Leaderboard

Just got back from a weekend on a water I thought I knew pretty well. I caught a 21-9 fully scaled mirror and 13-2 common on a water that is fished 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the warmer months so almost catching is a bonus. I've got a newish bait boat (sorry Yonny!) and it's got all the bells and whistles, GPS and sonar. The lake is at least 2 foot down as you can see the tide line on all the islands. I was getting a pretty steady 3 to 3.2 foot after the marginal shelf and sent the boat out to an island. Unfortunately I must have got a bit too close and managed to ground it! Over a grands worth of tech beached 50 yards away and I couldn't get it back to deeper water. Nothing else for it, roped in the bloke in the swim next door to help and then stripped down to my under crackers and waded in. The marginal shelf was clear and then I hit the silt, probably up to my knee. It was so thick, I was having to breast stroke to get through it. Luckily the sonar was spot on and the water didn't go above my belly button. There was a clearish channel between 2 islands where the silt was a lot less but there are also some aeration pumps nearby which probably helped to keep it clear. Luckily I have always tended to fish close to the islands and just at the bottom of the marginal shelf so I was probably fishing the best areas anyway. I wasn't expecting the silt to be anywhere near that thick and the sonar was only showing a clear bottom. After I got it back, I got out the marker rod and cast out a heavy lead and dragged it through the area I had just waded through and although it did feel like silt, I would have guessed it at a couple of inches at most. My local water is brick hard at the inlet end where I do most of my fishing and so a 3.5 oz lead is my weapon of choice and that's all I had in my bag. I normally fish a helicopter rig rather than a lead clip which is fortunate but now wonder how many times I've been buried with no chance of a bite. Just dug out a load of 1oz leads and probably won't use back leads on there again despite liking the fact that there isn't any line cutting through the swim. I try fluorocarbon on my reels every couple of years and then pretty soon realise why I hate it as a main line! Many years ago I did a compromise and fished a 30 foot leader of 20lb fluorocarbon but hated the way the knot clattered through the rings when bringing a fish to the net and gave it up as a bad job. Anyone else had experiences with silt?

I stepped out from some reeds into what looked to be water of only a few inches deep, yet I disappeared over my chest waders and struggled badly to move and get back out. Silt is VERY dangerous! I always use a prodding stick now after that experience.

We used to place baits by boat at Taverham Mills, and as @yonny says it can look totally different to how it feels. You could cast a marker float and lead out and get absolutely no feeling as the lilies would stop the float rising, yet look at the area from the boat and they were very thin and safe to fish to. The line would cut through them playing a fish. Other spots (as on the syndicate now) I have the float rise up, yet it is thick with weed. It's wading out that has shown how thick it is and a big bundle of weed can be down to a small root system. My marker float is normally used with a 3½ or 4oz lead. Today I waded out after casting out the marker rod, and I was showing 2½-3feet, yet I was up to my chest.

It was to land a fish, not place a bait!

This can work against you too though. I remember fishing an area a long time ago now and getting plenty of bites. But when I saw the area from the boat it looked nothing like it felt with a lead. In fact to look at I wondered how the heck I was getting bites from there due to the weed! Had I seen it before I fished it, I'd have not bothered, and not caught all those carp!

The fish do quite often come away from the islands where they spend most of their time and come in close, mainly early morning. You do get a lot of bubbling and I frequently chase the bubbles around but can't ever remember hooking one! I'm sure on reflection that the 3.5oz lead wasn't helping and a lighter one would improve the presentation. The bailiffs also frequently chuck out a load of pellets if a swim isn't being fished and that tends to land in the bowl area which was the deepest for silt. Good advice but luckily my sonar was spot on with the depth and there weren't any surprises. I am a pretty good swimmer and also I didn't find any trace of any weed. I learn't more about the lake in 5 minutes than I could have done for casting around or plumbing for hours on end and even then it would have given a false impression of what was really there. I used to know a top barbel angler years ago and on his first trip to a new stretch, he would "walk" the river to build up a better understanding of where the fish were likely to be.

When you're rig is buried it doesn't necessarily mean you have no chance of a bite. A lot depends on the type of silt. Carp have evolved to harvest the goodies in the silt so I wouldn't worry too much about being buried, unless it has a covering of that dead/dying silk weed type stuff (it can mask your hook as it gets kicked up during feeding). There is nothing more frustrating that having fish fizzing away all over you but you can't keep your rig clean enough to get a take. If you can find a spot clear of that horrible silky stuff, silt is about as forgiving as you can get in terms of tactics. You can chuck almost anything in it and get a bite. Made me chuckle 😅

Very much. Word of advice, never wade in without a wading pole; it can help you keep your balance as well as bottom prodding. The silt on my current lake is probably up to welly boot height, and then water up to my waist, so pretty similar, although the stream bed you can add a bit more to the depth. There are also feeding holes which can put you chest deep, and I have been known to occasionally go fractionally over the top of my chest waders, hence the advice on a solid wading pole. The honest answer is the carp feed in the silt. I have found massive bloodworm in the deepest thickest silt, along with massive swan mussels, bigger than my hands. I still use run rings and standard rig set-ups, hooklinks around 20-30centimetres in an attempt to put the bait at the level the fish are feeding at. Lead size I normally stick with 2.5-3oz, but use flattened leads to hopefully reduce sinking in too far, but even dropping a lead in the margins can see it disappear. Funnily enough, in May I cast out a 3oz lead, PVA stringer and snowman bait and I am positive that crashed quite deep into the silt. I had a take within a couple of minutes, and I think that the lead had sunk so far, complete with run ring it jammed as the buzzer was bleeping (Delkims vibration).