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Good morning all, many thanks to all who have reported the spam appearing recently on the forum, special shout out to @elmoputney and @InteraX who gave me a pleasurable 10min banning them all! please keep reporting them as soon as you see them and the mod team will get them rid. many thanks! ouchthathurt (Matt)

Looking at the forecast we'll be seeing 15C+ starting tomorrow for the foreseeable. Hovering around 17/18 for the coming weeks. IT'S HERE LADS! In a strange twist of fate, it's fallen perfectly for me. I have a few days planned this week. Fingers crossed I can get on them. Good luck for the season guys.

I can relate to topic, Think my best carp fishing days were in the mid / late 90's, without boring people to death with nostalgic memories, but my early Horseshoe days were something never to be forgotten. After that, things changed, couldn't do it anymore, a very long drive and work and family stuff meant I gave up and sold my ticket., did a lot of day ticket fishing in and around Sussex, and a few club lakes too, then the noddy carp anglers arrived en mass, all the argos gear with no idea, no manners or respect. Had a great spell with pole fishing on a certain sussex venue that had lots of crucians in their front lake. Then moved on to find a few Dorset and Kernow venues that were relativily undiscoverd back in the day. What I am trying to say is, don't loose the feeling, at my age, can't go as much as I ever used to, but still have a Sussex club water I can think will do me. My one regret is that I have never caught a Barbel! Sorry for a bit of a rant

There was a frost this morning! I got woken up to an occurrence at around 5.30, thick mist across the lake and a frost on the ground. Let's hope that the forecast weather wakes a few fish up.

Good luck mate. I'm setting the alarm for 4am so I'll be sneaking round the pond fist thing tomoz!

I'm going after work tonight, buzzing even though it's going to be cold, come on you carps. Let's have a muncher or two.

Well I decided not to rejoin, then the owner, in all his wisdom decided to close the season, a month early??? Im not too keen on day ticket waters. So, without anywhere to fish until the estate opens in mid June, I've signed up to a local angling club for £90 + a small joining fee. There's a few small local lakes with some reasonable size fish to go for. My boys are welcome which is important and no stupid rules, which is refreshing. A new chapter for me, trying out the club scene.

Well the koi are absolutely loving the elevated temps this past few days. Scoffing their heads off. The covers and parasol are doing a good job of prohibiting a sudden increase in water temps so it's warming up slowly which does the fish a favour. As a result the water has remained very clear with temps currently around ~11.5 C. Feeding has increased gradually over the last month or two which has given the bio filter the chance to get going properly. A few more degrees and it's time to start piling the grub in for growing season. It's been awesome feeding them this past few days. I could sit there all day watching them I swear it. The covers will be coming off in the next week or so as most of the blossom has now fallen from the trees. Shouldn't be long before I can get some good shots of the fish to whack on here.

This weekend I tragically lost my vintage JRC Cocoon, must have been 25 years old or more. It had a bent frame, lots of tape,mouse holes and I had replaced the elastic for zip ties and it was light as anything. But sadly the loops started to rip away from the mattress and it could no longer be saved. It's out lasted many other bedchairs, it's now gone to bedchair heaven and will be sadly missed RIP So I have found a new JRC Cocoon 2 arriving tomorrow, it's probably 4 times as heavy but looks mega comfortable and it's a sleep system. I still have the sonik one but that does tend to give me back ache. But it is pretty light and will do for when I need the barrow.

Good luck, hopefully they will be sheeting up all over the gaff

Sounds like a plan! I get the 'not feeling it' feeling about a few places, some of which I used to love, one of which was and is a day ticket, Suffolk Water Park. I really enjoyed going down there, walking around, finding fish, choosing a swim, and being able to move if the fish moved. It was at the time £20 for 24hours, so a just about affordable 2 nights. Then over time we have now come to book into a swim for however long the session, which at the rate the SWP fish move may be miles away from them, and £35 for 24hours. Sadly my local club has lost the ball, they were unable to take on one of their biggest venues when the owners sold up, and now only have two stillwater venues instead of three, which makes one water in particular rather crowded. I am keeping my syndicate ticket, I do occasionally put on pictures even if I can't name it, although a few people know where it is.

I was out having a vape last night and noticed it was v clear skies.... I expected a frosty car this morning and I got one. It'll be cold tonight too but tomorrow night is...... wait for it....... 11 degrees! Feeding time.

Sounds like you have done the right thing, enjoy some nice angling with your lads, it will be quality time spent, i only fish the local club these days, got a few mates on the ponds and usually i really enjoy the sessions, main lake has some good fish but i tend to fish the smaller pond and some lovely fish to about 18lb, good enough for an old codger like me

seems each time i log on the most recent spammers have been dealt with, sadly at times forums just get hit with this rubbish

If I had as many takes as spammers recently, I would have had the season of a lifetime already! 🙄

Temu mate.

Just looked at those lol a sea fishing measure and a tray lol

Went to local lake yesterday just for afternoon managed one carp just an 8lb 40z, lovely scaly mirror, jesus i really am looking like an "old codger" these days

Aren't a lot of us now showing our age , Jules , except Elmo of course who just gets more adonis like 😁 .

Hi Framey . I've recently used the small Plumb-Ezee ( with a dumpy pear ! ) and it certainly pops up to the surface locked to the depth it has found . However , it seems that it will still come to the surface even if it lands in the middle of a weedbed . What I did notice though was that sometimes when it surfaced bubbles erupted around it , so maybe that's where the weed is ? . I'll have a twiddle , then it should be just the job . 😃

In 2024 I visited the worlds largest cork producer in Portugal with work. It was amazing.... saw all the processes from harvesting of the bark down in Lisbon (they even let me have a go!) all the way through to production of wine stoppers and everything else they make up in Porto. Was one of the best work weeks I've had. Those trees take 12 years to get to the first harvest then once every nine years after that. It takes nearly 50 years to get to the quality required for natural wine stoppers. Some of the trees were 150+ years old. It makes sense, having seen all this, that the price of decent cork balls has gone up so much. They have something like 4 million acres of trees and in the middle of one of these huge plantations they had a reservoir providing the water. I was standing there watching the water (as you do as an angler) and a big common whalloped out. I pointed it out to my host, their technical director, and it turned out he was a carp angler too. He had this reservoir full of massive carp in the middle of nowhere that only he could fish. Incredible.

Went to a little pond with my youngest boy yesterday and he caught his first ever carp. Lovely little 7lb common. He's got the carp bug now😉

a mid double common to christen the new rods

Just to add..... if you guys think carp tax is bad you should check out koi tax. I've just ordered a koi measuring bowl (literally a blue plastic tub) for 147 quid. It's the cheapest one I could find. Average price is more like 300 with the most expensive one being 550 quid because it's Japanese. Couldn't make it up. It's a plastic box😅.