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@ Highy that’s a tuff schedule mate 😳 Iv had to work the weekend and late a couple of nights mid week to finish a job so it’s all systems go for an early tomorrow start got 24hrs but could go to a 48hr. If I can’t find the fish Iv got a backup plan… Been putting a bit of bait in two swims and when I couldn’t got a customer Iv done work for to do it when they walk their dog. You could say they live close to the water.

Hi Newmarket thanks for your reply. I too consider myself as someone who rambles on 🤣. And I’m probably going to do that right now. I do try to keep things short but I’m no good at it at all. Personally I don’t pay too much attention to my rig style I am happy to use the same rig style I been tying up since I first started back at carp fishing coming up 5 years ago and all that is is one I copied from terry Hearn on YouTube. His blowback rig. Not much to it. I do like how there’s no metal bits near the hook like with ronnie rigs and spinner rigs etc but I can’t say there not good as I have never used anything else apart from what I use. Only difference in how I set up this rig compared to how terry sets his up is that I trap the hair with a bit of shrink tube inline with the barb( I think terry says this in that video) as I prefer to use wafters as in recent years I been fishing this silty lake and I don’t like the thought of a bottom bait working its way into the silt especially as fish rip up the bottom and before long I suspect the hook bait is covered, even with my wafter set up I suspect this happens. Also I like to make my hookbait critically balanced and prefer it to sink as slow as possible. I do however pay a lot of attention to how sharp my hooks are and will only use kamacura wide gape x in size 4 and they are scrutinised constantly and I will never just say oh that’s alright! Maybe on a runs water I’m not so fussy. My hookbaits are always 14 mm barrels,(most people will say that’s a large hook for such a small bait) flavour and colour matching my prebait feed with a matching flavour and colour piece of pop up on top just to help critically balance it I have about 1 cm gap maximum between my hook and bait closer to half a cm to be honest but again I don’t pay to much attention to it, and that’s about it for my rig choice. I will add a picture below. As for the lead arrangement I have fallen in love with the helisafe system that Korda bought out so I buy them and attach them to my leadcore when I have a leadcore splicing session which is rare because they last so long I have actually been using the same 3 for over 2 years now😊. again all tieing up jobs just copied from YouTube. With the helisafe system and how it works I like to use short hook links, I have never really measured them until right now for this ranting episode and there about 8inches long which is longer than I suspected. I will only use a 3 and half ounce lead minimum now days and my preferred choice is a flat pear. Sometimes if you need to cast distance obv a more distance specific shaped lead is what you have to use so it’s all swings and roundabouts if you don’t get it just ask me. In case you didn’t know, but I suspect you do, this is a helicopter setup I’m using, I don’t really use it because of the benefits of using a helicopter set up I only like it because of the efficient drop off of the lead and quite often have both my beeds right down low on the leadcore just above the helisafe so really I’m using it like a lead clip set up but with that added benefit of dropping that lead really efficiently and never loosing leads because of a tail rubber loosening up on me on the cast. I have questioned myself on whether it’s really that necessary to drop the lead all the time I don’t really think it is but when your fishing for a few bites a session I would hate to be thinking after a hook pull (which can still happen obviously when dropping the lead) that what if I had dropped the lead would I have lost it ? So because of this I still use it. I tie my mainline onto the leader with a palomar knot. I hope I have covered everything from leadcore down. I hope I have explained my rig choice as I didn’t include that it in my first extra long rant, as I said I don’t feel it’s that important to my style of fishing. I’m sure whatever rig you use will trip them up if you do all the other things I do find important and I’m going to try just list them now instead of write it all out again as I’m sure I wrote it out in my first talk about plans for this year but if I didn’t or there’s anything anyone would like me to elaborate on or explain why I do this or that feel free to ask but just expect a long reply😎. Things I think are important to my success on this lake and others. 1. Prebaiting. I like to prebait regularly. Doesn’t have to be much I normally chuck them half a kilo of free food 2-3 times per week on a chosen spot. During the first few weeks of prebaiting if you want to try this yourself I would spray a bit more than half a kilo maybe a kilo over a few different spots around the lake. Aiming to get fish to try 1 bait out here or there and slowly think it’s safe and start searching it out. 2. Prebait preparation. I will never chuck freshly unthawed boilies into the lake. I will always wash them out for at least 24 hours previously or until I think they have soaked up as much water as they possibly can. This is an attempt to try my best to mimic my wafter hookbait in boyancy and also stop the food sucking up any of that dirty silt smell taste and make it as lovely as possible. (I didn’t include this next little twist in my first rant I don’t think) After this I drain all the water there sitting in out put about a quarter of them in a bag and add a dash of matching dip flavour to liven a quarter of them back up a bit, BUT, it’s important to not overdo this. This is my own little thing I started doing I’m happy to admit where I copy something as I have already said and all I can relate this next little edge to is when we eat a pack of crisps, everyone likes to find that crisp with that extra bit of flavour right! We search them out don’t we? We will still eat the other less flavoursome crisps and because we’re humans we might save them flavour full ones until the end but In my mind I cant imagine animals/fish doing the same, I know my dog eats his meat before his biscuit if I don’t mix it up enough so that’s how I thought of this little twist 😉. Basically number 3 will show you how we then take advantage of this. 3. Extremely flavoured hook baits. If my little plan on getting them wanting the little extra flavoured baits works then this next thing is what gets me extra quick pick ups. See even more importantly in spring and winter they aren’t eating loads but at the same time I want there to be bait about in my chosen area a lot of the time especially when I’m not there, therefore in my circumstance(can’t see the bottom ) you never know how much bait is on your spot when you drop in and it worry’s me that there could be too much there potentially slowing down your chance of a pick up. In my opinion you can really overdo it with flavouring if you glug up your free offerings too much but when it comes to hookbaits in this particular circumstance ( where they are used to the flavour of your bait) I don’t think you can overdo it because they never get to eat your hook-bait (over-flavoured anything ain’t nice) I just imagine that extra flavoured hookbait leaking off reminding them of what they been having recently and maybe that’s a special 1 I hope they think and they home in in it 😉. 4. back leads. I will always use back leads if I feel it could benefit me. If I’m out on a big pit with gravel bars out in front of me and I’m fishing long distance and my lines are going up and down I won’t bother because it’s pointless but when you can use them and it’s worth it just do it don’t be lazy. If I’m using a pod I pretty much always do it to avoid when a fish is fighting under my rod tip picking up my other lines that are cocked and ready for action! You could pull a line back a tiny bit and it was sitting nice and suddenly it’s dragged against a rock and mashed your hook point or been dragged into a bit of debris and now you have ( if your like me) lost confidence in your trap and will have to recast , potentially spook fish in your area and lower your chances of fast success. Times like this is when good quality bite alarms come into play. For me personally I love knowing that my line is travelling upwards from a back lead pinned to the deck toward my leadcore! I have mad confidence when I fish like this. 5. Stealth. Again if you read my first rant about plans for this year I’m sure I talk about stealth and how for me on this particular lake it’s extremely important if you want stuff to happen quick. I’m talking legs aching where you’re using your knees to cushion every step avoiding vibrations into the water I’m talking walking around so slow that every task takes longer. It’s like a mindset that you have to get used to and it’s quite a task but you gotta ask yourself do you want a capture and ok it might not work a few times but when you put the work in and it does work you will be hooked on it and after that it won’t feel like such a task. I didn’t include this bit in my last essay where I told you all I captured my target fish but let me tell you know during setting up on that night I had depressive thoughts, I had some little angel in 1 ear saying it’s worth it your getting drenched but don’t worry keep positive and I also had a little demon in the other ear telling me your wasting your time what are you doing it’s savage weather your kids and missis at home and your gonna be going home drenched and gonna have to dry out your stuff with nothing to show for it. And on another day that demon might have been right but on this day ( and others in the past) he was wrong and I was rewarded. 6. Dropping in at right time. This really should be up at number 1 if we was doing it in order of importance! I take a lot of notice of the weather conditions and then apply them to the lake I’m fishing and then make a choice on if I should go set up or should I just prebait and hopefully at the same time watch and learn. In my limited experience I have learned that the absolute best conditions are as follows, low angler pressure, low atmosphere pressure, cloud cover, warmer the water the better to an extent( I have been shocked to see carp shoaled up in shade in extreme heat! I have only ever seen this shoaling up behaviour in winter previously! I see this last year when we hit 40degrees Celsius! I was only out chucking free bait to carp in a lake that I I can’t actually fish for I just use this place to see there reaction to my different little experiments with bait and I learned what happens when conditions get that harsh be it warm or cold they seem to act the same way and was shoaling up)anyway so back to prime conditions we had water temps, angler pressure, air Pressure cloud cover, moving on , dissolved oxygen in the water (winds influence) time of year- daylight hours etc, natural food activities, syndicates individual feeding schedules, other anglers baiting habits, in my personal opinion moon phases mean a lot, all these things together can make a difference to if you can have the session of a lifetime or not. 7. The quality of your bait. If you read my first essay on my plans for this year I’m sure I talk about the importance of using quality bait. I talk about my experience with my friend who didn’t see how important using quality bait could be and also at that time how I didn’t really know how important it can be. In my opinion now it really does matter! Especially if your on a campaign and the fish have other options it’s even more important but if I remember right I did talk about how even on a relatively quick session I feel it doesn’t take long for carp to realise how good is the food they are eating. im pretty sure that’s all I got to say on why I think I was successful. if anyone is interested I only talk from my own experiences now. I said I watched terry Hearn videos etc that was the truth that was then but now I watch nothing. I kept my mouth shut for a long time and just listened and learned taking everything in along the way. A few members on this chat room really helped me out in particular salinkodrogg. I urge everyone to do the same until the time comes that you need to start taking the lead yourself. I am a little bit worried that I sound like an [censored] hole thinking I know it all right now after this little essay but after reading you guys responses to my comment saying it seems nobody is interested I got a little buzz on about it. 1 of you said I had given you the drive to regroup and go hard again and that made my fuc#ing day and that’s better than any capture for me to be honest! when I wrote out that last essay and showed my capture of pawprint that I clearly said I wanted and spoke about my plan I was kind of ready to stop talking on this chat room and planned to never come on here again and just keep myself to myself but when I came on and read some lovely things written by you guys I now plan to go attack a new water and I will keep you all updated on how it goes and we will see if I deserve to feel good about what I’m doing. I want a new pb common this year that’s my next target and you lot all gave me drive to do that so thank you all for that. Danny Hearn signing out wish you all the best 👊

@Danny Hearn, I love reading your posts, even if I do have to merge a few into one, 😂 I have been trying to think about my largest common, think it's 28lb, although I know I've had plenty between 20 and 25lb. I do prefer mirrors, although the 2 biggest commons in my syndicate are probably closer to 45 than 28... Talking of my syndicate, even after the result of last week and the trials and tribulations I want to get back there straight away, it's my 'happy place'. Last weeks trials: I got to the lake on Tuesday, 1st time in around 5 weeks after car problems, where the ECU failed, meaning I had to write it off. So Tuesday I took the car round to the track round the back and promptly sunk down to the axles in soft mud. I hadn't put my barrow in the new car, so it took me some 7trips walking my gear ¼ of a mile to the spot I fancied. It took a mate coming down in his Discovery to pull me out. On Wednesday another angler came down in his van, absolutely no problems over the mud and set up around 250metres to my left. He packed up Thursday and got straight out again with no problems. Thursday afternoon, another angler comes down in his van no problems and sets up nearby to my left. Friday morning I had that wake-up call, a 23.12 mirror, so I stayed put thinking a few more would come along. On Saturday morning, Jonathon packs up, drives past again no problem. So after packing up I went to get my car from the boathouse car park, went up the slope to the track and managed to get stuck again. Another 3 trips with my gear back to the car helped by a mate, and then with 2 more syndicate members, a quad bike and Ranger got my car out. Stood by the car, just about to load it up, I had either an oxygen or sugar crash and passed out, just went straight over face first. A mug of coke and a few biscuits, 15-20minutes sat down and I was OK. A very careful drive home Saturday. So this year's plans, keep fishing, be careful of my health, stop pushing it with my hip and back problems and enjoy what I can do. I'd like to get into the originals, the new stock are nice, beautiful fish, but the originals are proper quality.

Looked into going Embryo/Norton Disney (Lincoln) with a mate for his birthday in September (72hr) but he's decided to sell up, another mate has been issued his prince albert ticket and has hammered that since the weekend he got it. Would love a good decent long session, but life n work have now really taken over. Stupidly, myself n another parent have put our names down to coach lads football team from next week.... My lad now does ---- Monday- Football Training, Tuesday - Gym session, Wednesday- Karate, Thursday- Football Training, nothing Friday, Saturday - Karrate Gradings, Sunday Football Match.....aswell as myself and wife working and also wife trains twice a week and dances in a Sunday.....also from June I may have no car either.

Honestly Danny, with what you write, it looks/sounds like something you see on/in the Carp Magazines & Internet Sites. This is a pure inndepth write up into what you love and sure people will take notes of what you actually do. The PB common will come soon, I'm sure. Myself I can't gey passed 18lb, and I'm fishing lakes with upper 20lb fish, but at the moment I think I'm going for the sake of it and I'm looking at a new challenge with a Mate.

He wanted to catch his first pike recently, he only had one…