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It's not winter till December 22nd this year, so anyone caught catching a winter carp before then is still catching an autumn carp 😁

Looking back I reckon my best results came from baiting a matching pellet to my boilie. Was using baitworks at the time & they do a pellet from the same mix. Was mixing a few chops of boilie in with the pellet. The pellet would break down even in the coldest of water leaving lots of food signals but not to much to actually get there fill . On the day it was a judgment to bait straight away or not depending on activity. Not a fan of baiting over there heads in winter , as they might spook for the day . I had 3 spots baited one for each rod , & offering slightly different options ie depth / Sun/ shelter etc .

Carp often have specific areas they hole up in winter, year after year. It could be silt beds, near gravel bars, natural foods like bloodworm beds, or even next to snags, decaying lily pads or rushes. It is most definitely not always the deepest water, I have seen them in rush beds with only just around 3feet of water above them. They were only visible if you got into the water right next to them, you couldn't see them from any swim, although you could cast to the edge of the rush bed, and catch. In winter I rarely fish with any particles, maybe some very over wet soaked Vitalin as groundbait and nearly all boilie as my feed, although sweetcorn can produce a fish or two. I also reduce my stringers; instead of 5-30 bait stringers, I go to only 1 or 2 (14mm) boilies on a stringer with a single hookbait. One rod nearly always has a hi-viz or hi-attract pop-up as the bait, and I recast this regularly, trying various spots and various baits. The obvious bright yellow Pineapple (in its various forms from different manufacturers) works sometimes, as do others, Monster Squid, Scopex, Plum or my own version pop-up Garlic and Megaspice, which I describe in the Bait Making section. I really don't know what it is, but that mix produces a lot of fish as an individual pop-up, or as part of a food bait mix. Even in winter, the food bait will often work. I have described in the past a session I had years ago on Thwaite. For the first two days the high attract pop-ups produced, then for the rest of the week all takes came to the food bait I had been feeding sparingly since the first day of the trip after no other prebaiting through the year. On Earith back all those years ago I found a swim that produced fish every trip, although because I was catching other people did start fishing it. A little digging around with the marker rod, I found a swim with similar topography at the other end of the island. I went on to catch from here as well. My pre-baiting on here was as I left every week after a two day trip. I put a kilogramme of boilies in as I was leaving. Every take came on my good source bait. Despite trying a few times, the high attract baits did not give a fish. I wish I had known about the Garlic Spice mix then! NOT all takes will come during the day. As much as fish may be caught during daylight, I found some fish still fed at night. I have caught a lot of fish at night, even in winter. My biggest common at the time, from Earith, was caught at around 1am in February. Saying that though, my best winter session 4 fish, over 4 days, just after a thaw, every fish came during daylight. The only reason I fished at night was the distance from home. Earith Winter February 25lb common:

Ha they wouldn't be able to cope with that and neither would I, I do love Christmas I've nearly done all my shopping already 😁

I bet your Kids won't be allowed to open their Christmas presents until after the Queens' Speech , Elmo . 😁

I soaked it for 30 mins and placed it in a plastic cereal container, Ive put new line on hundreds of times but never had this issue. There is a small washer under the spool on both reels. Maybe ill try adding another one.

You need to be looking now mate - they'll be starting to visit the winter areas already and those early signs can make or break a winter campaign. If you can, I'd be baiting those areas too (and keep that going all through winter). There is no point starting baiting in winter as you've already missed the boat and their metabolism will have slowed. If you keep it going in from autumn, they'll keep feeding. Regards fishing in winter itself, be ready for long periods of inactivity. They will show you where you need to be, but the levels of activity are very low, and it often comes in the dead of night (1 - 3 AM). When it gets dark at 4 or 5 PM that can seem like a very, very long wait (by 8 PM it feels like midnight!). Every pit is different but I've found areas of consistent depth near (not in) the deepest water can often serve as winter holding areas. Keep your eyes on shallower water when the sun comes out, especially if there are reed beds about. It's worth trying to find out about past winter captures as the holding areas usually stay the same year-on-year in my experience. Don't expect too much. Sometimes you can be bang on them but at the end of the day their metabolism slows so they simply don't need to eat much. That said, imo they will feed for a short period every day so if you can find where that is, you can sometimes set you watch by the takes. The hardest thing about winter is staying focused as the hours pass by with no signs whatsoever. Just one single sighting can make the difference between a great campaign and a whole winters blanking, so you absolutely need to keep those eyes open and just keep going. Good luck.