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Back on the rods at the syndi for a couple of nights, weather looks good for it, fingers crossed 🤞

Beginning and end of my quick overnighter, god I love September/October carping!

Afternoon all, so I managed to get a free pass to get out and dunk some boilies in a pond last night, so I chose to head to my local tricky park lake. now I haven’t been there since the start of the season, and due to extremely low water levels, the club made the decision to shut the water for fish welfare, so last night was my first trip back in a while. on getting down to the lake, I found it was fairly busy, but everyone was on the opposite bank. I headed around to a small, neglected swim that is often ignored, which coincidentally is my favourite swim on the whole lake! there were a few signs of feeding fish, so I got the marker out and located the area of smooth harder silt that does the bites and soon had the rods clipped up to the range. tackle consisted of 3 x 12ft fox horizon X4S TT carp rods with fox EOS 12000 reels spooled with 12lb esp synchro main line. Rigs were leadcore helicopter rigs with 10” fox cortex soft slip D rigs with size 6 ESP barbless Clawhammer hooks. Bait was my usual premier superaminos/shellfish sense appeal offering made in the shed. 3 rods were dispatched to the spot adorned with 7 bait stringers, and with that i broke out the spod rod! I’m not quite sure what possessed me, but I ended up putting out a whole bucket of hemp, boilies and mixed pellet with lashings of salt which is a lot of bait for a quick overnighter, but my gut said it was the way forward, so in it all went! rods out, about 100 spods (so it seemed) done, it was time to chuck up the bivvy and get the kettle on. as the sun sunk beneath the trees, the swim came alive, with bubbling and swirling all over the spot. I was getting liners like nobody’s business and it was getting pretty obvious that something was going to happen… …well it did, bream after bream! I was hammering through the rigs as slabs of 3-5lb came gliding in, it was simply a case of hitting repeat and getting the stringers out there. as an aside, some anglers try to avoid the bream, but I welcome the activity, all that feeding soon draws the carp. at 11pm, the left hand rod pulled tight then dropped slack, as I was crouched next to it trying to decide if it was a liner or bream, the middle rod picked up and tore off! after a spirited fight, I soon slipped the net under a pretty linear that just scraped 20lb I don’t know what happened, but I look deranged in the pics! I sorted the left hand and middle rods and got them back out there, lucky 7 bait stringers attached and tried to get some sleep. I was awoken by a single bleep at 1am and opened one bleary eye to see the middle rod rip off again, this fish felt slightly better, taking me through every overhanging bush in the near margin, but the trusty horizons soon had it beat, and at 25lb made me a buzzing lil carper. pressing repeat again the middle rod was back out there, new hooklink attached. I finally got some shut eye at 2am for a whole 90mins when the middle rod decided to trundle off again, the strike met with a determined slow plodding weight that didn’t really give me too many dramas, just refused to come in. eventually, it succumbed to pressure and rolled into the outstretched net At 30lb it made the trip really! Big high shoulders, broad across the back, it was a pearler. (Cue stupid face again) it was so wide over the chest, I struggled to hold it properly. that rod replaced, I climbed into a damp, carp slime encrusted sleeping bag and got some kip. on dawn, the bream reappeared as the carp retreated back into their day areas, the sun started beating down so I decided to wrap it and head home, well happy!

A couple from France, double take madness 🇫🇷

Just back from my return visit to Brothers Lake, France. Weather at the start was hot and the fishing was slow, but as the week progressed and temps cooled off the fishing got better and better and I finished off with 15 fish to 49lb inc 7 x 30s and another mid 40. Tactics were scatterings of boilie only - put out with the stick to a marker float every afternoon and a small top-up at dusk. The fish were feeding heavily on naturals, fizzing up most of the day everyday, just past where we were fishing or anywhere without lines between us in the middle. Being a small lake they did exactly this last trip despite us being on the opposite bank this time. I chose to go with my newish wafter rig, a slip-d, multi - tied using the Korda hook-clip, size 6 wide gapes, Esp Tungsten Loaded and Gardner XL tungsten aligners, Korda tungsten large anti tangle sleeve - with a total rig length of around 5 inches. With a golf ball sized funnel-web bag of mixed pellet, boilie crumb and 10ml Odyssey XXX. Feeding 15ml XXX and using 15ml wafters as hookbaits. By the end of the week I just wanted a 50 to complete what had been a great session and at 1am on the final night I got my wish, well not quite but 49 will more than do. Some of the fish:

Just back from 2 nights on the syndi, first session on the big lake and I only went and had one at 23.30 on the 2nd night. Made up with it at 35.02 and a proper one. Dont know what I've trodden in but feel like I'm having a run of good luck, long may it continue🤞

I met Chilly at the big one show last February, what a thoroughly decent man. Made time to have a good chat with my son and I. made my day getting 10min of his time

Hi all I'm riks and I'm 40 years old and have been fishing on and off since I was a teen. I love my carp and course fishing , love feeder fishing ! I joined up a couple weeks ago as I was looking for information regarding my old school fox DXR alarms and wether fox mk2 illuminated swingers would work with them. Well the help I got was awesome. I took a chance on purchasing the swingers without knowing if they would work and members of the site advised that they should/would and safe to say saved me from an expensive dose of anxiety 😂 . I'm originally from walton on Thames so I've always been a river thames fisherman but now I live in greater Manchester I am mainly stuck to lakes . And also looking for fishing buddies as I don't really know anyone up here I'm sad to say. Unfortunately I can only get out every other weekend so not as often as I would like with family and work etc. just want to say thanks to those who helped me with my post and tight lines to you all 🎣

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.

Watching the sun drop behind the trees anticipating the coming witching hour 👌

Having posted on the “chilly” thread meeting some of the names of the sport, this got me thinking… I was in the queue with my son to meet Alan Blair (who when we got to him asked me if I had any questions for him, yes i said, one… how did this sport become so blooming expensive! - he was a nice lad) well also at the Nash stand, was that legend, Julian Cundiffe! I had to have a chat with him, (I wrote to him when I was 14 for a school project - writing an article on a hobby or some such rubbish for school, I wrote about a summers angling on a small snaggy pond where we had a right result and I learned how effective the regular application of a decent quality HNV bait could be, the small population of carp got so into the bait, they would be lining up waiting for me to deposit a bag of freshly rolled baits on the spot) and he actually replied having read my article and gave a few pointers! - it actually got published in big carp magazine too… still waiting my sponsorship deal 🙄 well Julian Cundiffe and I got talking about the sport and the conversation drifted onto how things have changed, I was lamenting how my boy would never truly understand the shear unadulterated joy of cycling to a farm pond to catch a 6lb common, as everything is so much more accessible for him than it was for me. I think my son rolls his eyes when we are sat on a pond in the evening over a brew and I start regaling him with tales of my carp fishing in the early 90s “here we go again, old uncle Albert with tales of when he was in the war” etc etc when I tell him how my first boilies were made out of eggs, self raising flour, vanilla flavouring and red food colouring, rolled into balls and baked in the oven… they went in about 8mm and came out about 50mm! I took them down to the local pond and side hooked them to my super advanced rig of the day, a 3/4oz bomb free running on the line to a swivel and a 1 foot mono hooklink! it wasn’t until after I caught a carp on one that I found out that the damn things floated!! as he sits behind a battery of 3 high quality carbons, that can sling a lead 120yrds, coupled with the latest in bait runner technology, with rigs and baits that nigh on require a scientific degree to decipher, coupled with a solid pod, all singing all dancing alarms… while he waits, his buttocks are caressed by a bed chair more comfortable than the beds at home, all ensconced in a lightweight, easy to erect bivvy… his tackle box is stuffed full of hooks, braids, fluros gizmos and gadgets to construct these wonder rigs, he can lie back and watch Netflix on a phone more advanced than any family computer i ever had at his age (dial up modem anyone?) he wants a new rig, or see the latest wonder method, there it is on YouTube, 20,000 vids on the ronnie rig, take your pick! His gear at ages 15-17yrs is more than I could have ever have dreamed of at his age. (I’m as much to blame, I brought it all!) has this modern approach taken the soul out of carping?? my first carp rods were 11ft fibreglass 1 3/4lb tc with cork handles. One brown blank and one black. Reels were whatever reel had 8lb Diawa sensor on it - I swapped a quiver tip and a float rod for these carp rods. I learnt how to tie a hair rig from John Wilson’s fishing show - he caught a barbel on rolling meat. The rods rested on 4 wire rod rests with dough bobbins I remember seeing my first carp in a lake, it was HUGE!!! (About 8lb!) that was it, I needed to catch one! I was with my dad who isn’t a carper, so I had no idea where to start - watching redmire legends episode of a passion for angling made the yearning worse! (I was off sick from school when it came on - I couldn’t believe my luck) I remember to this day my first ever carp, on float fished maggots in a farm pond, it weighed 2lb!! I remember my first double a mirror, weighing 10lb 1oz caught on bread crust popped up off a swim feeder full of mashed bread - i caught two doubles that day, both weighing 10lb 1oz! my first 20, 20lb 1oz - stalked on a piece of bread I still remember the buzz… I asked my son if he could remember these milestones for himself, but he couldn’t. the learning, the trying things out, (WD40 as a bait soak anyone??) the watching of other anglers and mimicking them, no internet, no YouTube, no “how to” vids and mags, (although carpworld was the bomb!) I remember sitting on the bank of the “park lake” (months into a seasons blank) reading Terry Hearn’s account of catching Mary at a British record weight in carpworld, it blew my mind! A 50+ carp, now 50’s are all over the shop! going back to my sons (and admittedly my) tackle box, there are hooks of different sizes, out turned eye, in-turned, curve shanks, wide gapes… coated braids, uncoated braid, flurocarbon, stiff links, spinner swivels, micro swivels, line aligner sleeves, stripper tools, all manner of beads, leaders, tungsten tubing, bolt bubbles, quick change swivels, lead clips, heli drop off clips, lead core, etc etc… my first carp tackle box consisted of: drennan super specialist size 4 drennan super specialist size 10 (floater fishing) ashima carp hooks size 6 (nicked from a mate) kamasan B175 fly hooks size 6 (banging hook) spool of merlin (if I could afford it!) spool of amnesia spool of Berkeley big game (mono hooklinks) beads swivels baiting needle (the Gardner one) bait drill selection of leads - 3/4oz - 2oz Scissors all squeezed into a vhs cassette tape box! Admittedly the Berkeley big game was nicked from the dad and rattled around in a bright red canvas rucksack! Bait stops were the stems of leaves. my first alarms were cheap £12 alarms from Argos, that were basically a black box with an orange arm you hooked the line around! My bobbins were either John Robert’s plastic bobbins that you could pop the top off and pack with mud to make them heavier! Or I’d push a hair grip into a cork. I then saw a pair of optonics in a tackle shop in Norfolk and begged my parents to buy them as an early birthday present, bless their soul, they did! They were like church mice, so quiet! But I loved them! (The alarms not the parents, although I love them too!) My first landing net was an old metal poled, metal armed dog catching net from an old boy who was in the RSPCA! It had a lever on the spreader block that took a length of cord - throw it over the dog, pull the cord and the arms slid down the handle! night sessions under a 45” black brolly on a camping bed with 2 Argos sleeping bags, shivering your nuts off on winter sessions and having to commando roll off the bed as the rim of your brolly was so low you couldn’t sit up! Buying my first base mix, carp company fruit frenzy, the trial and errors that caused! Browsing shelves of flavours, stumbling on rich worth boiled ham, or blue cheese flavour or the best flavour of all, hutchies mixed herbs! catching my first carp on a boilie I’d made myself, then in 1997 discovering premier base mixes - aminos - I still use a variation of that same basemix to this day. i remember the long summer days, bulrushes thick, verdant and green, dark muscular commons, taking the lake apart on trout pellets! chick peas soaked in whiskey… No spinners, Ronnie was a bailiff not a rig, just simple hair rigs to 1oz leads running on the line. I sit on the exact same lake today and it’s like it’s a different place, a sorry imitation of itself, pale insipid commons, threadbare reeds, was it ever thus? Do I look back with rose tinted specs? i remember the path trod by all young carpers down my way (the same path i then took my son down), starting on the easy lake learning your trade through experimentation, trial and error then moving onto a trickier snaggy canal shaped pond to try your hand at “bigger carp” (biggest a scraper 20) learning how to cast accurately to spots in the far margin, if you missed, you hit a tree so it’s a skill you learnt quickly! then moving onto the “big boy water” the park lake, where 20-30 ancient leney mirrors resides in 8 acres, 10 fish a year was considered a flyer - my first full season (1996-1997) was a total blank! I just came off an overnighter on the same water where I had a 20lb, 25lb & 30lb in a few hours - this lake now holds 60-70 carp, including 6-8 30’s and one 40. It’s still considered tricky, but as hard as yesteryear? Not a bit of it! Back then it only had one 30. Last night I fished a neglected swim (coincidentally the same swim I caught my first carp from this water - 10lb 2oz on a pva bag in the margins to a premier aminos GLM boilie with boiled ham flavour) my rig consisted of 10” fox cortex soft coated braid, fished slip D style, to an ESP Clawhammer size 6 hook and a shrink tube line aligner, yet in 1997 I took my first 20lb mirror and over all personal best of 28lb, a jet black angry mirror, all tight muscle, withered fins, scars and attitude, on a 5” amnesia hooklink to a size 4 drennan super specialist hook. The hair was a continuation of the hooklink (the hair loop knot was huge!) at one time that rig was my go to rig, yet when I tied up a modern equivalent, it looked awful! What’s changed? my son has done extremely well, he has caught some crackers, 2 x 38lb commons, mirrors to 32lb, from the park lake this season alone, but on my baits, mimicking my rigs and tactics, had he been me, and didn’t have a carping mad dad to coach him to the point he is at now, would he have done as well? yet conversely, had he gone through the apprenticeship that we enjoyed/endured as kids, would he have enjoyed it more? Has the internet age killed the joy of trying something and seeing it work? I used to sit there for ages, tying up different rigs, my boy just googles it! I remember strapping my rods to the frame of my BMX and cycling with my mates to farm ponds to catch a shed load of roach, perch and skimmers. Catching elvers and minnows to live bait for perch, yet nowadays it’s all about the carp. Get the gear, get the boilie get the 30, pot noodle carpers, just add water! my first “true” matching set up consisted of Abu Garcia delta 11ft 2lb tc specimen rods with cardinal 55 reels, brought with birthday money and savings from my 2 paper rounds, resting on my trusty optonics back then we specifically went “night fishing” it was something “special” nowadays we “just” fish… my night gear could be carried on my back in an old army Bergen rucksack or stuffed in a hold all over my shoulder, today I need a carp porter barrow! as a kid, I would sit for hours just staring at the lake, I could easily while away a weekend session doing nothing and not get bored, there was too much going on! Today my son sits on the luxurious bed chair with unlimited 5G, phone plugged into a PowerPack watching carp fishing videos on YouTube! Mate YOU'RE AT THE LAKE!!! If his phone dies, he’s lost! I do find myself mourning the old days, where not everything was so accessible and instant, don’t get me wrong, it was the 90s, not the 60s, gear was available, mainstream carping was taking off, but to a young kid relying on pocket money, paper round money and birthday money, these items were financially out of reach, so you found a way to succeed with what you had. I watch my son, accomplished carper that he is, but he doesn’t realise how easy it is these days, I know if I put him onto a swim on the park lake that he’s never fished before, he’d struggle the art of marker float work, walking into a swim and “reading” it knowing instinctively where to place each hook bait seems to have been lost. Before marker rods etc, we would just walk into a swim, look at what you had and think, “well that bush looks inviting, I’ll pop one bait under that, I’ll stick another by those reeds and there you go, it always worked fine before. Now my son walks into the neglected swim on the park lake, wraps the marker, rods and spod to 9 wraps, and away he goes, marker out, three rods around the marker, 10-20 spods over the top, retrieve the marker and await the carp. Why 9 wraps? Because I found the harder patch of silt with a marker float and know it’s the one, he then asked me what the wraps were! I didn’t know, I don’t even have distance sticks! A pair of storm poles did the job and I counted the wraps for him. Now he knows. He recognises when he’s on it feeling the lead down, but I doubt that he would find it with a marker float and lead if left to his own devices. Or maybe, his time carping with his old man was his “golden age” maybe he’s currently in his “golden age” he can’t miss the simple times because he didn’t experience them as I did, it’s a generational thing - it’s not his fault that you can buy alarms for £30 today that would have cost 3 times as much back in the day. while I enjoy my carping, lord knows I’ve been fortunate in my angling, 2 English 40+ commons ranks as my biggest achievement, I do find myself increasingly drifting back down memory lane where everything seemed so simple. Last night I had a 30, I was happy, but I wasn’t screaming the place down. 20yrs ago I’d have popped the thing in the sleeping bag and cuddled it all night long if it were possible! I remember once staring at a fish like that for ages on the mat, last night I have barely any memory of the fish at all - in the net, on the mat, in the sling, weigh, bucket of water over it, quick snap with the self takes, treat the hook wound, back it goes, all done and dusted in a few minutes, I had to look back at the photos to see what it actually looked like! As far as fish care goes we are light years ahead, one good thing. i recognise in myself that I’ve got a bit stale, last night proved it to me, I had 3 good carp in a few hours, I know the lake, I knew where they would be, they are not the old paranoid leneys of old, these are a mix of VS and Simmons fish, stocked between 1999 and mid 2000s give or take, they’ve gone in at low doubles and have done well, they aren’t pushovers, but ultimately, they’ve been bred on pellets from carplets, they recognise pellet as a staple food source, put a bed out and they’ll come looking, stick a decent bait under their nose and you’ll have them. I left having had a good session, yet the other 4 anglers on the lake had a low 20 common between them. am I alone in feeling that modern carping has lost its soul somewhat? (I do need to find another venue, theres a wild windswept pit that’s caught my eye, just trying to find out who owns it!) maybe a completely new challenge will get me champing at the bit again. or maybe I’ve just become the angling equivalent of uncle Albert now let me regale you of tales of the war… “in Afghanistan, I was on patrol…” nah, maybe not! I still refuse to buy terminal tackle online though, I much rather walk into a tackle shop! “…Can’t walk into a website for a natter can you?…” (quote - song of the solitary bass fisher, by James “leaky boots” Batty - excellent book!

I've moved this into UK Carp fishing as I think it's worth more than NCB. I can go back to carp fishing in the 1980's when 'the rise' was on it's way. From Mitchell reels that were easy to clean and re-oil, to Daiwa Ab1350's which I won and used for float and tench fishing, and onto Abu Cardinal Ultracasts, the rear drag made fishing 'spool runner' possible, then the Shimano Baitrunners. North Western rods, which I would prefer over many more modern available brands, Century Armalites, mk.l and ll. As for brollies, making your own overwrap from a tarpaulin and then being able to get a proper branded overwrap to go over a 50inch umbrella. Clothing, life was cold in winter, although most of my winter fishing was for roach and pike. A tanksuit, that if you were lucky was actually waterproof. What irritates me is the lack of courtesy and etiquette in fishing now, and it has become a 'sit behind the rods' at all costs, often missing out on stalking and floater fishing. A rise in commercialism, waters and media I think have killed the mystery. As for tackle shops, as much as possible I prefer to go into the shop, although if I do have to order tackle online I prefer to use Tackle Box in Kent and Johnson Ross in Hoddesdon, both of which I have been in. I am lucky though, I do have 3 very good tackle shops within 5miles of my flat.

But would you want to go back to using old fashioned tackle…. couldnt think of anything worse

Were things better? That's a very good question.... I am of an age when 'social media' really meant Carp Talk and Carp World... then that cheeky newcomer Rob Maylin with Big Carp, from memory not long after the magazine shelves in Smiths were rammed with Carp mags.In my opinion, it is now like so many other things, ramped up by so many social media outlets, does it affect me, no I might look at the odd YouTube thing that catches my eye. But to actively follow 'fisherman' just seems a bit wierd to me, let me be honest I did start to watch a 'Sir' Pete Springate one but turned it off after 10 mins, actually very boring... and he was old school. As for very early days, I still remember my first carp caught, cat food and groundbait paste from a small farm pond on the IOW. I didn't get seriously into carp fishing for many years after that, concentrated on club match and pleasure fishing in the surrey area, think my point is that I didn't suddenly go straight into the Carp thing.I do feel slightly sad that the joy of catching a dace, chub or even gudgeon seems to have been lost, assuming any rivers now actually are able to support them any more? Finally, to get back to your question... In my opinion, I think manners and respect for other anglers were very higher than they are now. Were they better, I think so but guess in reality things are so different now and most of us have to live with it.

1. For the ultimate in being a tart, take a bivvy, brolly and gazebo. Don’t laugh, I saw it last weekend on a commercial where you can park your car behind the swim. 2. Have a splash mat under your reels, the ultimate in tartyness. 3. Carry 20 different types of pop-up but only use 1. 4. Take a 2 man bivvy but you only do over-nighters. 5. Take a powered fridge despite the fact you only keep your sandwiches and lager in it. 6. Own a 5-season sleeping bag despite the fact you hang your rods up in October. 7. Have a power bank that could keep a family home going for a couple of days in a power cut but you only charge your phone and torch. 8. Your rod-pod has so much stainless that you have to wear sunglasses to look at it. 9. You have a power barrow with so much grunt it could stop an average scrum but you only fish a 2 acre lake with manicured lawns. 10. Your phone is permanently on FaceBook so you can keep in contact with both of your friends. 11. A pair of 10x25 binoculars is more than ample and fits in your pocket when folded down. So why do you take a set of field glasses that can spot a mouse a mile away? 12. You wear bivvy slippers to keep your groundsheet clean. 13. A head torch is a necessity after dark but you need to keep it down to keep your night-sight when you turn it off. Your 8000 Lumen monstrosity resembles the Blackpool illuminations. 14. You bring your camper van to a commercial that allows rear of swim parking and stay in it all day and night watching TV or reading a book and only come outside once a day. Don’t laugh, I have seen it. 15. You own 2 sets of rods/reels/buzzers because you fish different waters and don’t want to handicap yourself. 16. Despite having a double burner and family sized returnable gas bottle and associated cookware, your meals are delivered to your swim from the local greasy spoon and pizza shop. 17. You have a bait boat with GPS and Sonar despite your lake being as pancake flat as the day the bulldozer created it. It also has a 4kg payload despite the fact you only use PVA bags. 18. Everyone loves a bivvy table. A small one just big enough for your tackle box, scales, phone and receiver is ample. A true tackle tart pushes it to the max and I saw 2 blokes in adjoining swims with a decorating table that you use for hanging wallpaper. 19. You have a top of the range DSLR with an impressive pixel count but the deal clincher was the 40 frames per second burst shooting rate it offered. Despite the fact you will never use it. You only shoot in Auto and use the photo’s unaltered on your FaceBook page. 20. You take 3 nets with you, “just in case.” The water you are fishing is rock hard and 2 fish a season is considered good going.

Yes, they are fragile. This should not be a problem when float fished near the marginal reeds where perch lurk. For carp, mount a prawn on the hair with its tail closest to the hook. For anything other than short range, it can be cocooned in PVA to withstand casting. Prawns are outstanding until into October when the carp change their food preference.

Uncooked prawns (greyish) at this time of year, deadly for perch - and carp

Good luck fella, I'd be having a go for Perch on lures with all those fry you mention it must have some big ones. 👍

No idea sorry, but looks a lovely setting, I guess nuisance species might be an issue with all the roach etc. I guess hard hookbaits and/or bigger baits will help.

Looks lovely. This thread's been a bit quiet this year....

Fished late afternoon for 4hrs, had so many dogfish stoped counting after 10 no over species could get a look in 🙄

This year has been tough sea fishing. No major blowy weather, calm seas and clear water. Night time is the best time to be fishing. Lug worm and rag worm are easy to hook, put them on a hollow straight baiting needle then thread them onto the hook. Best then tipped with a bit of squid or fish. As with coarse fishing, don't overcast the fish, at night more bass and sole are caught within 30metres than at longer range. And don't think bigger is better, a size 1 or 2 hook is as big as you need for sole.

Very nice!

Ratticus pesticus sniffing me out at queens mere dam in swinton couple years back. Place is full of them as well as the drunk and drug abusing types 🫪🙄

Not sure if I am allowed to post this on a chilled site like this is but: Have looked on 'another place' and seems like so called magic hookbaits are going thru the roof price wise 😂 Think I might have an idea to do the same with mini tubs of particle hookbaits, can't be bothered but suspect it will eventually happen? The hookbait 'wars' seem to have reached stupid levels, one bloke even challenging others to a 'carp match' for lots of money..... Years ago remember a thing about 'Carp anglers' vs 'Match anglers'..... Match fisherman won on Carp caught weight.....

That is the problem of buying in bulk. I used to work in the chemical industry for most of my working life and we used to use 25kg plastic tubs of Potassium Permanganate in one process which were very sturdy and seals well. Needless to say, every time I used one it was washed out and brought home - I was doing my bit for the environment! I'm also fortunate that I have quite a large garage and they are labelled and stacked up around the edge and I can still get the car in. Interesting to get an insight from someone who has seen what goes on from the other side of the fence. Unfortunately my local shop didn't want to meet me half way as they prefer to sell the £5+ 1kg bags of pellets.

A few interesting points in here. Having worked in a couple of tackle shops and animal feed stores I know how much bait costs both ways. In terms of base mixes and boilies, the tackle shops buy from the manufacturer, at cost. It's basically divide buying price by 2, then multiply by 3 and add VAT, so £6.99 tackle shop buying price worked out at £11.99 when I was there. That's not that big a profit when you consider storage, freezer, carriage, wages and handling. It is very difficult to compete when anglers are able to buy direct from the manufacturer at cost! I used to field test, proper field testing rather than buying at discount, and I bought non test bait at discount, but got test baits for free, if that makes sense. The test baits I gave feedback on, and gave ideas for baits I came up with. There were a couple of my own flavour blends and pop-ups added to the bait makers range, which I never had to pay for. Come to that I know that a fish in I provided a lot of bait for for anglers going which was given to me by the bait company. I couldn't afford to pile bait in as a field tester, yet I saw some with magazine media presence really go for it. A bulk bag of pellets from a wholesaler is around £60, around £3 per kilo, so if a tackle shop sells them you are looking at around £5 a kilo, which is why so many sell 1kg bags. I'm not sure on the price of buckets, I think I paid £10 for a bucket last year (my sea fishing bucket) from a shop, yet years ago I used to get 10kg buckets of base mix for around £72.99, the bucket was free. @Golden Paws I don't like having loads of bait about, but I do have an advantage, Gladwells at Copdock Mill is 5minutes away, and I can buy ready prepped hemp, and 3kg buckets of pellets, or bulk sacks. Gladwells incidentally own Crafty Catcher so I can get bulk bags of Skrettings pellets or Crafty Catcher pellet buckets. I know Gladwells sell their boilie and bait range at the same price as tackleshops. I do buy 1 or 2 kilo bags of birdfood from the supermarket and prepare at home.

I buy 20kg sacks of pigeon conditioner from pets at home for around £20 and as it swells to 2 or 3 times it dry size, it's as cheap as chips. It was a little "bitty" and so I've also bought 25kg of maple peas from bait superstore for £30 to bulk it out a bit. I'm getting through a pressure cooker's worth on an average day session, topped up with some pellets which I also buy in 20kg sacks as it keeps the price down rather than buying a 1kg bag for over a fiver. It really annoys me when you see sponsored anglers chucking in 10kg or more of boilies which would equate to about £120, if they had to pay for it of course. When I looked at buying some boilies a good few years ago, the brand I was using showed all it's sponsored anglers on their website - and there were plenty of them! It's bad enough buying it for yourself, when you know that you are subsidising other peoples angling, it does grate a bit. I changed to Baitworks as I liked the look of their products and as they sell direct to the public, they cut out the middle man (tackle shops I'm afraid), who want their 50% of the selling price. My local tackle shop used to sell pellets in 3kg buckets which made them a bit cheaper. They stopped doing it as they said the flimsy buckets they were using were too expensive. I offered to bring back my old buckets to be topped up but they didn't seem interested. I also enquired about buying a sack of pellets from them but that also wasn't met with much enthusiasm. I then had no qualms about going on-line and then buying in bulk.

I’ve just made some tigers. I add heaps of dark brown sugar at the soaking stage. Boil it in the same solution. Really kick starts the “gooing” stage. Two nights in a relatively cool garage and there is a heavy goo already. poor example as tigers don’t take much on but I tried one and they are super sweet compared to a standard one cooked without sugar. I don’t add anything to particle apart from sugar, salt or garlic. Occasionally chilli. No artificial stuff, think it defeats the point. as Yonny said you dont boil out salt or sugar. When you cook pasta you add salt to the boiling water before adding to pasta, to enhance its flavour. You then boil it and you get the taste. The salt remains. Sugar in the same.

Hitting boiling point does not mean boiling out. You can boil all the water away. The salt/sugar will remain.

You can already buy silly priced pots of particle hookbaits. They are out there.

Cheers for that mate 👍 I took the head apart and found a wire had parted from the led so I've soldered it and it's working again 👍👍

Thanks , Nick

Probably not earth shattering news for most of us but it's worth spending 5 minutes on.

I had this caterpillar crawling along the floor of my bivvy, and so I didn't kill it I picked it up and took the photo. It is an Emperor moth caterpillar and while not rare rare are not particularly widespread.

There has been an increased quantity of spam recently so for new members I have often been putting post moderation on. This is not because I don't want you posting, but sadly because I don't like having to deal with 30 posts advertising or linking to unsafe sites. Please feel free to introduce yourself in the New to Carp.com section https://forum.carp.com/forum/40-new-to-carpcom-new-to-carp-fishing/ and as soon as we can we'll approve the post so you can get a good welcome. To those members who have been reporting spam posts, many thanks, it really helps and to the other moderators, thank you for your help with this.

Think the duck wanted out of the rain 🤣

This Thread is a Guide to the Knotless Knot and Basic Rigs Here is the Knotless Knot as used for many basic Rigs, also a set up that can be used to create a pop-up rig. It is as simple as attaching a hook with a knotless knot, and in many or even most cases, simple is best. There are sometimes when a rig needs to be slightly upgraded and by adding a Line Aligner then you can create a more aggresive hooking angle These simple rigs can be adapted for Braids, Nylon, fluorocarbons and Coated Braids, and used for bottom baits or pop-up rigs.

Just random pics

Love these, people putting some great shots on

Brereton Country Park

The D Rig is probably one of the most adaptable rigs and is suitable for pop-ups, snowman and bottom baits. It is also pretty much the basis for the Chod rig. Again, you are using a standard knotless knot, but using the tag end to put the rig ring on, and putting the tag back through the eye of the hook, and lighter blobbing it. I have tied one on Fluorocarbon, just as a demonstration, but it can be tied on mono, coated braid, even plain braid or as part of a Combi-rig when attached to a stiffer boom section. The bait is attached to a rig ring. As a pop-up rig, tie a stop knot with power gum and mould putty around it at the height you want the bait popped up, use an match anglers olivette, or pop-up depth charge, or with a combi-rig, mould the putty around the knot join.

Any standard rig can be used for a pop-up rig, a standard knotless knot rig is easy to convert, but a little thought can give better hookholds. For this pop-up rig I have used Snakebite as the coated braid, but with a short stripped section near the hook. The hook is tied on with a Uni knot, and silicon tubing to hold the hook up at the right angle. Because of my personal problems with crayfish I can't use putty, so a match anglers olivette is held in place with that tubing, and another short length at the other end of olivette. The sliding ring on the shank is prevented from going past the bend by a rig bead, and the pop-up is tied on to the rig ring. I know this rig works, I have been using it for a lot of years, it has produced double figure tench as well as carp to big weights from numerous waters.

I have mentioned braided rigs, and to tie a basic braid rig is as simple as going exactly the same as the knotless knotted rig shown above, or you can be slightly more advanced. This braided rig is tied on Kryston Merlin, the swivel knot is covered with shrink tubing, just to be sure the hooklink kicks away, reducing tangles. The hook is tied on with a Grinner knot, the hair is constructed from whipping thread, tied to the eye of the hook, protected with the shrink tube and I have made it with a line aligner. The shrink tube has the hooklink material coming out of the front at the top to create that line aligner. The hair is also leaving the hook opposite the barb, and a tiny piece of shrink tube holds it there. In the second pic, it is a plain basic braided rig, tied with the knotless knot, simple and easy to tie, and it does work