Golden Paws

Agreed Dave. My Xmas present arrived early December and my missus let me have it early (oooh, matron!) and I finished it in a couple of weeks by reading a couple of hours every night. Tremondous book and can't rate it highly enough. Wonderful 'fireside reading' that you can dip in and out of any Chapter as it isn't connected. It isn't all fishing as some of it is part autobiographical but still enjoybale to read. https://calmproductions.com/rolling-in-the-deep Not the cheapest book at £35 but it is a monster read. The formatting of the book is different to any other fishing book I've read before and the diary pieces included add to the feel of it. Virtually every Carp book on the market has the standard 'man and big fish' front cover but this isn't and that emphasises that it doesn't conform to what you might have read before.

I've not used that brand but most have caught hundreds of barbel on various makes of Luncheon Meat over the years. After a while they do wise up to the 'pink cube' and I caught most of mine by cutting into 6 fingers and then smearing with Tandoori paste with some extra garlic granules added for that extra kick, That also changes the colour, making it darker and less conspicuous. Cook in a frying pan on a low heat whilst turning on each side. Allow to cool and then add to a freezer bag and freeze and the flavour really 'sucks in' to the meat. Alternatively, you can cut the meat up and add a powdered flavour (any curry powder) to a polythene bag and allow it to take on the flavour. I've caught some very good barbel and chub on plain meat using a quarter of a tin. You feel pretty stupid casting it out and for the first time you begin to doubt it will work but trust me, it does. Rather than using a boilie stop, I use a piece of grass stalk about an inch long to hold it if using a hair rig as it does go soft, especially in the summer. Most of the time I buried the hook in the bait as I was touch ledgering. If convential Carp Fishing, I would use a running lead, especially if using really large pieces as they do need a bit of time to pick up the bait and gulp it down, almost similar to pike fishing and letting the fish take line and striking a few seconds later.

Unfortunately the baliff on my club water is a miserable old git who likes to chuck his weight around because he's 'got a badge'. Didn't like it though when I reported him to the Committee for breaking the rules he was supposed to uphold! So to put it on head a bit, the baliff's I hate are the one's who think that they are there to impose themselves when most people want want a quiet relaxing day's fishing. He's also pretty rude, "Ticket?" is his standard greeting. To be fair, most of the others I've met have been courteous and polite and engage in a bit of small talk and they are off on their way with minimal fuss. On another day ticket water I fished (once!) they employed 2 young idiots who thought they were in the Sweeny. They used to screech up in the car park and one would go one way and the other the opposite which was pretty comical, I never returned as I just don't need that kind of aggravation.

Yes, I've been using the Gardener GT-HD for the last few months and pretty impressed with it. Pretty supple, casts fairly well and sinks OK. For £20 for 1000 metres, you can easily spool 3 reels and afford to change it the following year.

Any mono or copolymer line will degrade in sunlight and so 2 or 3 years is pushing it. I always store my lines in an air tight biscuit tin to keep them safe. A year on one line is probably pushing it for safety. If you did want a line for that long then braid is your only option.

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

Yes Kev, I'm being to doubt my reasoning for doing it, hence why I've started this thread. We do get 'done' far more than we realise, the underwater films sometime make me wonder how we ever catch them at all! I try to tip all the odds in my favour, good bait, sharp hook, resetting rigs (noramally combi's), fluorocarbon leader and slackish line but still get a lot of 'twitches and pulls' that I'm sure are fish mouthing and rejecting the bait. Most of my fishing in the warmer months is based around spodding fairly large quantities of hemp/mixed seeds/sweetcorn and fishing either a boilie or fake corn over the top. I can see that creating that competitive feeding zone in a small area can lead to that rather than using a throwing stick to put 100 boilies over the area of a tennis court to encourage 'browsing and moving' feeding to hopefully convert more pick up's into runs. Most of my fishing is on a local club lake that is day fishing only that is fairly prolific and it is noticable that I can almost 'buy' a bite by regularly spodding to freshen up the area, I've even caught when spodding over the top and that includes sloppy casts that create a huge splash. I've also fished larger waters like B1 on Linear where Spodding/Spombing seems to be the norm, the classic 'OX29 fishing' as it's more commonly known. My mine quandry is that I want to be sure that I have some bait in the swim to attract and hold the fish but also to be confident that the carp can feed in realitive peace and not spook. So, let's say I'm fishing B1 and have had a quiet night. I've not had a bite all night and it's now an hour past dawn. Would you spod now or leave it and how much longer?

When fishing overnighters, I never sleep very well and am usually rousing before first light, even around the shortest day. To capitalise on that, I used to recheck my rigs and put on fresh bait and spod over the top so that the fish should find the new bait. I also reckoned that if I didn't have a bite during the night, it was probably because I had been 'done' and the fish had already eaten the loose feed! Been doing that for a few years and thought it was my 'little edge', although I can't seem to recall any spectacular hits to back that up. Recently someone commented in an article that 'those who bait up at dawn ought to have their dangly bits removed!' That made me think a bit. So, what is the concensus, am I ruining it for myself (and others fishing the lake) or is it worth doing? Obviously if I did start catching first thing, I would probably add more bait after each fish to hold them.

I tend to agree with Harpz_31, I recheck my rigs and baits every few hours. I normally fish combi rigs so tangling isn't the problem but the amount of times I've reeled in to find a large 'blob' of weed on the hook totally ruining the presentaion and hooking potential always plays on my mind and my local lake is pretty weed free. I used to tie on my cork ball pop ups with dental floss but the amount of times I reeled in a bare hook was getting beyond a joke so gone back to shop bought pop ups and either use a bait screw or pull the floss through and also double secure it with a bait stop. Probably a bit paranoid but rather be safe then sorry.