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Quick night on the local day ticket on Friday. Managed to get on them easily enough but a bit disappointed to just catch the one. I put a bucket of bait out about 30 yards in front of me and got continuous liners on it from about 9pm until 3am. Bizarrely, the only rod to go was the one chucked under the bush in the near margin. I can only assume my hinges were not the one..... should have put bottom baits out. Still, better than a blank and a very pretty little patchy common. I'll not get out again until the end of June which is a killer.

Persevere. Koi will generally be slow to accept any new foods (although mine loved boilies straight away too 😅). Once they're used to it, they'll be fine. I chatted with a koi keeping mate about my koi's reluctance to eat the dried shrimp/silkworm and he said they'd take a while to get onto it. They have done now... they love them all of a sudden.

I remember baulking at 20 quid..... then 30...... I agree 40 notes just disappears as soon as you walk into the tackle shop.

If they had spawned and dropped a bit you know that you can trust his estimates on fish sizes in the water. I have seen the stress of a carp with the blood vessels and blood pressure increasing after capture. I don't know if you can remember it the 29lb fish I had from the syndicate has a 'birthmark' of blood vessels near the pectoral and right gill, it goes red during capture and stress. I've seen it in other fish as well.

I told you why it was removed:

I spent some time on there late 80's, flitting between summer and winter bays, the attached photo was summer point, this was also when I became aware of tiger nut's, having been mostly using chick peas until then, the carp went mad for tigers so I made the most of it, getting hold of them wasn't easy though, a non fishing shop in Swindon refused to sell any to me as they knew I was using them as bait..! Good times then though, I seem to remember some of the guys talking about an angler there fishing the winter bay near all the snags (now long gone) called John Allen, who'd recently had that 200lb cat from the Ebro..

Yes it didn't link to any hydrolysates link, it was a 'rant' by someone about people copying their bait. Now hydrolysates are actually fairly easy to use, and many people can use bait that is effectively breaking itself down without realising it. I think it is in the Specialised hookbait thread, where I mention efflorescence, the enzymes, salts and sugars coming to the surface of baits

I might be mistaken, but think one of your original posts on here was deleted? Anyway, I have wasted a bit of time earlier looking into hydrolsates, seems too much faffing about and can't be bothered with it. God knows what the fish one smells like!!! Seems like there is nothing new anymore in the 'bait war' trends, will younger carpers actually do this... of course not. As a property program said ages ago, it's all about 'location, location, location' 👍 Tight lines to all, hopefully I will get on bank when my club lake reopens after spawning is done 👍

On Saturday we got the koi out one by one to measure them (koi size tends to be expressed in length (cm) rather than weight which I struggle to get me head around!). We have 4 over 70cm, biggest 75, 5 x 60s, 5 x 50s, 4 x 40s and a couple at 39 cm. Weight wise, 31 and 30 lb are the biggest. It was actually a bit of a stressful operation. When you net the white ones you can see them going pink as the blood vessels expand with stress. This just makes you want to get them back as quick as possible. Obviously you don't see that when you catch a normal carp as their colour hides the pinkness. The koi are in a right mood after the ordeal. They're feeding but nowhere near as well as they were. I even bought them a load of dried shrimp/silkworm as a treat and even that stuff's not getting them excited. I suspect it'll take a few days for them to get over it properly.