It's funny reading this old thread.
I am a midlands based Angler and I usually target Carp. Mainly because they should give the best fight of any of the fish I can catch and because I'm sure there are greater numbers of large carp than large pike. I wish the massive Ebro sized catfish were commonly found in UK waters.
Anyway back to the point. Today I fished my local lake. It's only a small venue. It's handy as it's 60 seconds from my house by car. Given that the weather was fairly nice and many people are on furlough, the place was packed. Around 15 anglers taking up about half or two thirds of the pegs. Not a single person caught a fish and I have never seen a person catch a fish since joining at the start of the year. Even match fishermen, fishing maggots and tiny hooks have not been catching. One chap I spoke to said essentially anything that swims should be able to take his hook. There are pike, perch, chub, roach, bream, tench etc in the water as well.
It is simply amazing. I have fished many times since Jan 1st. Probably 20+ times. Normally I just do short sessions averaging around 3 hours a time. I am yet to even have a run. I first started fishing at this place in 2011 and I think I fished for around 2 years before catching my first fish there. I actually had to double check that this wasn't a thread I had started years ago. It has always been a difficult venue. The fish are very strange. Once I had one fish then I started to regularly catch the odd few every now and then. Then on one occasion I caught 17 in a 3 hr session. To go from 1 fish in 2 years to 17 in 3 hours was quite incredible. Honestly I couldn't put it down to anything other than the fish's attitude.
Anyway I had a 2 year break after my daughter was born and I joined again this year. Now the place seems as difficult as ever.
I've done everything I can to get a bite. Worms, bread, sweetcorn, various popular boilies, pellets (even though I thought it was too early but nothing else was working so I had nothing to lose), zig rigs, bottom baits, pop ups, floats. Free lined, chods, bolt rigs, mono, fluoro, braid, wide gape, curved, small hooks, big hooks. Bright baits, white baits, yellow baits, pink baits, brown baits. Single baits, method feeders, pva bags. Nothing at all will work. The place is so difficult. Up to now people seem to have blamed the cold. It's amazing that nobody seems to be able to do anything on this lake.