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Well as purchases go they don't come much more exciting than a new home and a return to my beloved Nene Valley. Carpy in more ways than one; I'll be 3 miles way from the Valley itself and there's also koi to 30lb+ swimming around in the back garden! Offer was accepted on Friday so now I just pray that nothing goes wrong and we're not waiting too long.

Across the border, forgot my passport and facial recognition but made it...OK.. lol

22lb common caught today

Then back on home territory and ,part of a 7 carp hit ,using single bottom baits over a scoop of dried maize

Father’s Day fishing trip 👍🏻

How you doing? This session was a rather decent one, despite managing to leave my hookbait bucket at home with my medium Spomb in it. I spent an hour cursing and swearing as I used the small Spomb to put a bucket of maize and birdfood in. The first night produced a tench of around 6lb on a straight out of the bag bottom bait, which somehow managed to go across the middle rod. The 2nd night was quiet. Last night around 11pm I had a strange occurrence on the middle rod, it pulled to the right, with what appeared to be a run, but there was nothing there, so I recast with a fresh stringer. At 3am I had the same thing happen again. I think that it was a goose or swan swimming through the line just in front of my rod tips, or a swan picking the hookbait up. A couple of miscasts with stringers, but 3rd time lucky. I was sat drinking coffee and eating breakfast when the rod went with a 22lb mirror, one of last years stocking, and a 10lb weight gain. Caught on a 360 rig with a meshed 15mm Nutty Bait pop-up with a stringer of 6x 18mm Nutty Bait boilies. This morning I was starting to tidy up ready to pack up when the right hand rod went, which was the rod over the maize, and managed a rather nice 26lb mirror on the 'sliver' of Monster Crab pop-up on a reverse combi rig. This fish was from the 2021 stocking and went in at 11lb.

Then a night float fishing with prawns ,after eels ,not a carp I know !

First thing this morning on a Nutty Bait pop-up: 29lb @crusian 40metres, towards Scotty dog I've just been through my pics and our Facebook group. I have caught it before at the same weight last year. It was one of the 2020 stocking

little mid double caught on a quick 2hr session.

Small common as I was packing up. Doesn't this time of year drive you mad. Spawning, not spawning, spawning, not spawning 🤷‍♂️🤣 Starting to feel like I'm on the wrong water again, think a long session on the reservoir is in order 👌

Managed to get over to the syndi this week. Tough going but I managed to get on them eventually. Spotted 3 of the bigguns so was pretty excited. Had to wait until an hour before home to get the bite..... a little fully about 10 lb 🤣. Chucked it back without a pic. Just on pack up I got another take.... lost it in the weed🤦‍♂️. Such is life. Roll on next month for more punishment.

A 31lb 12oz mirror from the weekend. Also managed a 25-4 and 18-10. After a windy start on Friday, it got really hot but managed a bite on all 3 rods by boating out about 20 Creamino boiles and a bit of pellet every 3 hours tight to an Island.

I think the quote to be used here is don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.. typical journos

I got a Korda Spring Bow net delivered last week. I have a thing about real decent nets and have inadvertently amassed a bit of a collection. It drives the Mrs mad. A pal of mine showed me his Spring Bow a while back and I was well impressed so I've had a search set up on fleabay/marketplace for a while. The right deal finally came up so it's now racked up with the various Dymags and Chris Brown nets in the fishing room, much to the Mrs' annoyance. I'll use it on my next session out of principle and then decide if it replaces the Dymag mk2 I tend to use most of the time.

Visited a couple mates fishing the river yesterday and seen this, how cool 👌🤣

Don’t care what anyone says, There is no fool proof lead set up the best you can hope for is to minimise any problems if and when it happens underwater, anything can happen once the line has snapped off.

Out for a night or two on a 4 acre lake, it's looking good down in this bay. There's been a few shows in the far margin so boated a rig over to it, then put one down my right margin which is about 10ft away from a air pump thing 👌

The bag probably costs more than the boilies do.

That's amazing - and the cheeky sods! My mate spends a lot of time looking for stuff on facebook etc got the collecting bug from another friend. I've not got a fishing room, just fishing kit in every room, garage and attic 😀

After a chat on here about mats I treated myself to the Thinking Anglers mat, its very light and actually will be great for stalking 👍

For years there were no problems at Taverham, then more anglers started fishing it when Anglian Water took it on and litter started becoming a problem. Klaus bought a brand new bivvy and rats chewed their way in through the groundsheet and into his bait and food bags. He found a chewed pack of bacon dragged outside the bivvy. We get a few rats on the syndicate now, not many, and as you can see, they don't cause me any problems, thanks to Sky. How she can wait patiently on the lead until they get close enough to her to attack them amazes me, she's normally head down and charge.

I must confess I do keep my bait in buckets, not just for rats but to keep them away from Sky. She does however act as a good rat deterrent:

Just ordered a fireproof charging bag (Amazon) for my fishing batteries, big enough to store them in too. Too many horror stories, should have bought one long ago.

I'd say my first 3 or 4 years on there were my best, it then became a circus and at times unpleasant. Sad really , as Yonny rightly says, " it's just fishing".

Finally finished the van build, reckon a few laps of a big lake Is due

You're doing something wrong mate - you just need to figure out what it is. You mentioned earlier in the thread you were chodding it. Have you considered getting down there for a day and marking up properly i.e. find proper, clean, fed-on spots? They're just carp mate, they are catchable, you're just missing a piece of the puzzle.

went on little lake today here is a rod shot pic with Diawa Proteus rod on my single rod pod, this pod is ideal for this lake as all the pegs are platforms and the ground either side of each platform is dam near impossible to get a bank stick in and one rod rule on little lake

Wide n snide baby 😎 Not really the 4th was my daughters.

Been making do with a folding camping chair since i came back to fishing, but fished yesterday and was so tired kept thinking need a recliner to snooze in mentioned to my mate on the lake Smithy and he sold me his JRC recliner chair in mint condition for 40 notes ideal

Believe it or not I can possibly beat that 😅 I have a full size faux taxidermy carving of the ex record carp, Two Tone, fully mounted in mahogany case. The centrepiece of my fishing room. There's a funny story that comes with it too. I came across it on ebay. It was advertised as a carving so clearly not the actual stuffed fish. I bought it, knowing full well it wasn't real, for the fishing room and thought I'd see if I could find some info on it. I posted it on the old Anglers Forum but no-one could tell me anything about it. But, the Anglers Mail got in touch and asked to do an article on it. Me being me, I told them I don't really want to be in a magazine, and turned them down. So rather than just leave it.... they made a story up. They published an article, using the picture I'd posted on the Anglers Forum, that said the buyer had purchased it thinking it was the real thing i.e. the actual stuffed Two-Tone. The cheeky gits. Naturally, I went back to them and called them scum of the earth A) for making the story up, and B) for stealing my photo. Needless to say they never replied. This was maybe 10 years ago but the story was still available online not long ago. I just Googled it and found the image but the link no longer works.

Bivvy fetishism struck again !

Why not just use a bucket? they've never breached my ridgemonkey yet. I never leave my bait in the bivvy either. And always close my food bag, then I throw boilies in other people's bivvies works a treat 😂

At least they paid £2 for a premium lead though.

Me too. On the water I'm fishing there's no way you'd be able to fish a running rig. If the fish takes lines on the take you're halfway to losing it already such is the severity of the weed.

I've bought some prepared particle as I was too lazy to prep it myself 20kg of carp particles dark mix and some garlic oil.

I use lead clips all the time and will continue quite happily, I can see some danger but happy to live with that as I fish heavy gear and fish sensibly. If we were that concerned we'd use lower bs hooklinks than the line regardless like match anglers. Snapped line springs back into a birdsnest, so even the running rig potentially tangles and tethers.

They do make good putty, I know I know sorry man - I feel dirty, gonna go shower! Was the excitement of being at my first angling show. I'll never do it again - the shame 😭🤣

Yeah nothing from OMC allowed onsite 😆

Cracking news mate, are you going to ban the magic twig on your water?

Next social in your back garden then mate?

They were savage. They were in fact brother's and had fished dinton for years . They hated the fact that it had become "known" about and that several "names" were joining the syndicate etc. Bearing in mind this was early 2000's and the likes of terry hearn, bernie Loftus and others had dabbled with the days in previous years. I'd heard about these two brother's prior to my arrival and I met one on my second trip there. He introduced himself in the car park and we pushed our barrows out of the car park to the lake and I thought to myself what a sound bloke for him then to say in no uncertain terms that a particular swim was his and God help me if I jumped in it 🤣. The brother's ultimately fell out and ended up weedkilling and soaping each other's swims. Proper nut jobs/green eyed monsters.

couple of rods out on a little pond I found ten mins from the hotel I’m staying at. On a week residential course for work.

He's certainly not my cup of tea either. As you say, to loud for me and in your face. Missing a parents birthday isn't good either. That said, when I was on on a mission, in total I've missed 3 of my mates weddings, the odd Christmas and new year celebrations and my niece's birthday most years as it's at the end of September when I always have the week off. She understands 🤣, though my sister doesn't.

£45 Jakes Rakes

Bought myself a weed rake from Jakes Rakes online, arrived in 2 days and looks the nuts - cost around £45 👍

Take what you will from this. You might say that the bailiff should not be ignored, after all they know the water as well as anyone. On the flip side, doing what others suggest takes away from what really matters which is figuring the place out. I have to say that not using a rig because it's in vouge is completely illogical. By all means try to be different, but if you're going to avoid using a rig at least have a good reason for it. This makes it even more important to find them. Chopping and changing isn't likely get you anywhere until you understand what your problem is. There are a million things you could change but it could take months to find the right one. Your best piece of tackle is your eyes. You need to be changing what you do based on what you observe, not just a whim or a hunch. You've not mentioned on this thread if you've been on feeding fish on your sessions. That's the first thing that matters. You have a half decent starting point in that you know what doesn't work i.e. what you've been doing. To be honest, based on what you've said so far, I strongly suggest that finding a few spots is all you need to do. A good spot can turn a difficult lake into an easy one so you just need to know where they are.

I was talking to someone yesterday and he just came back from a week in France he actually witnessed a delkim melting in the heat lol that one definitely won’t be waterproof

Water temps will be good, if no one else is doing it then invite them all to the party if nothing else you will have a clear spot for next session.