Uroy

I’ll happily fish a pva bag into (the right) silt, the carp are perfectly happy to find food there, I don’t worry too much about the bait being tainted by silt, their sensory receptors will still detect bait in silt, there’s lots of food already buried it it, so it makes sense to place a bait there. If you don’t want it crashing in too fast, then I use a lighter lead and you can use a straw to blow some air in it, tape it up around the straw, then pull it out and lick/stick shut. A few nuggets of foam and/or pop ups will increase buoyancy too. You don’t want them too buoyant as the bag if sinking too slowly may well dissolve before it hits the bottom. Not necessarily a problem in my view as it may give a slightly wider spread of free bait, but maybe not the presentation your after. 

It actually produced my last 2 fish out of the syndicate. The lead and rig all in the bag fished with bottom baits. 
No need to slow it down. I knew I was on a weed free area, rich in natural food. I had retrieved leads and rigs and pulled in bloodworm just stuck to them. 

You could add a few floaters in there, That should stop it sinking too fast and allow it to sink slower, 
Or you could use a bag mesh or solid attached to the hook and use foam or some floaters mixed in , then the lead will settle first and the bag should stay off the deck til it melts, this isn't ideal if you need to cast it far but if you don't this should work a treat and allow your rig to settle gently giving you a better chance of being presented on top of the silt 

Instead of ‘pulling’ the needle through, try ‘pushing’ the leadcore off the needle.

I have also found that not putting too much of the tag end in the gate of the splicing needle helps when pulling back through. 

This👆
You need to avoid stretching the material so pulling is your enemy👍

Yeah I’m closing the gate and I’ve tried a few needles including the Korda one. For some reason I struggle with the last bit of pulling the leadcore through itself. I am removing the leadcore as well 

The fox blue splicing needle is good, 
What leadcore are you using? And are you removing some of the leadcore, I don't use leadcore as it's banned most places I fish, but I use Gardner camflex unleaded, it splices like a dream 👍

Hi mate are you closing the gate on the needle before pulling it back through? I take it you are using a splicing needle?

Learn as much as you can before fishing it!
In my case it is find the features, not forgetting the margins. Some margin spots may be obvious, slopes, rushes, snags, others not so like undercut banks. 
I get the marker rod out, and map the lake as best as I can, and Google Earth can show up some real treats, as does an Internet search. 
I had some lovely hand drawn maps of Virginia Lake at Earith, some Google maps of Nazeing, with gravel bars and distances to the bars, weed beds etc. 
As has been said, other angler's can be useful. Don't 'pump' for information, but generally swapping info can get you a head start. Other angler's may have favourite swims and spots, might be all fishing the same, so doing what they do might catch you fish, but being different can catch you more. 
 
Going back to Brackens pool, most angler's used very little bait, there was a rule of no baiting by hand, catapult or stick, so I went in heavy with massive PVA bags and stringers, often casting in as many as 30 bags or 30 bait stringers as I could in 30minutes or so, all ready tied. 

Do some feature finding, check depths, what the substrate of the lake bed is like, species of weed etc and then, record what you’ve found in a notebook.
If it’s possible and allowed, it’s worth having a climb up trees and recording what you see. Carp tend to be like sheep, in that they’ll follow the same trail regularly. Also, don’t forget the margins. 
Observe and take note of how the carp are affected by the the elements, the presence of other anglers. That sort of thing.
My starting point when I do actually go fishing is: target areas of the lakebed that feels as clean as possible and bait those areas, and if possible, keep on baiting them.
But, if the venue you’ve chosen is always busy, just get in where you can and hope for the best! 
 

That's good advice and something I've been known to fall foul of, Infact I've been guilty of it recently, 😁
You get blinded by where you want the fish to be and not where they are, and it's easy to not look about when you get like this, not only that you start to get quite precious about it, that was something I noticed last year, and didn't particularly like, also I got bored fishing the same peg after a while, it becomes like you are going through the motions, I had been baiting a swim for a few weeks recently and one time a guy came up wanting to fish it whilst I was baiting as he had been doing some time in there, he seemed a bit put out I had been doing it tbh, I just blew off 3 weeks work off and tried elsewhere 😔
I started off last year in a different peg each time and built up a picture that way I can now jump in a lot of swims and fish which helps, I tend to just do my own thing nowadays,don't race to get in the going swins, I will clear spots and swims that are overlooked by others and have a go, if nothing else I may learn something 😂
The main thing I think is to just enjoy it though, if you keep trying you will have your good days as well 👍

This is key, watch the birdlife carefully, they will show you all sorts of things, spooking from carp, natural food larders, where the new weed is growing, where the hatches are, etc. 
Never getting wedded to swims because you are prebaiting is my other biggest tip. It can ruin your fishing big time, I've done it before and I see it a lot too. 
I will try and find out any info I can from people that know the venue, spring/summer/autumn areas to have a look at. 
I try to really explore a few swims on the end of a SW, it's hard to ignore them on larger waters so it's worth being able to drop in when the conditions suit. 
 

Apart from this, not much mate.
Obviously if there's a specific fish I'm after I'll find out when/where it tends to come out but aside from that I'll always go in with a very basic approach (boilies/pellets) based on what I see during my walks round the venue. By keeping it simple you have a good base to work from in terms of tactics.

My plans for 2020 is to better my PB tench,which has stood for over 30years and went 6lb 3oz and was caught on a side hooked strawberry boilie at Lymm Dam. A good size tench for the time and area (I hadn’t learnt how to hair rig then)
Still remember it like it was yesterday tbh and my club waters hold a few decent ones so it’s all systems go for that come spring. I’ve gone a bit full circle tbh and the last few seasons has seen me target different species more and more.  
 

I don't get that at all elmo. I always spend a hell of a lot of time in preparation in for my fishing (my time on the bank is so limited that even the prep is a bit of an escape for me). I love it, prepping bait, tying rigs, working yourself up and getting excited. Of course it doesn't always go how you expect it to on the bank but that doesn't mean it's a waste of energy. What it means is that on those occasions when it does go to plan you are fully prepared. Nothing left to chance.
You cannot be better prepared for more situations if you do not spend the time planning. It doesn't work mate.
Ultimately all we have to do on the bank is whack a rig on a spot in front of some carp. There is not that much to it. I would say 50% of the work that goes into a successful campaign is actually done at home. It's the 6 P's innit; Proper preparation prevents p*ss poor performance.

Depending on what I’m fishing over I’ve used both tbh but I find that I seen to be using the combi as my go to rig for some reason 

In theory, the rig ring should allow the rig to reset itself. 
It may possibly be that the hook pulls could have been from fish which picked up rigs that had not reset after being ejected in the first place. 
 
The number of times I have seen fish pick up, move and eject rigs on semi-fixed leads with absolutely no indication at the buzzer still astounds me!
 

The blowback rig has been my bottom bait rig of choice for a few years and I’ve always stripped back the last centimetre by the hook to give it that flexibility, combined with shrink tube or a kicker of some sort. I want the hook to be able to drop and take hold quickly and find that it’s best to have the coated braid stripped just before the hook to provide this hinge. 

I usually sit and tie rigs when watching you tube on the telly, it's probably not as proactive and probably a lot slower but it's an enjoyable way to make them in advance of my sessions 

Your answer in a nutshell (pardon the pun) 
all I would add is to ensure they are well prepared correctly or use ready prepared nuts, use sparingly and use simple rigs that you already have confidence in. 

They'll work all year mate.
Don't use too many. They're best bulked out with something imo (hemp is a good option).
I tend to use them with boilie to avoid nuisance species. I don't do anything fancy when it comes to rigs. Keep it simple.

For everything you need to know about zig fishing, watch this.

Depends on the water really mate. I often fish zigs and treat them as singles, Or putting a zig over an already spodded area (from when i was fishing the bottom). If your going to a lake packed full of carp, spod over the zig, otherwise i dont spod over them. black zigs always do me well at night.