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2nd time I've seen the odd bubble come up in this tiny back bay, this time though the culprits moved about up in the kelp bed on the left, didnt look big but a bites a bite. Nothing overnight but heard a slosh amougst the fireworks last night, fingers crossed - last trip before a venue switch.

Fogged out ! 🤞🤞

2pm sunday I was packed up ready for a move or home with just the rods left out when the weed started moving again, this time a tail came right out and again swirls and the weed lifting up as they hunted snails or mussels or whatever. As you can imagine the camp went straight back up and another night was on the cards. Changed the rods over to longer hinges as the bottom wasn't great, placed one rod at the near side and one the far side of the potamogeton bed. Again nothing overnight, then as I'm packing up 9am I see a ripple coming from the left treeline, then 30 seconds later a carp comes up at the far end of the weedbed and starts pushing the weed around again, swirling and tail out. So I leave it until 11am but no more activity and can't wait all day. I can see me doing more time on the medium sized lake next year and these little ignored areas round the back are right up my street!

Going Sunday to Tues for the first trip, been getting bait ready. Moved over to the Live System range for winter. Pics: Bag mix bucket: crumb, bag mix, 2ml pellet, 6ml pellet and 21 bags ready to go! Glugged boilies bucket Mix bucket: crumb, mixed pellets, boilies Everything is glugged in a few liquids lol: Corn steep liquor, Amino Blend 365, Bait Booster, Feed Stim XP, Hemp Oil Kits been moved into the barrow luggage so I'm quicker to move. Oh and the dog has a new Merino wool jacket and fleece, to say we're ready is an understatement. Weather looks to be changing perfectly for the 1st trip, rise in temps, southerly winds, rain and a pressure drop - fingers crossed 🤞

Finally on the bank for a night 🤞

I've started on my 1:48 Harrier GR9

Bought the Bluebell Lakes winter ticket which runs 9th Nov - 12th March for £299, setting this up to encourage me to document the trips and see if I end up getting value for money. Not sure when the first trip will be as I'm still giving it a go down the syndicate.

Best of luck @kevtaylor.

I liked the colour, I now got a lifetime supply of marker braid lol. Luckily it went on my spare spools instead of stripping the SBX.

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.

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 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.

A couple from France, double take madness 🇫🇷

Have to agree with the posts about the bloke behind 'Stonze', for @Golden Paws, I have not seen the video but 9lbs of lead in 1 square metre seems completly unbelieveable 😂 I have never used drop off leads, never will, cannot see, except for very snag ridden venues, why I would want to, maybe abroard might be justified? Wonder how we ever managed to land fish from weedy venues without them? Don't need to use the set up now, but remember back in the day, a tulip bead pushed over the hooklink swivel and the zip or dumpy lead swivel eye pushed over that was probablay the safest and so simple set up to use in weedy waters imo. As @greekskii said " I’d be more worried about the microplastics than the lead. "