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Hi guys I thought I might start a thread for the blankers, I always think it's important to learn from your failures so here goes, Fish were still active so I assumed they might still like some bait 😁I didn't give them loads but in hindsight too much 😱either that or they weren't visiting my spots on the other side of the pads (should've continued pre baiting but life got in the way) Chicken Pad Thai is a nice easy meal to cook Should've prepared better no cutlery, Casting the new rods at the end I whipped the rig off and learnt about fast hands when casting, I tried chucking some around 90 odd yards to see how it went and thinking fast hands and focusing on that seemed to help, it got me hitting the clip consistently anyway, Was it a waste of time nah I flipping loved it being out again 😁

Take some maggots next time. A few pints of reds will have them, especially if you're seeing fizzing up. If you see fish showing but no fizzing then chances are they're up in the water column and zigs may well do you a bite.

At the moment I'm regularly blanking, but so are all the other anglers. One thing I don't or didn't have until recently is the ability to prebait before trips, although now landing a job 5miles away from the lake... Just to get time to fish now is the hope, as Assistant Manager of the hotel is always on call... I try to analyse every trip, learning from every session, although on a hard lake when no-one is catching is difficult. I think my biggest failure is finding fishable weedy spots or weed free spots that the fish will visit. Some weed free ones they avoid, especially when they have been caught on them before or the natural food is gone. My usual answer is always 'must try harder'.

One thing I've noticed with otters is that whenever they are around there are usually zebra mussel shells lying about all over thr place, as like most people they want an easy meal so they usually go for these when they are available

I would be worried! Most of the time, a fish corpse will last no more than 48 hours on the bank; foxes, crows, rats will eat it. Only otters and foxes are strong enough drag the body up the bank. Otters have different types of 'patrol' or ranges. A dog otter may move around his territory, river to lake, over into female territories, whereas a female with cubs is likely to stay put. They will take the available food source, so if fish are within reach they will take them. They will also take coots, moorhens, and I have seen them take greylag geese and a year old Swan. Just because you still have silver fish does not mean the otters have moved on. In fact if you have loads of silvers it could be a sign that the bigger fish are not there; perch and pike will munch on silvers, the ill, slow and dying, and keep excess numbers down.

I found a half eaten Carp of about 4lb on my local club water a few years ago. I took a photo and sent it to the Club Chairman. He contacted me and told me that they had set some mink traps on a nearby private water which are basically cages filled with dead fish that they can get in easily but not out and they drown. I don't think otters would resist it either! I wouldn't rule out foxes, any dead fish that washes up in the margins would be easy pickings. Unfortunately otters tend to go for bigger fish and then often only eat the throat area and leave the rest. The fact that the silvers seem OK doesn't mean all is well. I would contact the Club and report what you found as you can legally trap and release otters if they are causing a problem.

The Swan mussel shells above the water line are a big giveaway, along with the way the corpse was left. Extremely likely to be an otter about! We discovered on my syndicate that the coots were going missing, numbers of their claws left in the field, no other remains. In the end a couple of us actually saw the darn thing, both during the day. Spraints weren't obvious, the long grass, sheep and out of bounds area meant we probably missed them until we saw the otter definitely.