarm 'Delkims' and they were unreliable so back to Fox - currently using MX+ - great so far. I wouldn't have any concerns if I were you - you'll not see many bad reviews of Fox alarms as far as I'm aware if any.

I've done that one, and required a hospital visit for a grass splinter in the eye. As for other stupid mistakes, leaving the tackle box at home a few times, requiring journeys home to pick it up from Weybread No.1, Suffolk Water Park and Earith. I've left my rucksack at home, and this trip my hookbait bucket which also contained my medium Spomb. Not checked a combi-rig knot after landing a fish, I just recast and on the next take the hooklink parted at the knot. I've forgotten how many times I've fallen in from leaning over too far, a couple of times from a tree, and the numbers of pairs of sunglasses I have watched go 'plop' from the top of a tree, although at Yew Tree I did manage to recover a pair that fell off. Oh yes, the wading one, I even had a wading stick in hand, but as I waded back to land a large pike decided I was invading it's territory and went for the stick and me. I fell backwards and over the top of my chesties in water up to my chest. Oh yes, and I think possibly the worst, leaving my insect repellant at home and getting a bite that caused the blood poisoning which despite not being a disease, caused the life threatening illness I had last year.

For me it's the things I forget like: mug, frying pan, leads although I have all except frying pan spare in the car now and gotta remember to put the spare mug back in the car from last trip. Also forgot my sling and mat at Bluebell but luckily borrowed one off Trev the bailiff 👍 Have I lost a fish due to not checking the line - maybe I imagine, must have happened at some point. Stupid things: stepping into 2inch of water just past the reeds, ended up sinking upto my shoulders in silt - very very scary, never go in without a prodding stick, falling in several times - head first once whilst reaching to clip backleads on, climbing a tree in waders - never do this the grip isn't there and never climb a tree whilst on a lake alone and over the water - I literally could have fallen and hit my head and noone would have known until the next day at the earliest.

That's brilliant - bro's ended up attacking each others swims 🤣 It's one thing moaning about others and getting on with it, plotting their downfall all week is likely to lead to mental health probs! You should write a book, I bet you've got some great memories 👍

Went to my local days only park lake and started at 4:30 and had 5 doubles to 18-8 by 10 O' Clock and packed up in time for tea at home. I boated out a fair bit of spod mix to the far bank trees to keep the bites coming.

First thing this morning on a Nutty Bait pop-up: 29lb @crusian 40metres, towards Scotty dog I've just been through my pics and our Facebook group. I have caught it before at the same weight last year. It was one of the 2020 stocking