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I fish near to locked up most of the time due to the waters i fish being smallish with lots of weed beds little island bars and that, don't want to sound like some crazy dude that don't fish open water, i do like far bank margins though and to be honest most of the time it pays not to get to close the bottom of the rising slope is always a good spot.

Most of the time the old closed season March 15th to June 16th covered the tench and carp spawning times, although occasionally they would go through to the end of June or early July. Possibly the only fish it may have missed is pike, which I have seen spawn at the start of March, even the end of February in warm early months. If you think about it, almost every species of fish in UK, we want to catch them at their heaviest weight, so will be fishing right up to spawning times, including pike. This year I stopped fishing for pike when I noticed I was getting males chase the females in the margin as I was netting or returning them. One of the fish I landed was 2lb heavier than her autumn or winter weight, she had recovered from a cormorant strike, not long before a mate caught her, the scars and markings were a match when we checked pics. She had obviously fed up, enough to heal and build her roe up. This is where Yonny and I disagree on fishing during spawning times, but I do understand his views. One of my Ardleigh carp I caught while fish were spawning in the reedy inlet to my left, the fish I caught came from the deeper water around 50metres away. Had it spawned, or was it going in there? It wasn't an empty fish, no 'spawning scars', although long term battle worn. Again at Taverham I watched fish spawning on The Meadow area, yet there were fish who weren't Meadow fish, at their end of the lake still feeding. I would think the best choice is close off swims that can reach the spawning areas when the fish are there, but then again, if the lake is fished by numpties at any point, or those who don't know shutting may be the option. I have seen fish spawning, emptying out, and quite literally within hours are feeding heavily again, at the other end of the lake, or even munching their way through their own eggs. Some fish are always 'footballs', that is their shape, the strain or mix that they are. Look at Italians, often dark, but massive gut. Get a mix of strains in a water, you get Leney scale pattern for example, but with Italian shape. Dinks or Dinkelsbuehl carp are also gutty. I started this reply, but Dayvid made another post in meantime, so I'll do a quick edit. 16.11 in Nazeing normally weighs 45/46lb. A couple of years ago she had dropped to 36 in July, she had emptied out totally, and was caught just after. By September she was back up to 45lb.

Thats the thing do we give up , I wont 😀 To be fair I based pregnancy as a general term, near to spawning , as yes the start to produce unfertilised eggs , not sure from when though, when I mentioned Pregnant fish I was more leaning to the spring when full of eggs, and in most cases very obvious . How many times again have we heard , " came out at X amount last time ,down on weight now she's spawned " or words on a similar vein.

A long one at 1 hour 40 minutes but the calibre of some of the fish are truly stunning.

Better to be safe. If you don't think you can fish to them safely, then you are doing exactly the right thing, trying to draw them out. Fishing to snags, as @Carpbell_ll has said, you need to be set locked up, and on your rods. No leaving them unattended! I prefer pointing the rods directly at the snag, no bent round tips as that can be enough for the carp to pull the rod over the alarms and take it into the drink. The theory is not giving any line, the fish arc away from the snags on the take.

Yes it does mean you can see some of them. Uncaught fish often show up at spawning time April is unlikely when they spawned, larger and deeper waters take longer to warm up to the temperature carp need to spawn, so even now some may not have spawned yet, and if the carp are area residential, they may not be ready. Not every carp in a lake spawn, although @Levigsp has written about an exception, or they do not spawn all at the same time. The exception is if new male fish have been stocked into the water, the next year all female fish will spawn. I must say though, and I am not disagreeing with Frank, but in a large reservoir it would be difficult to prove that. So if not every fish in a lake spawn, there are some that can still be fished for! In fact to be honest I am not totally sure of the need to close a fishery when fish spawn, other than to stop anglers casting into splashing bundles of spawning fish. Some aren't spawning, some are munching mates fish roe! In fact it is likely carp seen splashing in April, could well have been eating perch, roach or other fish spawn that do not require such high water temperature. Not all carp appear to spawn in the same area, although there is often one feature that provides the right environment, be it rushes, lily beds, overhanging waterside grass, then most will spawn there, but on larger waters like reservoirs then there may be more than one spawning area. Pretty much as soon as the major spawning is done, fish go on a munch, energy and protein hunt, protein for tissue repair, and energy as first requirement. Carp may also spawn more than once if the temperature is warm enough. As soon as they are emptied, the body starts producing eggs again, so they can go off again.

Don’t you have to be about 10 wear air max Trainers and a baseball cap guessing you fail on one of the 3

So long as your line is not crossing anything too snaggy and it's clear up to the snags you want to fish too it should be ok to fish locked up and sit near your rods there is a very good chance they will try for cover on a run but if you can hold them even for a brief second they will turn to slack line and head for open water and boy does a 20lb fish fight when it makes a run you will need to slacken the drag and let it run it does depend on the snags though with the right line rushes and reeds are fine I've strimmed a fair few when the fish has got into the reed bed a bit. sunken branches and tree roots i'd stay away from. It's good to have a solid set up with rear rod grips that lock and a set of waders to bait spots and hand drop rigs if you can make your way around the margin areas.