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Change of scenery, equally mega - got a rod on the spot I know does the biggun and one I've caught from before so fingers well and truly crossed with these poor conditions - still, easteries, high pressure and misty 👎 Still in it to win it, just fab being out and getting the swims I want for a change🤞😎

To anyone thinking theres a lack of ladybirds this year - wrong! Same as last year when parked down the lakes. Love nature!

No mate big fat blank but loved it, was gonna do an extra night tonight but ran out of supplies, deffo fishing a spot on the middle sized lake there that does the big-un. I absolutely love this lake, drawn between two - a nice problem to have. On the plus I did find some suitable wood to make a hobo stool for the garden lol. Back next week sunday - tues 🤞

Always use a wading pole. And don’t just prod. Push down with your body weight. You’re heavier than your arms will push down. I’ve had numerous dealings with silt in waders. Falling down a silt hole whilst playing a fish was fun. One leg thigh deep in a hole. The other just about keeping my wader from overtopping about 3ft higher up! All in 2ft of water already. Harder crusts can form on silt, You prod it and it feels firm. Step on it and you sink. I also remember losing a boot of my wader whilst working on a fish farm in heavy silt. Boot stayed, I stepped, silt closed round the void. I couldn’t get my foot back in so was on hands and knees crawling out of my waders to the nearest firmer area whilst the other lads were howling! I was lucky the lake was empty.

It's not just deep water that is risky! The water depth at Botesdale is currently no more than 1.6m, or 4feet. That is water depth, but the silt itself can be a couple of feet deep. The causeway itself is wadeable, you can walk across it, it is a proper stone causeway built around the 15 or 1600's, a stone pathway built across the marshland to the manor house before Lancelot Capability Brown created the lake. Step off the causeway towards the shallower (east) end and most of it will go to no deeper than thigh depth, however carp have fed up and created holes that go chest deep. Step off the causeway to the dam end and you will be going into water chest deep, but with around 1-1.3mm or 3foot of silt you can sink in. Put a marker float out and if the float comes up you will get 3-4feet of water, the lead sits on it, as @greekskii says, it has a hard crust, except, again where carp have fed and it is softer. There is also a stream bed running along the lake on the house side, which is a metre of silt.

It only takes one step! There are areas on my current lake I will not wade at all; between the causeway and the dam wall is a definite 'no chance'. A mate went in, in his wetsuit and life jacket, rather than chest waders, to land a fish. He said that the silt he stepped in came up to his knees, and without someone pulling him out with a rope he had tied himself to would have struggled to get out.

And finally finished Bismarck I think that the reason I left it so long was it got so fiddly to add in the smaller gun mounts and masts. This must be the closest HMS Hood and Bismarck have ever been... At 1/600, the range of the battle between them would work out at 23metres apart!

Thank you

Kranks or any decent curve shank, usually a Mugga.

Looks carpy as.... . Any joy @kevtaylor??? I'm not jealous at all

Best wishes!

I am of the make sure you wear decent clothing and have a decent sleeping bag brigade. I can remember a few nights wrapped up wishing I was warmer though, from inadequate bedding and being soaking wet. I've been through the brolly and wrap, EasyDome, Apotheosis and gone back to brolly and wrap, with a decent sleeping bag. I've woken up with condensation frozen inside the brolly, but I was nice and warm in the bag. Come to that, I have had to get up to reel in as the lake froze over or woken up with the lake surface gone solid. At night the jacket, hoody, (not many decent fishing ones around) and overtrousers come off and I sleep in my (Regatta) base layer. The important thing for me is socks, Merino wool socks keep my feet warm in my boots, either combat boots or Tundra boots. Now while I prefer not to be using a heated blanket, if it does keep you fishing go for it. However if it is that cold, I'm not likely to be fishing now.

After reading this thread I now understand why most venues prohibit wading . Scary stuff ! 😱

Many thanks all! 3wks in and the sleepless nights are starting to catch up! well I took the new aforementioned banana baits to a local club water the other day for a quick few hours while my daughter was in nursery, I had 3 out to 21lb so that’s the biggest hurdle crossed when making your own bait, knowing it works!