Golden Paws

Bought some stuff over the past few months mostly for my summer trip next year.
Wychwood drogue clamps - these rachet clamps are to hold the rolled up net against the boat on the return journey from a boat battle - these are the ones I'm assured.
25 x 6oz leads
3 x Large Fox H Blocks, 3 x 8oz leads
3 x Jag Rod Lockers - after last time 😀
1 x 15inch and 1 x 26 inch banksticks - making that a set of 3 of each I've got for fishing singles with the tips up so you can boat under the lines.
Bought a Solar 3 rod sleeve for my spare rods as my son will be using those, sent that back and bought a second Cotswold 3 rod sling instead.
Korda UV shirt for my son (Xmas)
Ridgemonkey Bivvy light, I'll keep the new one, my son can borrow the old one.  New one doesn't come with a case - disappointing.
Bivvy light case lol
Head Torch case - coz I never got one for that either!!!
4 x cheap banksticks for night lights and video camera (night shots)
6 x Gardener line clips - these are a bargain £5.49 for 3, replacing all 6 of my Delkim clips which are getting annoying as the line doesn't want to come out with a few of them when you have a fish on.
Oh and an Aviator net to go with my Torrix one and 2 new deep meshes.
Going to buy an outboard and leisure battery but not rushing that as batteries degrade anyway and new better stuff might come out in the meantime.
I have said several times over the past couple of years, I'm done - what else could I possibly NEED?  yet there's plenty it seems. 
 

One of the books I own, I thoroughly enjoyed 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.

You go off places - sometimes unexpectedly it happens, I do agree with Yonny though in that you've got the ticket and there are whackers, it's a great time of year now right into Dec.  You've paid the money why not commit to having a good bash if you're not renewing, nothing more rewarding/inspiring than seeing the broad back of a monster in your net!
All it takes is seeing one patch of bubbles at dawn and you might have unlocked the autumn feed-up area and a hit could be on!
 

Tricky one mate.
I never fish as well on a social as I do on my own. When you're on your own it's easier to put 100% into your angling imo.
I guess you need to ask yourself why you're not feeling it. In my experience, catching a few good fish is the best way to start feeling it, so I'd go all out to bag a good'n before winter hits. Staring at a 40lber in the net is a sure fire way to get the buzz back and you have the opportunity to do that right there in front of you. If it were me, I'd forget about the socials and get down there with a plan to watch, and watch, and watch, and move onto them at any given hour. Hard work always pays off and the harder you work, the bigger the buzz when it all comes good.

Nice one Kev. It would have been so easy to sit behind the rods after your first fish and think you had it sussed. Had to laugh at the moaners, some people think that just because you've paid your money and travelled, you're bound to catch! Some of these lakes are highly pressured and the fish are wised up just as much as most of the circuit waters over here.

Nice one Kev. It would have been so easy to sit behind the rods after your first fish and think you had it sussed. Had to laugh at the moaners, some people think that just because you've paid your money and travelled, you're bound to catch! Some of these lakes are highly pressured and the fish are wised up just as much as most of the circuit waters over here.

Week in Belgium for the first time, trip was everything I'd hoped for and more - lake to ourselves 2 anglers 6 acres, paid more but wouldn't add another angler tbh
Epic week, tough fishing but so interesting, acting on sightings as usual, spreading the rods far and wide obvs to the point where I was quiver tipping from the pod in both directions at one point lol. This kicked me hard after a bleep in the early hours suddenly turned into a rod flying through the air into the pond as the clutches were too tight.
3 boats trips later after much panicking I picked up the line, got the rod and landed the fish unbelievably.
Several boat battles each, quality fish averaging mid 30s, great company, many laughs, team work - learning on the job in boats it was mega in truth, didn't want it to end.
By the end of the week we had a well established pattern of only ever catching on a spot on the first night/dawn, no spot did another bite after a fish came off it, so if you weren't moving spots you weren't catching end of.  On the last night we predicted that we could both reel in 2 rods and only leave the new one out and obvs it was true - one take each that night on the new spots - pretty mad really.
We caught by far the most on the complex and laughed the loudest I reckon.  My 'GET IN' when the rod was back in my hand must have woke the complex lol
8 fish for me from 26.8 to 42, my mate 6 from 29 to 44.12
I had all mirrors which is perfect - he had mostly commons again, interestingly he caught mostly commons last trip I didnt and same on a syndi water.  Only difference I've noticed he uses a yellow topper, I don't.
My second biggest fish's pic wasn't focussed unfortunately, I didnt show him half pressing - usually give him the remote- cant go wrong with that but thankfully re-mastering it made it semi useable so sorry about that.
Ian again, thanks for the camera tips etc, got my best night takes ever of mateys big commons and enjoying using my remote - should always do it tbh my self takes are always my favourite pics of the trip.  🤦
I've had worse tbh another mate chops your head off lol
Carp Arena, Lilly Pool - drive and survive, small supplies shop, bbq area with fridges, freezers, drinks, chocs and water.  Flushing toilets near clean warm showers, bio toilets elsewhere, saw dust is amazing no smells and emptied every 3 days.  We didn't get bothered once which we loved,  others who blanked on other pits moaned about just about everything so it's not a complex for everyone I guess.
Looking to re-book the lake and possibly have a go on Clover Lake 😎🇧🇪

Booked quite a few trips well in advance this year based on previous good trips according to my diaries. I went 2 weeks ago and it was pretty grim, only 2 people caught out of the 18 pegs. It was just stale and the lake is still low from the lack of rain this year. Unfortunately didn't book last weekend and missed out on Storm Amy. Went on Friday this week for another 52 hour session but it was even worse. No wind, no rain and overcast. Barely saw a roach dimple but did have one possible sighting. I did have one bit of excitement when all 3 rods went within seconds of each other but there are some big cats in the lake and was probably a trailer. My bivvy was bone dry this morning which is unusual , ever drier than my landing net! I did have a one blip bite at 2:30 a.m. and that was about as good as it got. I knocked it on the head after 24 hours. I could have stayed but didn't think I had any realistic chance of catching as the weather forecast was for similar.

Booked quite a few trips well in advance this year based on previous good trips according to my diaries. I went 2 weeks ago and it was pretty grim, only 2 people caught out of the 18 pegs. It was just stale and the lake is still low from the lack of rain this year. Unfortunately didn't book last weekend and missed out on Storm Amy. Went on Friday this week for another 52 hour session but it was even worse. No wind, no rain and overcast. Barely saw a roach dimple but did have one possible sighting. I did have one bit of excitement when all 3 rods went within seconds of each other but there are some big cats in the lake and was probably a trailer. My bivvy was bone dry this morning which is unusual , ever drier than my landing net! I did have a one blip bite at 2:30 a.m. and that was about as good as it got. I knocked it on the head after 24 hours. I could have stayed but didn't think I had any realistic chance of catching as the weather forecast was for similar.

After working a 2pm-2am shift, I popped down to a local park lake to await the morning when I would be able to park on my road (that was my excuse anyway) I managed a carp that probably wouldn’t look out of place in Yonny’s koi pond, but it kicks off October 

https://www.baitworks.co.uk/
I've been on the Creamino for the last few years and I don't know if it's co-incidence but I've had my best 2 seasons since.

https://www.baitworks.co.uk/
I've been on the Creamino for the last few years and I don't know if it's co-incidence but I've had my best 2 seasons since.

Note to self, don't use a bait boat on a weedy canal 🤣 man what a nightmare, so last night we thought we should send the baits/particle out with the boat. 3 rods went out sweet, dropped the 4th, turned the boat right when I should of went left and it into that scummy weed that sits on top the water. Wrapped around the propellers and stopped the boat in its tracks. 
We had no way of getting the boat back so had to do 4 mile trip to get to the other side, safe to say the travel was the easiest part, I then had to go through about 5ft of nettles in the dark to get to the waters edge and still couldn't reach the boat, so I tried with my net handle, which had nothing on the end so I couldn't even hook it out 🤦‍♂️🤣 in the end I just slid down the bank hanging onto brambles and managed to grab it with my other hand and launch in back up into the hedge 🤣 I got stung all up my hip, back and arm and hands lol and to make it even worse, the whole time I was over there trying to get it out all I could hear is my mate roaring like a child 🤣🤣

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.

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.

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.

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.

You will end up buying a proper bedchair and bivvy after one night, No way I would be sleeping on an airbed these days, by morning I wouldn't be able to move. Some things are a good investment I see a bedchair, sleeping bag and bivvy quite essential, there are some good deals about if you know where too look. 

Fish to your own limits and conditions.
I think that we have conditioned ourselves for fishing to be plotting up at the lake Friday night, popping the bivvy up, making ourselves super comfortable, then catching or not and packing up Sunday. That's 'carp fishing'.
I went through a stage on a particular park lake where I didn't want locals knowing
(a) I was there.
(b) I was catching. 
I would sleep on a camping air mattress roll, with a tarpaulin cover after arriving as darkness fell. I could get the rods out more quickly, and in unfished areas.
I've posted this pic before, but I could get up close with minimal disturbance and be off very quickly in the morning.

Mega fish and nice write up. I've always thought that fishing is a bit of a game of chance but when all the stars align and you have the skills and knowledge to capitalise on them, those long gruelling blanks start to feel like a distant memory.

A 29lb 5oz mirror on Friday evening. I had 3 rods about a rod length from an island but saw 3 shows really close and so lengthened the cast to a really shallow spot. Did a 54 hour stint and that was it and didn't hear of any other fish coming out. Strange as Saturday conditions were perfect as the temperature rose a bit and a pretty strong Southerly wind picked up and chopped up the water. 

So this is what the pond looked like when I arrived. The pond is 2m wide, 6m long, and 2m deep. It holds 24,000 litres (~5.2k gallons), with the filtration and pipework capacity taking it to over 30,000 litres. Construction is by way of reinforced concrete base and walls set into the ground by ~1.6m, with the top ~0.4m sitting above ground.
The wooden decking on the left is essentially a lid that is raised using a pulley system. You can then walk down into the filter house, which is also set into the ground just like the pond.
The filtration system is gravity fed, which means there is a bottom drain in the pond. The water is pushed down the bottom drain, along some pipework, and up into a Nexus 310 which is a high-performance combination mechanical/bio filter. First the water is pushed through the mechanical filter section which removes dirt, grime, and weed etc. The water is then passed to the biological filter section which uses a filtration media, agitated by air lines, to foster friendly bacteria growth. This bacteria converts ammonia and nitrite (from carp poo) into harmless nitrate. The water is then fed, by pump, into a UV filter which passes the water through a tube under UV light which kills algae. The treated water is then returned to the pond through an outlet ~15cm below the ponds surface.
There’s also a skimmer system which filters contamination from the surface of the pond. Water that goes through the skimmer is then pumped into a ‘veggie’ or ‘bog’ filter (an additional shallow, gravel-filled pond, planted with moisture-loving plants). This section, located over the back of the main pond, is currently blocked off due to a leak – I’ll worry about this next year.
So, as you can see, it’s far from just a hole in the ground. I’ve spent loads of time online researching how all this stuff works, and spoken with the local koi centre, and the local pond builder. I’ve replaced a pump, and the UV bulb in the UV filter, trying to get the existing system working as perfectly as possible ready for winter. We have loads of trees, which means loads of leaves, and this could be a problem when autumn hits properly, especially with the skimmer system blocked off. I’ve purchased a massive fine mesh net to protect it this year and I’ll just chuck this over when the time comes.
In the coming days I’ll post about the best bit…… the fish.

As some of you know I've inherited a koi pond after the purchase of a new home. It's not your average garden pond... in fact it's pushing 7000 gallons. Quite an installation I tell thee. It holds 16 koi to nearly 30lb, and 1 albino grass carp which is also a biggun. I'm considering doing a diary of sorts on here to document my journey keeping koi. I'd talk about the set up, any changes,  and more importantly the kippers and their condition and growth.
Obviously I know a thing or 2 about carp but I'm a complete newbie to ponds so it could be interesting to share in the fun of it all, as well as the blood, sweat and tears that are bound to manifest!

Just got back from a 52 hour blank. Very few fish came out and the lake looked pretty uninspiring being incredibly low. A dead fish drifted into the next swim to me and this is on the back of 2 of the biggest fish in the lake turning belly up recently. Hopefully it's just natural although I did wonder how low the oxygen levels were.
One bloke did catch one in the next swim about 50 yards away  to me and he asked me to take a photo during the day. During the night I heard 4 very loud bleeps and assumed he was doing alright despite my rods being static. It was bad enough blanking without it being rammed down your throat how well he was doing! I was having my breakfast the next morning and I heard the really loud alarm again but he didn't come out of his bivvy what seemed strange. It began to dawn on on me something wasn't right and I concentrated a bit harder and when there was another loud alarm, I realised it was coming from my pocket! It wasn't a run but the low battery warning! Luckily I had a spare and wasn't disturbed again.