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Not imo as if big carp sit there gaurding bait from smaller fish if they done that they would use more energy gaurding the bait than they would gain from eating it thats not how nature works. If you sit there for 3 days with out take thinking because its sat there for 3 days its more likely to be a big fish your very misguided if after 3 days a take occurs the fact is its just as likely to be the smallest fish in the lake as it is the biggest because in my expeirence the only thing that seperates the smallest fish in the lake and the biggest is size. If you sat there for 3 days and havent reeled in to look for other oppertunities elseware thats just bad angling. Catching big fish is all about consistancy sitting there 3 days with the rods out on majority of uk waters is not going to lead consistant angling. Imagine you turn up to the lake on a its thunder lighting big winds bang on conditions you put a kilo of bait out 2 days later its red hot 25 degrees is that kilo of bait more likely to be eaten in the the storm or just after the storm or 2 days later in the red hot weather most people would say in or just after the storm thats because conditions are and so many other aspects of angling are far more impotant than weather the baits fresh or washed out imo its neither here nore there but personally i prefer fresh bait to washed out bait. imo nicks looking into things to much there so many variables that could have effected the fish he seen eating baits days after its been put in that the bait been washed out proberly didnt have alot to do with it.

Everyone starts somewhere! I used to be a member of local clubs but after 10 years i fancied somewhere which has similar minded people, who have the same sort of ideas that can make it a great place to fish, and that dont mind blanking sometimes

Yeh make sure you have a compass & a prayer mat

I'm not sure I agree, as I have seen fresh baits left in (heavily fished) areas, and fresh baits eaten in areas where the carp don't think they are being fished for. At Taverham, I spent a lot of time on the water over 10 years, and you could see the fish leave baits in those heavily fished spots, until they had been in the water for a couple of days, at which point they would start clearing them up. The same with the local river, carp would leave sweetcorn on a particular spot until it had started to go grey, they would swim past it, pause, and then only after a couple of days would they come in to eat it. A couple of mates and I spent a fair amount of time there walking the whole stretch, and there is no way, as the carp could swim the whole stretch in the time we walked it (and did almost every day in summer), that we wouldn't see them, so observation was pretty easy. Strangely enough, we didn't see the bream and the tench there, but we knew that they were about as they were often the first fish into particular spots when we fished. The carp would also avoid particular features, one being a gravel bank that rose up from the river bed. On the occasions I have left hookbaits in the water for a few days, it is often the bigger fish from a water that take it. That is I have spotted larger fish in the spot, and watched them 'control' the area, making smaller fish avoid the spot or area, and then take the hookbait after a couple of days, when my apparent danger is nil (not many anglers leave a bait out for so long without recasting). I'm sure I am not the only person who has noticed this as Ken Townley wrote about it, and it is a tactic that Albert Romp employed in the past.

Personally dont buy in to the washed out bait theory because unless there no bird life, nuisance fish or crayfish and the carp stock is vey low the bait would rarely be in the water 48 hours in fact majority of lakes i doubt the bait makes it more than ten hours out in the lake majority of the time. Even when we not catching the fish are clearing the bait and just leaving the hook bait. Would a carp no the difference between a bait thats been in water 8 hours or 48 hours and then link this to safety i dont think so personally. imo its anouther example of looking into things to much.

I've let this ride, and not said anything about the topic, although I had thoughts, but was trying to marshal them into some sort of order so I could say what I think. Washed out baits may work on a couple of levels; The bait has been in the water for a couple of days, so it is safe to eat and not a pressure point that the carp feel they are eating freshly put in bait. If the pressure is so high that they don't eat baits that haven't been in the water a couple of day, then older 'washed out' baits may be the ones that are safe. It may also be that they would eat fresh baits if the amount of bait going in was enough so that they felt safe, whereas, they are leaving the new baits as they simply aren't safe. It may also be that fresh baits could possibly be overloaded with flavours, and at introduction levels are so high that they repel! I used to feel that on many high pressure weekend syndrome lakes, the fish do leave the baits introduced on Friday until Sunday at the earliest, and those that catch are those that are using washed out baits, small stringers, or even single hookbaits, different from those fishing over the large amount of spodded baits. If you prebait with enough bait that the carp are comfortable eating it, then I don't think that washed out baits are an advantage, and for my weekend trips, I do try to be different from the 'norm'. However, I do also think that fresh baits can be a danger to fish, and so I often use an older hookbait. I may start the trip with a hookbait, and use that same hookbait for a couple of days if it doesn't get pulled off the hair (fish or deterioration, which can be reduced by meshing hookbait ). I also bait up with fresh baits as my freebies. The hookbait is 'safe', the freebies are fresh and dangerous, the hookbait catches 'em. Also it can be worth leaving a bait in place for a couple of days, again, you have to have confidence that it will stay on the hook/hair. A few years ago, this washed out bait thing, I watched the carp ignoring sweetcorn that was fresh, until it had started to go a bit grey after a couple of days. The tench and the bream would eat it fresh (until a few were caught on it), and then they would avoid the area for a few days, (tench especially), but for the carp to take sweetcorn, it had to have been introduced a couple of days previously. My main belief is simply that baits get left over a weekend, due to weekend syndrome, and a washed out bait may be better, but if fishing normally (midweek), pre-bait as much as possible, and you shouldn't need a washed out bait, except at the weekend when the pressure is usually highest