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First blood! 7-9lb (ish) common, unhooked in the net.

Carp no5 of 6 runs, that’s it I’m out of bait! Fished from 10-1, so well happy with that, no monsters but it’s broken the 2021 duck. this one beat me right up, had to chase it down the bank with a landing net and unhooking mat over my shoulder!

Carp no3 7-9lb (ish) unhooked in the net. 3rd fish from 4 runs so far, bumped one fish off and found the hook point turned over. Was using trig-hammers, now switched to fox wide gapes as I’m having to hit and hold, fishing to reeds on the other side.

I’m on the bank, rods out, gentle warm breeze drifting into this bay, had a few liners... fingers crossed!

Carp no2 ripped off as I placed the bobbin, 6-7lbish. Unhooked in the net.

Laughed me socks off at this...

Carp no4, I’m popping the barbless hook out in the net and letting them go, rather than bank them as it’s pretty mucky and slippery in this swim. This one probably scraped double figures. I’m looking at having to pack up soon, I’ve done all my bait bar a handful, that’s about 2/3 of a Kg since 10am. It’s raining, (I haven’t got a brolly!) I’m soaked through but still!

Many thanks all, just to recap the quick session, I got to the lake about 0920, had a quick mooch about, just had a really good feeling about the swim I chose, the wind was trickling into it and it was quite mild, there was some bubbling in the silt about 6-8ft off the reeds and you could see the reed stems knocking fairly regularly. The swim I chose gave me the best angle onto a snag tree buffered by large reed-beds. I used helicopter rigs made up of Nash heli kits to tungsten tubing. 3 oz leads with trig-hammers size 6 to 8” 20lb Esp striptease two tone in brown, fished as a blowback rig. First fish came fairly quickly, and fought quite hard for a little one, it partially straightened the hook, second take was missed, the hook point had turned over on the strike, so tied up new hooklinks swapping the trig-hammers for wide gape barbless in size 4. All hook holds were solid in the bottom lip, all about 1/2” back. After every bite, I put a handful of bait out over each rod, plus pinged out half a dozen every 8-10mins one by one - this produced a bite within seconds of them hitting the surface. Ran out of bait after doing 2/3rd of a kilo, I didn’t bring the whole kg as I thought I would end up with some left over which I don’t like re-freezing once defrosted. I was fishing up against the snag tree with the L rod and up against the reeds with the R rod. 4 bites came to the R rod. Fished in 3-4ft of water on silt. Packed up just after 1pm and headed home.

And My day today Kids home school,shout, cry, scream have a breakdown about now, currently vaping in garage before work Get to work, become depressed as I drive into the gates, chat to people who will moan about something work related, get into a discussion where someone says Boris is doing the best he can, I get annoyed and disagree heartily and will probably slag off matt Hancock quite a lot, and moan about people not respecting social distancing guidelines, usually I say something to them also, like are you all trying to beat the record for idiots that can fit in a 2m square? 😁 People seem to think I am angry, I wouldn't be of they didn't annoy me so much 😂😂😂😂

I found the best way to keep in shape was aquafit... when I retired I started eating properly not junk on shifts as I was before and I put on weight... I started going to aquafit as the low impact work was kind to my back and knees... its great... twice a week and I was toned and fit... then lockdown hit... I have an exercise bike but its not the same... sadly the pool is closed til further notice... I'll be glad to get back after all this is over... theres a social side too and as most of the folks in the class were ladies of a certain age, I was the eye candy🤣🤣🤣🤣 62 and a cobra-back studmuffin...🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Well as we used to say in the army mate, “at least they can’t make me pregnant” unless you happen to be female I suppose...

Keep away from the negativity mate if they start find something else to do lol

My day 20542 steps so far 2 podcasts listened to whilst out walking

Well done

Deep breaths mate, deep breaths! This will all be over soon, hopefully!

I'd love to join your fat club the only problem being i'm built like a greyhound, i can eat whatever i like whenever i like and i never put weight on not even a gram. i have had all sorts of tests done to see why i can't get fat the Dr seems to think i have some sort of auto immune illness such as Celiac disseise but not that lol.

Mint condition mucka

Nice little red letter day and this time of yr well in mucka

I wish.... I hobble in.... jump in the deep end and they laugh em'selves sick as I flounder about... but as well as the fitness side if you work out with other folks, the social side keeps you going back, as you don't want to miss hearing about Ethel's "Problems" or Joan's "Little Trouble"...🤣

Being 34, I should be loving it, but I also love my food, heaviest I've ever been now (12st heavy??) yesterday me n the lad went for a bike ride... Good 10 miles. 170 acre lake (Scotsmans Flash) looks very daunting... Seen a few on spoke to a few... Veeeery hard water, mainly Carp and Pike, BIG but in small numbers, people said if get a take its always a 20lb + but IF you get a take, spoke to 1 lad, and had 3 fish in 2 years. Back onto the exercise, I think biki g will be a new weekend pass time now.

This is an excellent point... motivation is extremely important! Lol!

That sounds like a hell of a journey you've been on mate, well done for getting through it and getting to a good place now where you can talk about it openly,

Well since my venture into sea fishing over the last 3 years I've stumbled across various hooks and patterns from makes I'd not heard of. One particular brand do a chod style hook and it's the sharpest hook I've ever got straight of a packet and at £2-45 for 10 they are cheap as chips. No carp tax on these. I've just got to use them carp fishing now 😂

I used to sharpen them but I hadn't noticed that I had any more or less fish on the bank than before. There was no difference in hook pulls, you always get one for one reason or the other so now I just them straight out the packet. Before it was fashionable to sharpen hooks I'd use the same one/rig for a whole weekend and often had multiple catches with the same hook so who knows

Yes mate the rise in temps had made me want to get out again! I'm quite lucky with the current situation, I got 2 fisheries and miles of canal river within 10 minutes of me. One of the fisheries is fully booked until mid next year and the other one is a small fenced pond of about an acre at most with another small pond next to it about half an acre. It's quite low stocked with some old fish in. It's quite a hard water but 1 of 2 is coming out at the moment so gonna give it a go tomorrow 👍 river is flowing too fast at the moment and not going to waste my time on canal carp at the moment lol. I've been sorting the shed out and found some tiger nuts so got them soaking, will have them on the boil tonight, also got some krill boilies soaking in vodka and krill liquid. Hopefully can tempt a carp tomorrow! Sorry to hear about your wife's accident, hopefully your situation improves soon! Nice mate have you caught anything yet? Luckily down here the temps ain't as bad, haven't seen any big freezes on the lakes in a while 👍

Shame that the fly tippers are out... just chucked over the fence by the lake entrance, left something with their address though... oops! That’s with the bailiff now... for me it home time!