bluelabel

I use coarse/carp pellet rather than the high oil halibut types and even then only a small handful at a time. (4+6+8mm to get em grubbing around) Because I can usually only manage short sessions I've tried to be less formulaic in my approach over the last year, different baits (no boilies) No heavy baiting, (just a few morsels on key spots) More mobile (1 or sometimes 2 rods and no longer than an hour or so in each swim) Being less blatant (keeping myself out of view from the water & different rigs, sometimes even freelining and hooked baits rather than hair rigged) My old mentor Norman Frere once said to me "one cast in the right spot is worth a thousand in the wrong uns" I still carry my catty, throwing stick and PVA & more rarely, my spod/spomb rod, but... I'm too busy trying to find where that "Right Spot" is to worry about em🤣🤣😛

Yup.... information saturation sells products dontcherknow... Saint Danny of Fairbrass and his Minions have a lot to answer for😂

A lot of folk will rock up to their local commie set up 3 rods, lob them out on 3 lines or features... (usually Island, open water, and a margin chuck) then put 30 odd baits around their hookers... Or... ....they'll spod the granny out of a 20 foot square spot and put all three rods on it and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't... more often the latter... I see it all too often, its a "formula" and a lot of anglers do it this way... but having the courage to move away from a "formula" will often pay dividends... keeping an open mind is the key... that and being prepared to make a change to ones approach in a baiting strategy

I always carry more bait than I need, yet rarely use a fraction of it.. keeping baiting light (on the waters I fish) pays off, yet baiting heavy tends to put fish off... maybe its a short term effect and I need to be on the water longer to take advantage of the heavier baiting stategy. But given that my time on the water is limited the lighter, softly softly approach gets results on shorter sessions...

With all the tools of bait delivery at hand it is easy to become confused as to their choice... we all have our favourite methods of bait delivery based on experience and results... It's a case of each to his own... one thing I have noticed is that the guys (and gals) who are on syndicate waters with limited memberships tend to go with the long term baiting campaigns... whether big beds, or little and often... Folks who fish heavily fished club or commercial waters tend to go for a lighter approach as there is no real knowledge of what has gone into the water and fish for a bite at a time.... Whatever your personal choice, we can all learn a thing or two about each others approaches...

Easy to do when you get it fer nowt

Another option is not to bait up at all... just use a single hook bait.. takes a bit of courage, but oddly enough it has woked for me on a few occasions on pressured day ticket waters... saves a fortune in bait and its less gear to lug about

I have a Nash stick... its quite short and loads at the handle end... love it... if I want a spread at distance its dragged out of the rod bag... baiting sticks are an acquired taste and there is a knack to using them.... practice is the key

Another method in the mix is the baiting spoon... as most of my fishing is with old gear, distance casting with a pin is difficult if not impossible, so I use a baiting spoon on a 6m landing net handle to bait up and place my baits and rigs... with normal fishing I use a catty, spomb, or PVA☺️

You rig a trace above the lure instead of fluorocarbon to avoid bite offs from pike... you can use premade traces and attach to the hook via a snap link or make your own with crimps... you can knot the Drennan multistrand in finer poundages but it is prone to kinking... Below the hook just use a length of mono to attach your drop shot weight onto... make sure the trace is long enough to not get cut off by a pikes teeth if it takes the lure right down... hope this helps

If it has a larger butt ring its probably built as a long casting rod and will be stiffer from butt to the middle... I'd go for the shimanos... they're probably more suited to the fishing you want to do

2 for me... club rules state 2 rods... seems fair enough... the water's less than 4 acres... really don't feel the need to fish 3 any more... as has been said, lighter, cheaper, less scope for getting the others wiped out if you get a scrapper on the end...👍

He also told me he explodes about 40 rods a year.... so they're tough rods and his advice upped my distance from 60 yards to near 100 and that's with my dwarfs so his knowledge has helped my distance work.... you can learn techniques that'll increase you distance whatever your casting tool from guys like Terry

Weeeeelllll..... taking my predeliction for Cane out of the equation for a mo, my Carbon rods are a pair of 9 foot, 2.75lb Nash Dwarf rods... I like the "Short rod" concept and love the advantage of leaving the kit in me car without it being on show... the rods are capable of doing most of the fishing that I do.... and any notion that you can't chuck them a long way had better have a word with Terry Edmonds... he chucked a lead 170 yards with one (3.00lbs I think) that said, most of my fishing is close range, so they suit me fine and for £75 each for the new updated ones, I'm more than happy with them.... I think you need to take a good look at the type of fishing that you do most of and tailor your choice to that... there are no rods that will do everything it's all about compromises at the end of the day...

I use soft plastics with jig heads or drop shotting... and I always use traces if I know Pike are likely to be present.... Drennan multistrand in 5kg is supple enough to knot, not been bitten off yet

Have a look at the Nash Titan Hide... you can pick them up for £200

I read with interest the notion of using heavy leads in the margins on running rigs.... As an Old School lad, I often (more often than not) freeline in the margins, or sometimes use a small lump of plasticine, or a couple of swan shot and fish slack lines and just watch the line where it enters the water... (no alarms or bobbins) now, that method may upset a few of the modern lads, (I can hear the cries of anguish even as I type....🤣) but it's accounted for quite a few carp for me... I suppose that everyone has their own method of catching, or different variations on a theme, but I have often found that if the accepted method is 'A' then I'll try 'Z' as (to my mind) if the fish get used to seeing a big lead (running or lead-clipped) and a boilie, they'll take a nice prawn or a trio of cockles or a couple of sultana's... Everyone has their own way of doing things and a lad I often fish with is always laughing at my methods, but the laughing stops when I put one in the net.... and if it gets him thinking then I'm happy... For fishing out of the margins, I use ultra light leads... (just enough to get the rig into place) for me it's a confidence thing I have seen a carp "Do Me" using a heavier lead and Jed Kent (whom I met a couple of years back) advocated ultra light running leads... I have refined that to my own preferences and use 1.5 oz Avid flat in-line leads or Guru 1/3 or 2/3 ounce in lines and short method style hooklinks with small baits... often not on hairs... I suppose it's a case of something I was once told.... The Unorthodox Plus Perseverance Equals Results... Give it a go👍😉😎

Owdo chap... if you already have a rod and reel and some lures, there are plenty of drop shotting tutorials on YouTube... as a suggestion I'd look for some structure, pilings, locks, or drop offs, back eddies and most of all I'd take some natural baits with you.... lobworms or prawns... also some red maggots... I've found Perch need to be fed heavily in order to get them in the mood to take a lure.... if Pike are in the area then an up trace is recommended as Pike will bite through a Fluourocarbon hooklink

By Mark Walsingham (aka Skeff) of the golden scale club... A superb book, charting his beginnings as a young angler, to the work for the national trust, to the acquisition of Ashmead.... buy it... you'll not be disappointed

As an all rounder I think that Carpers and Matchmen have a lot to learn from each other.... to lay the blame of mouth damage at the door of matchmen solely is inflammatory at best... I see loads of "Carpers" on commercial puddles with 3.5lb T/C rods and 15lb line where the fish rarely go above mid doubles... and call the fish soft mouthed when the hook tears out because they don't know how to play fish properly on such heavy gear... I have landed carp to 16lb on the pole (with a puller top two) with no mouth damage at all (other than the usual hook mark) on size 16 elastic which is very light considering the elastics nowadays go up to size 30, the fish went back fine after being weighed and given time to recover in the net... (not in a keep net) And Matchmen would do well to heed the carpers ways of handling fish with larger landing nets, weigh ins at half time to avoid stressing the fish, and not tip them wholesale into weigh-buckets

Doubles as a decent chair too😉

Nash trax micro... crackin bit o kit

Give fox a call they carry them in stock and will post out to you... think they charge about a fiver each

Lol... tis deffo a comfy crib tho'.... The extended wrap allows me to get ALL me kit stowed inside, even the barrow

Ditto that... had mine donkeys years now... the extended winter wrap is a doosey... I always get enquiries whether I have planning permission for it...