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So certain anglers fish the same swim week in , week out? This was the case when I first got on dinton white swan. It was handy in a way because you knew where the anglers would be and you had what was left. Sometimes this was good but obviously on occasions it left you away from the fish. But everyone left each other alone so I soon got sucked into the same routine. I picked a swim that no one fished and thought to myself I just need to out bait those around me, which I did and caught my fair share. This is what the blokes on there at the time called "bait and wait". Certainly a good way if everyone respects what you're doing and vice versa. But also a quick fire way to lose your angling skills and you become lazy (I know I did). It was like this for my first 3 or 4 seasons until a lot of the original members moved on and having "your swim" soon became a thing of the past. Those that couldn't move on from that time were left struggling but the ones who adapted back to find the fish first etc caught.

It looks like a bear trap! The water described above is a public park lake, wading etc is banned, (instant lifetime ban for wading, swimming, letting your dog in the water, bait boats and leadcore) I can imagine the complaints I’d get if I started raking out the weed, I once got reported to the chairman for climbing a tree, then again for hopping a fence, then again for parking behind my swim (on a public road - the house overlooking my car didn’t like carp anglers parking along their road and successfully lobbied to get us banned from parking along this stretch of road) finally I was reported for standing in the out of bounds nature reserve... which was a real feat as I was 100 miles away driving an ambulance car around an airport at the time - You gotta love a park lake!

You just have to embrace it mate (which you must have done holding the ticket for so long). I've fished park lakes and you just have to chuckle at all this stuff, you have no choice if you want to catch the fish.

This park lake can drive me to distraction, heroin addicts and glue sniffers at night, (not as bad now as it was though) dogs swimming through lines, winos, litter, even kids on motoX bikes tearing it up... rats, seagulls, tennis balls landing in your swim... I’ve seen anglers fight pitched battles over who got into a swim first, barrow races along the top path... blatant violation of rules... I don’t know why I love the place so much, but I’ve always had a ticket for the place since the mid 90s! It can be cliquey, but I just ignore it!

The rods arrived today and Iv been over the park to try them again and I’m happy. Went for a set of Prologic C3 Fulcrum 12 ft 3.5llb. I asked the shop how much they could do me for 3 and got them £430 delivered, so saved £50 .... like my Nan you used to say if you don’t ask you don’t get.

Park lakes are a law unto themselves. They can be very clique with locals not wanting other anglers on there, and an almost permanent bivvy in 'the best swim'. I did fish it for a season, pretty much the only lake I fished due to no transport. I walked and even now walk it regularly. I prebaited heavily, catching a few fish, and was told by the locals when I fished "there's a guy prebaiting but I don't know what he's catching", I was trying not to laugh as my indicators were often bouncing. It took a while before they cottoned on! Saying that I was catching as many fish (not as big) on sweetcorn over Vitalin. The boilies were producing doubles while the sweetcorn produced mostly single figure commons. I also fished other swims, rarely the big double 'best swim', often going into the channel behind the island or the corner swim alongside the rushes. When I fished nights I was pretty careful to hide my bivvy, or even sleep rough under tarpaulin and on a sleep mat (see picture on other thread).

I suppose, getting back to spodding, that it’s always useful to know what it is you are intending to achieve through spodding tactics. Are you trying to stop a herd of carp roaming nomadically across a featureless swim? Making the bait the feature? Or are you spodding to a known feature that carp will usually visit to feed over, with the intention of holding them there for a period of time? Does that water have the stocking density for this? Do the carp move in large groups? Spodding may not work for carp that move about singly or in pairs. How much time can you devote to the swim? I think this can be my Achilles heel with spodding, I tend not to be able to devote enough time to a swim with a spodded carpet of bait. I have been guilty in the past of planning a spodding session whilst sat at home on the sofa, convincing myself that if I spod a carpet of particle out I’ll slay them, then turning up, carrying out a spodding session in a swim, going through with the home inspired master plan, then catching naff all from it... almost spodding for the sake of it! Spodding is a useful tool in the armoury, but if I fish to my strengths, boilie fishing, small baited patches, fishing for a bite at a time, margin fishing... I tend to stick with what I’m confident in. I’ll go to big beds of bait if the water responds to it, (shearwater bring my example) but at the moment, on my waters I fish, stringers or half a dozen baits around the hook bait does the most bites. If I put out 50 boilies, I’ve baited heavily! I’m a rubbish zig angler, I’ve never done any good with them, hence I’m not confident in them, so if I fish them, I tend to be beaten before I’ve started. Location and fishing to your strengths, that’s the key to my confidence.

Same. I’ve got more impatient as I’ve got older! In my mid 50’s now and it would be easier to play the waiting game but you’re often kidding yourself that ‘if you bait it, they will come’. I think this is related to spombing. Having spent hours finding spots and accurately baiting, you often feel ‘invested’ in a swim-usually to your cost. This topic does have several issues. A ‘spod mix’ implies the ingredients and ratios of what goes into your bucket. But the Spomb is simply the delivery method not a tactic as such. Avoiding Gulls and the convenience and accuracy of wrapping and clipping mean that I will Spomb as a default option despite what bait I’m using. If I want a less densely baited area I’ll simply load it with less bait and spread it more widely. I’m still Spombing/Spodding but its a world away from the typical heavily and tightly baited area with 3 rods tram-lined to a dustbin lid.

I was the same to start with on dinton. I fished it how you should fish it. I soon learnt though that during my time on there the fish didnt like being chased around. You flicked a lead at them and they were off. If you could be one step ahead of them then all well and good but these fish at the time had no pattern. So falling in to the bait and wait trap happened to many. Don't get me wrong, some anglers would chase them around but only a couple of them were successful and they were both exceptional anglers, probably the best I've fished with.

Nothing wrong with being a bit mental your never alone with someone to talk to in your head 😂

I think what was my favourite winter swim was 'the point', the end swim by Pats Pool, the path up from main lake and the end of the track down from the car park. Casting past the end of the island aiming to the right edge of the coach company roughly towards the far corner of the lake. The drop off is in the swim around one or two to the right of that, the barbed wire ended in a tree and hawthorn bush, you could see the gravel bar running into the lake at low water level. I don't think I fished the actual channel into the main lake more than once or twice, I didn't see many fish swim through it, (Bruce did and caught), I preferred to fish the overhanging tree to the left, where I definitely caught. Even in the main lake I tended to fish the margins, towards the reeds on the Pingrees bank or the overhanging brambles by the pump House on the main footpath bank The advantage in margin swims was I could drop bait in by hand or catapult loose boilies if anyone was around... While I wasn't trying to hide what I was doing, I wasn't going to give spots away.

I'd struggle to do that even if I wanted to. The first morning I see fish elsewhere and nowt in front of me just drives me nuts. I really struggle to stay put.

It certainly has benefits to people fishing the same swims, like they pretty much let me get on with it,also it means I can make use of the the less popular ones, but it gets boring seeing the same swim week in week out, I think this year I just fancy making the most of the whole lake there will be chances everywhere, last year I found so many bubblers and couldn't or didn't capitalise on them and I found one of the big commons whilst walking about last year, just sitting in the margins, if I had my kit with me I may have been able to target it, gets a bit like I am going through the motions after a while, 😬

I'm tempted to split this topic, as although we are discussing spod mixes we are going into the effectiveness or not of spodding. On Earith I spodded bait in most sessions, albeit normally pellet and whole and crushed boilies, then topped the area up with throwing stick. I did try spodding particles in, pigeon conditioner, but on most occasions got breamed or tenched out, although there was an exception in one swim, a gravel slope or bar that had depths going from a few feet to 10feet, proper drop-offs. In one night I had 2 20's, my daughter landed another, and I had 5 other carp. The only time I really wanted to get into one particular swim was winter when I kept on catching from a particular area in it. Someone twigged what I was doing, so fished it; that made me look elsewhere and ended up catching what at the time was a personal best common. In the new swim, in February I still spodded in some pellet and boilies, and caught. Taverham used to respond originally to spodding, then that switched off, bait had to be in place for a couple of days, so the search for the carp then put a single bait or stringer on them became the best option. Again with that it could turn off. It did switch off once so a mate and I hit the spodded hemp, and caught loads in one night. Every water needs to be assessed, try it to find out. Sometimes spodding will work, others it will not. Non spodding waters, every now and again will respond to loads of bait spodded in.

I'm very much the same lol, I can easily blow a session in advance, I think my strengths are probably prebaiting, and my usual idea is I WILL make that spot a feature lol, to be honest it does work out OK usually but I could be fishing better whilst building up those spots, Part of the trouble with the lake I am on people tend to fish certain swims so you get stuck in a routine to an extent, you have a look round think about what's left and free and if that happens to be the swim you are used too it's easy to fall into that one, you can drive to the spots also so being quieter will help too 😁 This year I am planning to fish off the Barrow and spend a while walking and looking for opportunities, rather than waiting, and hopefully once I get the Bushwhacker I will be able to make some really good spots for myself and just regularly walk round and feed them up, this way I will learn a lot more and be fishing for a bite at a time, and taking the opportunity to catch more rather than being held in one swim, there are always little spots tucked away that don't get fished too often

East Sussex Water have a good supply 😁

Hi there. I've been looking for information regarding Barbel fishing on the Dordogne as I'm often in that area. I've fished a couple of times on the Dordogne near Gluges but with little success although I've seen plenty of fish there. I was just dabbling as normally I visit the region to dive the caves in the region which spans as far north as the Dordogne and south to the Lot. The Cele is between these two rivers. Many of the cave entrances are in the rivers and diving there I've seen loads of fish particularly when I'm in the water in winter as the cave water temperature is a contant 12c-13c all year around. In the main Chub although a few Barbel too. I once decided to put some boilies on the Cele river bed, go dive and take a look on my return a couple of hours later. The boilies were all gone and it ceratinly wasn't the flow and at a depth of maybe six feet. I then tried another experiment putting mixed groundbait in comprising crushed boilies, hemp, mini pellets, meat etc and then left a GoPro to film what happended. In 90 minutes of footage I saw plenty of Chub then a big Pike came through and scared all off. A while later the Chub returned and a couple of Barbel paid a visit too. I've canoed down the Dordogne too and seen a few Barbel as well as a couple of small Carp maybe 8 lbs to 10 lbs. So the fish are there and the signs by the river describing the species in the river refer to Barbel. This year (if Covid allows) I plan to go to the Dordogne area again diving but will give fishing the river a proper go rathan just a dabble. I do feel natural baits might work better unless one does plenty of pre-baiting. I used to drop ground bait from a bridge I often used to cross and see what fish it attracted. After a few days and baiting a couple of times a day the bridge supports had loads of fish feeding! But it took a while and not just hours.

If you taught the nuns to fish, they could be nuns on the run 😂