Golden Paws

I stepped out from some reeds into what looked to be water of only a few inches deep, yet I disappeared over my chest waders and struggled badly to move and get back out.  Silt is VERY dangerous!
I always use a prodding stick now after that experience.

That's so insane to me, catfish are utter trash, ugly, slimy overgrown tadpoles.  I can maybe see the desire to catch a huge Wells catfish like 150lb plus, but the smaller species such as the Channel Catfish are just plain pointless to me, I'd rather blank tbh
Carp are different class entirely as I'm sure you agree.
Would love to visit the US for some quality lure fishing for Bass and maybe some carp fishing - catfish no thanks, your compatriots are all bonkers lol 
 
 

Jack found my old Scouts uniform, seems keen 🤣

OK so i picked up a set of 3.25tc Torrix with a Torrix marker as well for £500.  
 
4 years old and they look in great condition.  Pretty happy with that, was a little more than i wanted to pay but i felt it was worth it. 

I've got a set of 12' 3.25lb TC Torrix's and I'm not selling them!

I've got a set of 12' 3.25lb TC Torrix's and I'm not selling them!

I've got a set of 12' 3.25lb TC Torrix's and I'm not selling them!

We used to place baits by boat at Taverham Mills, and as @yonny says it can look totally different to how it feels. 
You could cast a marker float and lead out and get absolutely no feeling as the lilies would stop the float rising, yet look at the area from the boat and they were very thin and safe to fish to. The line would cut through them playing a fish. 
Other spots (as on the syndicate now) I have the float rise up, yet it is thick with weed. 
It's wading out that has shown how thick it is and a big bundle of weed can be down to a small root system.
My marker float is normally used with a 3½ or 4oz lead.
Today I waded out after casting out the marker rod, and I was showing 2½-3feet, yet I was up to my chest.

It was to land a fish, not place a bait!

This can work against you too though. I remember fishing an area a long time ago now and getting plenty of bites. But when I saw the area from the boat it looked nothing like it felt with a lead. In fact to look at I wondered how the heck I was getting bites from there due to the weed! Had I seen it before I fished it, I'd have not bothered, and not caught all those carp!

The fish do quite often come away from the islands where they spend most of their time and come in close, mainly early morning. You do get a lot of bubbling and I frequently chase the bubbles around but can't ever remember hooking one! I'm sure on reflection that the 3.5oz lead wasn't helping and a lighter one would improve the presentation. The bailiffs also frequently chuck out a load of pellets if a swim isn't being fished and that tends to land in the bowl area which was the deepest for silt.
Good advice but luckily my sonar was spot on with the depth and there weren't any surprises. I am a pretty good swimmer and also I didn't find any trace of any weed.
I learn't more about the lake in 5 minutes than I could have done for casting around or plumbing for hours on end and even then it would have given a false impression of what was really there.
I used to know a top barbel angler years ago and on his first trip to a new stretch, he would "walk" the river to build up a better understanding of where the fish were likely to be.

Very much.
Word of advice, never wade in without a wading pole; it can help you keep your balance as well as bottom prodding.
The silt on my current lake is probably up to welly boot height, and then water up to my waist, so pretty similar, although the stream bed you can add a bit more to the depth.
There are also feeding holes which can put you chest deep, and I have been known to occasionally go fractionally over the top of my chest waders, hence the advice on a solid wading pole.
The honest answer is the carp feed in the silt. I have found massive bloodworm in the deepest thickest silt, along with massive swan mussels, bigger than my hands.
I still use run rings and standard rig set-ups, hooklinks around 20-30centimetres in an attempt to put the bait at the level the fish are feeding at.
Lead size I normally stick with 2.5-3oz, but use flattened leads to hopefully reduce sinking in too far, but even dropping a lead in the margins can see it disappear.
 
Funnily enough, in May I cast out a 3oz lead, PVA stringer and snowman bait and I am positive that crashed quite deep into the silt. I had a take within a couple of minutes, and I think that the lead had sunk so far, complete with run ring it jammed as the buzzer was bleeping (Delkims vibration).
 
 

When you're rig is buried it doesn't necessarily mean you have no chance of a bite.
A lot depends on the type of silt. Carp have evolved to harvest the goodies in the silt so I wouldn't worry too much about being buried, unless it has a covering of that dead/dying silk weed type stuff (it can mask your hook as it gets kicked up during feeding). There is nothing more frustrating that having fish fizzing away all over you but you can't keep your rig clean enough to get a take.
If you can find a spot clear of that horrible silky stuff, silt is about as forgiving as you can get in terms of tactics. You can chuck almost anything in it and get a bite.
Made me chuckle 😅

Just got back from a weekend on a water I thought I knew pretty well. I caught a 21-9 fully scaled mirror and 13-2 common on a water that is fished 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the warmer months so almost catching is a bonus.
I've got a newish bait boat (sorry Yonny!) and it's got all the bells and whistles, GPS and sonar. The lake is at least 2 foot down as you can see the tide line on all the islands. I was getting a pretty steady 3 to 3.2 foot after the marginal shelf and sent the boat out to an island. Unfortunately I must have got a bit too close and managed to ground it! Over a grands worth of tech beached 50 yards away and I couldn't get it back to deeper water.  Nothing else for it, roped in the bloke in the swim next door to help and then stripped down to my under crackers and waded in. The marginal shelf was clear and then I hit the silt, probably up to my knee. It was so thick, I was having to breast stroke to get through it. Luckily the sonar was spot on and the water didn't go above my belly button. There was a clearish channel between 2 islands where the silt was a lot less but there are also some aeration pumps nearby which probably helped to keep it clear.
Luckily I have always tended to fish close to the islands and just at the bottom of the marginal shelf so I was probably fishing the best areas anyway.
I wasn't expecting the silt to be anywhere near that thick and the sonar was only showing a clear bottom. After I got it back, I got out the marker rod and cast out a heavy lead and dragged it through the area I had just waded through and although it did feel like silt, I would have guessed it at a couple of inches at most.
My local water is brick hard at the inlet end where I do most of my fishing and so a 3.5 oz lead is my weapon of choice and that's all I had in my bag. I normally fish a helicopter rig rather than a lead clip which is fortunate but now wonder how many times I've been buried with no chance of a bite.
Just dug out a load of 1oz leads and probably won't use back leads on there again despite liking the fact that there isn't any line cutting through the swim. I try fluorocarbon on my reels every couple of years and then pretty soon realise why I hate it as a main line! Many years ago I did a compromise and fished a 30 foot leader of 20lb fluorocarbon but hated the way the knot clattered through the rings when bringing a fish to the net and gave it up as a bad job.
Anyone else had experiences with silt?
 

A bite at 03:30 on the final night, full moon night but a small stockie NOT a massive common, good to be catching.  Just a single night next week, so will have to fit in where I can, could be a useful reccy of other areas.

Back on it, 3 nights - full moon coming, fingers crossed, not seen any yet, but didn't last week either.
Very happy with all 3 rods this time 🤞

Just back from 2 nights on the syndi, first session on the big lake and I only went and had one at 23.30 on the 2nd night.  Made up with it at 35.02 and a proper one.  Dont know what I've trodden in but feel like I'm having a run of good luck, long may it continue🤞

Afternoon all, so I managed to get a free pass to get out and dunk some boilies in a pond last night, so I chose to head to my local tricky park lake. 
now I haven’t been there since the start of the season, and due to extremely low water levels, the club made the decision to shut the water for fish welfare, so last night was my first trip back in a while. 
 
on getting down to the lake, I found it was fairly busy, but everyone was on the opposite bank. I headed around to a small, neglected swim that is often ignored, which coincidentally is my favourite swim on the whole lake! 
 
there were a few signs of feeding fish, so I got the marker out and located the area of smooth harder silt that does the bites and soon had the rods clipped up to the range. 
tackle consisted of 3 x 12ft fox horizon X4S TT carp rods with fox EOS 12000 reels spooled with 12lb esp synchro main line. Rigs were leadcore helicopter rigs with 10” fox cortex soft slip D rigs with size 6 ESP barbless Clawhammer hooks. Bait was my usual premier superaminos/shellfish sense appeal offering made in the shed. 
 
3 rods were dispatched to the spot adorned with 7 bait stringers, and with that i broke out the spod rod! I’m not quite sure what possessed me, but I ended up putting out a whole bucket of hemp, boilies and mixed pellet with lashings of salt which is a lot of bait for a quick overnighter, but my gut said it was the way forward, so in it all went! 


rods out, about 100 spods (so it seemed) done, it was time to chuck up the bivvy and get the kettle on. 
as the sun sunk beneath the trees, the swim came alive, with bubbling and swirling all over the spot. I was getting liners like nobody’s business and it was getting pretty obvious that something was going to happen… 
…well it did, bream after bream! I was hammering through the rigs as slabs of 3-5lb came gliding in, it was simply a case of hitting repeat and getting the stringers out there. 
as an aside, some anglers try to avoid the bream, but I welcome the activity, all that feeding soon draws the carp. 
 
at 11pm, the left hand rod pulled tight then dropped slack, as I was crouched next to it trying to decide if it was a liner or bream, the middle rod picked up and tore off! 
 
after a spirited fight, I soon slipped the net under a pretty linear that just scraped 20lb 

 
I don’t know what happened, but I look deranged in the pics! 
 
I sorted the left hand and middle rods and got them back out there, lucky 7 bait stringers attached and tried to get some sleep. 
 
I was awoken by a single bleep at 1am and opened one bleary eye to see the middle rod rip off again, this fish felt slightly better, taking me through every overhanging bush in the near margin, but the trusty horizons soon had it beat, and at 25lb made me a buzzing lil carper. 
 

pressing repeat again the middle rod was back out there, new hooklink attached. I finally got some shut eye at 2am for a whole 90mins when the middle rod decided to trundle off again, the strike met with a determined slow plodding weight that didn’t really give me too many dramas, just refused to come in. 
eventually, it succumbed to pressure and rolled into the outstretched net 

At 30lb it made the trip really! Big high shoulders, broad across the back, it was a pearler. (Cue stupid face again) it was so wide over the chest, I struggled to hold it properly. 
 
that rod replaced, I climbed into a damp, carp slime encrusted sleeping bag and got some kip. 
 
on dawn, the bream reappeared as the carp retreated back into their day areas, the sun started beating down so I decided to wrap it and head home, well happy! 
 
 

Back on the rods at the syndi for a couple of nights, weather looks good for it, fingers crossed 🤞 

Beginning and end of my quick overnighter, god I love September/October carping! 
 

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.

Probably not earth shattering news for most of us but it's worth spending 5 minutes on.

Just back from my return visit to Brothers Lake, France.
Weather at the start was hot and the fishing was slow, but as the week progressed and temps cooled off the fishing got better and better and I finished off with 15 fish to 49lb inc 7 x 30s and another mid 40.
Tactics were scatterings of boilie only - put out with the stick to a marker float every afternoon and a small top-up at dusk.
The fish were feeding heavily on naturals, fizzing up most of the day everyday, just past where we were fishing or anywhere without lines between us in the middle.  Being a small lake they did exactly this last trip despite us being on the opposite bank this time.
I chose to go with my newish wafter rig, a slip-d, multi - tied using the Korda hook-clip, size 6 wide gapes, Esp Tungsten Loaded and Gardner XL tungsten aligners, Korda tungsten large anti tangle sleeve - with a total rig length of around 5 inches.  With a golf ball sized funnel-web bag of mixed pellet, boilie crumb and 10ml Odyssey XXX.  Feeding 15ml XXX and using 15ml wafters as hookbaits.
By the end of the week I just wanted a 50 to complete what had been a great session and at 1am on the final night I got my wish, well not quite but 49 will more than do.
Some of the fish:








 

That is the problem of buying in bulk. I used to work in the chemical industry for most of my working life and we used to use 25kg plastic tubs of Potassium Permanganate in one process which were very sturdy and seals well. Needless to say, every time I used one it was washed out and brought home - I was doing my bit for the environment! 
I'm also fortunate that I have quite a large garage and they are labelled and stacked up around the edge and I can still get the car in.
Interesting to get an insight from someone who has seen what goes on from the other side of the fence. Unfortunately my local shop didn't want to meet me half way as they prefer to sell the £5+ 1kg bags of pellets.  

I buy 20kg sacks of pigeon conditioner from pets at home for around £20 and as it swells to 2 or 3 times it dry size, it's  as cheap as chips. It was a little "bitty" and so I've also bought 25kg of maple peas from bait superstore for £30 to bulk it out a bit. I'm getting through a pressure cooker's worth on an average day session, topped up with some pellets which I also buy in 20kg sacks as it keeps the price down rather than buying a 1kg bag for over a fiver.
It really annoys me when you see sponsored anglers chucking in 10kg or more of boilies which would equate to about £120, if they had to pay for it of course.
When I looked at buying some boilies a good few years ago, the brand I was using showed all it's sponsored anglers on their website - and there were plenty of them! It's bad enough buying it for yourself, when you know that you are subsidising other peoples angling, it does grate a bit. I changed to Baitworks as I liked  the look of their products and as they sell direct to the public, they cut out the middle man (tackle shops I'm afraid), who want their 50% of the selling price.
My local tackle shop used to sell pellets in 3kg buckets which made them a bit cheaper. They stopped doing it as they said the flimsy buckets they were using were too expensive. I offered to bring back my old buckets to be topped up but they didn't seem interested. I also enquired about buying  a sack of pellets from them but that also wasn't met with much enthusiasm. I  then had no qualms about going on-line and then buying in bulk.