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Off the mark with this mirror at 19lb 8oz, not the species I'm after but I will take it 🤣 nailed it on a size 2 wide gape double 20mm boilie 🤣

21lb 12oz common 👍

Thin it right down and be clever and carpy OR buy a power barrow and take more 🤣🙃

For me it's everything, not only weight but speed of set up ,drying off kit at home ,carrying it in my now much smaller car ,I have to know where it all is ,so I can just add bait ,bit of food ...and bye bye wife til tomorrow... Here's a pic of myself fishing a mega water ,just tarping it under a 58 pattern poncho tarp ,which make great barrow covers n all ,walked over a mile ,over big stone walls etc

What heavier than the Ridgemonkey Std 1 Man bivvy - never lol Just put my back out thinking about it 😂

My mate who's fishing the canal at the moment has gone a bit mad about stripping his gear back, he's removed his kettle for a metal cup that he can use on a stove 🤣 Is it about the weight on the barrow for you guys or the space it takes up? For me it's not so much the weight of things, but the amount of stuff I take and how long it takes to pack away lol. @Roughtor my old bed chair and sleeping bag weighed around 49kg if I remember correctly 🤣

Me too.... I bought a Pioneer Ultralight last year.... not used it once.... it's just sitting there. Like you I chase the weight. I'm always looking to save a few grams here or there (in fact I just bought a titanium cup for silly money (🤦‍♂️).... that's how anal about weight I am). I have several shelters but I always use either the mk1 Tempest Brolly or mk1 Lo Pro.. just because they're light. I still have an original Supa Brolly kicking about somewhere... also mega light. One thing that winds me up.... as new versions are released (Tempest mk2 and RS, Lo Pro mk2 etc etc) they ALWAYS put on weight. Thicker material etc. I hate that!

I don't think that the weight is the problem, nor the packing away time. I can't do with sleeping on Ravishing Rachel, sorry the airbed anymore, it's too low, not that my bedchair is particularly high, but I can't get up from the floor easily. Comfort and space. I can do without the porch extension, but with it does mean I can sit on my chair when it's raining and keep dry. No matter what when carp fishing it is guaranteed to be 2 barrow loads, Sky has a bucket of food and a couple of stuffed hooves for daytime chewing. I got really lucky years ago, someone put a Nash Hurricane Outlaw Bivvy dome and overwrap on ebay and I picked it up for £10 including carriage, they made a spelling mistake on the listing, 'bivy', so no-one else bid on it. That lasted years, in fact I still have it, and that's been through a few storms. It's only my preference for an umbrella that made me switch from it. When I was homeless, it was home!

I find half the problem is if you don't take it, you end up needing it 🤣 I've scaled back quite a bit but looking at my kit I probably lose the guest chair and power bank, but I prefer sitting on the chair during the day and like to have power just incase the phone or camera dies lol. My aim is one barrow load comfortably, if it takes more I need to scale it back again 👍🤣 I can't be dealing with small bedchairs, tried it in the past and it's torture on long sessions 🤣 I'm currently using the nash ss4 wideboy sleep system and find it the dogs lol, not sure on the weight but I'd say probably 35 - 40kg 🤣 Interesting though, when I pack up tomorrow I might get the scales out and weigh bits of kit see what the total is on a barrow load lol I buy most of my stuff second hand mate, the price of new bivvies are insane 🤣 got quite lucky a couple years back and got a nash hide xl with door and groundsheet for 170, only been used for camping twice lol. It's trashed now tho 🤣

Both.... I still look at my gear and think "how have I got so much stuff with me?"!

And .....lol,I did once go down the rabbit hole of bedchairs ,like ditching them and using a Helinox or Onetigress 'cot'...and when younger even kipping on the floor to save a second trip ...( not anymore) I'm off over the road in a mo to check my neighbours fishery for him,later if I can find this pic of when I got into tarpology ,was minimal ........and daaaaaamp..ha,ha..!

Yeah it's funny ,because I've pretty much got all my kit 'down ' as they say ,but bivvys oh ,no ...no...far too much overthinking goes on in the darkness. .. Mind you I do like the look of the lo pros . I'm currently switching tween various MHr and a Tacklebox long top ...lake depending 😂

I think your right Yonny ,I gotta reign that bivvy fetishism in 😊

I knew I had a pic somewhere of my minimal carp / survival stove and water set up ,show your mate ,bud and see what he thinks ...or suggest to him look on the bushcraft forums, now these guys are all about minimal ,stick stoves ,cooking on slate the lot ...

Im sure A lot of people just don’t know how to load a barrow properly do the good thing and get the weight over the wheel end and then stick 3 20l buckets of bait on the back end lol pull your arms out of their sockets lol

It's the £££££££ they are putting on the moment that get me nearly a grand nowadays, mental money for a tent and you still need extras with most.

Not sure it's worth it mate. The Speedflex is 4.5 KG vs the 3.75 KG of the MHR. Might save you 30 seconds set-up time but not sure that's worth the extra kilo.

I got a job lot at the Essex show, but yeah a trimmed down pop up would work just as well

Funny you should post as I have a pan of maize simmering on the stove for this week. I get mine from Gladwells at Copdock Mill. It's definitely big enough to drill and put on the hair. I must admit I gave up on plastic baits, both for lake rules, and my peace of mind environmentally. I became concerned about leaving plastic baits in the environment should I crack off. The last few pieces I have found and retrieved are actually smaller than real grains of maize, and fake sweetcorn is smaller than the standard piece I use for bait. I do tend to trim a standard yellow (Nutty Bait) pop-up for use as a hookbait. I'm too tight to buy additional specific hookers...

Caught my first carp of the year this weekend after a winter in which I did next to no angling for one reason or another. The weekend started well with 3 carp and a tench. Another bite resulted in a loss on Saturday morning but it was enough to have me blagging another night. Unfortunately, despite that warm sunshine, that cold easterly had them backing off and without a move on the cards I was stuck camping for the night. Still, a lovely weekend and I just hope I can get back out at some point soon. Here's the best of them. The linear is I think an original, typified by the little melted heart-shaped tail that most of the OG's in this water have. The common is I think a stock fish but no less welcome for it. Clearly one on it's way to being a real biggun.

Went on a quest for my first catfish this weekend, I lost one the other night as it was steaming towards a bridge, I was felt a bit defeated lol. Anyway I carried on and managed this beauty this morning at 29lb 8oz 👍buzzing 👍👍 Anyway I feel like I got the bug for these things so getting some catfish rods ordered, I now want a bigger one but have learnt I need stronger gear lol. I'm wet and covered in slime, so packing up and going home 🤣 mission complete 👌

As for recent purchases, after going back and forth over deciding on a new bank side home i have final settled on a Trakker RS Brolly, Skull Cap and Infil, will be out on a couple of weeks time but have had it up in the yard looks the business

Lucky boy, love good days like that, one of my neighbours recently moved and gave my daughter a pair of old 11ft daiwa sensor Z carp rods, they will be perfect to get her started. I've bought her a new reel for her birthday, hopefully she can get out and catch a few with me this year on them.

I agree. I've been carp fishing for more than 30 years now (which probs sounds like nothing compared to some on here). Yes, of course it's changed in that time. The biggest change I've seen is the disconnect between young and old. Back in the day, it was the love of carp fishing (which included all the blanks, rubbish bivvies/bedchairs etc) that bought everyone together - a common love/obsession of this fantastic sport we all live for. You'd have youngsters, old boys, cops, criminals, brickies, students, lawyers and god knows what else on the bank - all getting on like a house on fire because we shared this bizarre infatuation with a fish. That togetherness is still there for those that seek it and most of the youngsters I meet on "proper" carp lakes are as driven by this love of fishing as anyone was back in the day. I see very few with a "catch at any costs" attitude tbh - they're just keen as mustard, as we all are or have been at some point. In fact, the guys I see ruining this comradery are generally the old boys, rejecting the youth (as is unfortunately so common for any generation), because they talk funny and push boundaries in their pursuit of carp. Tolerance is a virtue. Younger generations owe nothing to older generations. They are a product of a society that WE have all influenced in some way. They cannot choose when they were born. Next time you're out, have a chat with that spotty teenager who's up and down trees and moving swims 3 times a day before settling down to smoke a joint in the evening. Once you get past that ridiculous way they talk (😂) you might find he's an ok guy.

not about vintage tackle. However...for those of us who started 40+ years ago will remember this famous shot when it was published in KM's Book, reading Pete's story & seeing that photo made me MEGA KEEN! Sir Pete Springate's Yeoveney Brace caught in October 1978 - 38lb 8oz and 36lb 8oz