Leaderboard

Tbh, I'm generally a summer fisherman. I have avoided going when it gets below 6c at night. My bag is a big snooze+ 3 season jobby. I'm over 50 now and am fed up with being uncomfortably cold without good bl**dy reason. So, a heated blanket for a few hours with the bed cover so I'm not climbing into a freezer seems like a sensible idea and a weight sacrifice I'm willing yo make. It runs off my Ridge Monkey Vault 26000mah powerbank which I take anyway, so its a negligible change for me. I don't get the self flagellation at the altar of discomfort. If your doing something to save weight great you do you, but doing something just because it was done like that 30 years ago seems like madness to me. 20-30 years ago I smoked, mostly used a bike to get around and used to go raving. If I hadn't changed I'm not sure I would still be here, let alone have a decent job, house, be married with kids going to uni. If carp fishing had stayed the same we'd still be using argos sunbeds, optonics and cheap 50" brollies with a tarp over the top. Just look at your phone in your hand. How old is that and how old is the tech? The world changes, moves on and progresses. Embrace it where you want to/can justify it. I would ask, do you use a throwing stick/spomb/bait boat/baiting pole/sonar/gps? None of those were available 30 years ago, at least not in their current form. Back then, were there any carp reels, rods with the specialised ringing we now use?

I must have met you there! That's when I fished it. PigPen was probably my favourite swim, but I caught from most swims. I missed Sam's, Rocky and Digit, but had some of the other 30's. A lot of big fish from such a small water.

I try not to worry too much about mosquito bites. All too often they're the only bites I get. Ian.

During Lockdown in 2020 I started getting back into my model building again. The majority of the aircraft are in 1:48, with a few 1:72 on separate shelf, and the ships are 1:600. Got a few more to do

Good morning all, so the last 3wks have flown by in a sleepy haze of sleepless nights, nappies, bottles and sterilising bottles, however yesterday wifey told me it was time to get the rods out! Trying to overcome my surprise, after all I hadn’t planned an overnight trip for many months into the future, why the free pass? My wife wanted a practice run of looking after the children alone for when I return to work next week, so I was banished to the lake! well you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth do you?? luckily, if you saw my “playing with bait” thread, you’ll see that I had a bag of bait tucked away in the freezer, so the gear was dragged from the shed, food and bait loaded and I was off to the Kent boarder to fish a lake I’ve christened “zombie sheep lake” I needed to pop into the tackle shop to pick up a few bits and while browsing the shelves, my eye wandered over the racks of bivvies all in a row… now my JRC STI 1 man bivvy has finally died a death after far too many years to count, indeed it had been coughing up blood for at least 10yrs and now I’m in my 40s, the thought of doing winter sessions under my trusty oval brolly and storm sides really didn’t appeal! 13yrs of Army service, sleeping under a poncho in a ditch had meant that I was pretty used to kipping in less than favourable conditions, but any fool can be uncomfortable can’t they? so I ended up going in for a few packs of hooks and pva bags and left with a JRC Defender bivvy… oops after a 20min detour to the bailiffs house to pick up a part of my carp porter barrow that I left behind on my last (blank) trip 6wks ago, I got to the lake about 1pm, happy to see that I had it all to myself. I barrowed my gear round to the point swim, as I can see and cast to a large portion of the lake, where there was a nice gentle breeze drifting in, and set up the gear. I rigged up a pair of Fox Horizon X4S TT 12ft rods with my Fox EOS 12000 Reels spooled with 12lb synchro XT mainline, to a length of Korda leadcore fished helicopter style, hook links being 10” fox cortex soft coated braid, fished to a size 6 ESP Clawhammer hook fished slip D style and a 1” length of shink tube, line-aligner style. Bait was my fishy boilie offering. breaking out the marker rod, I found a nice silty hump with 7.5ft of water over it, with the surrounding lakebed 9ft deep. It was plenty big enough for the 2 rods that I would be using, although what was obvious was the lack of water, it was at least 2ft down from its usual summer levels. As a result, the lake hadn’t been fishing well, but who cares! I’m out on the bank in the sun and a carp just came out up to the wrist of its tail only feet from my marker float bobbing about. i catapulted about 100-150 baits over the hump and cast both rods to their respective spots. One on a 7 bait stringer and one in a pva bag. Now obviously, a soft coated hooklinks 10 inches long aren’t ideal for for pva bag use, and I really couldn’t be bothered to faff about trying up soft coated braided links, so snipped off the corner of the large pva bag and threaded the hook link through the hole so the hook link dangled out the bottom. After filling it with 1 & 2mm pellets and crusher boilie, I sealed it all up, then nicked the hook into the bag opposite the lead. It looked a bit noddy, but it was worth a try! with the rods out, it was time to get the base camp set up! You can see how low the water it as that gravel shelf is usually under water! now it was time to break out the new bivvy!! I lovingly unpacked it from its bag, laid it all out, fanned out the poles and started clipping it all together, only to find that one of the poles was snapped! Nightmare! Despite all my bodging attempts, this bivvy was knacked, so in an absolute huff, I wrapped the bivvy back up, reeled in the rods and trudged back to the car to chuck the bivvy in and grab the oval brolly, no decadent abode for me tonight! returning to the swim, I redid the rods (again!) and threw up the oval, still muttering to myself about the injustice of it all, a quick brew soon sorted me out though. the night soon drew in and the carp were getting more active and I retired to the carp cot around midnight confident on some action to christen the X4S rods that haven’t had a decent carp on as yet! at 1am, the left hand pva bag rod gave a flurry of bleeps, with the dinky esp bobbin tight to the Neville, so I struck and found myself into a plodding weight. After a pretty unspectacular fight, a carp was now nestled in the folds of my landing net. at 23lb, I was buzzing! The dodgy tied pva bag had done the job! with that working, another found it’s way back out there, and I got back to sleep. At 4am, the same rod absolutely flew, the Neville was screaming as I made my way to the rods, one shoe on one off. This one started beating me up from the get go, and after a spirited battle, a 21lb common hit the net, along with 20 tiny perch. with the pva bag working, I pressed repeat and got it back out there. As the sun was rising, I made another brew and watched the water as the sun came up (proper carpy that) once dawn had arrived, I climbed into the bag to get some kip, although it wasn’t to be, as the pva bag rod dropped slack. Winding down i soon felt the weight and soon had the carp boring down the margins, where it promptly beached itself! I couldn’t get it in the net, so gently guided it into deeper water where it rolled into the net first time. At 26lb, it was an immaculate common! (Check out the realtree MC Hammer pants!) I redid the rod and had a celebratory cuppa, when 4 day anglers arrived, that was my sign to wrap up and head home, slightly earlier than planned, but I had my share, it was time to let the day guys enjoy this delightful little pool. swinging into the tackle shop on the way home, I exchanged the defective bivvy for another one, which is sound, so alls well that ends well.

Whatever next..... oh maybe heated bivvie slippers!!! 😂 Probably WiFi controlled from a massive power bank with iPhone and iPad connected too? Really, if you want to get out in winter, which I never do anymore why buy this rubbish?? Just man up! If anyone doubts my winter fishing credentials, i did post a few pics of me at Horseshoe lake with snow on bivvie, a fox bed chair, argos sleeping bag and blanket over the top.Sometimes I do despair about the modern generation of 'Carp Anglers'. Good luck with you Halo heated blanket tho! 😀 Oh and don't forget some heated gloves if you actually get out of the bivvie to land a fish? Sorry to be so cynical but......