salokcinnodrog

They can be quite aggressive to other swans and water birds. Earlier this year I actually filmed swans fighting at Redgrave. I later found the slightly smaller male dead in the rushes. It's my Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19aP8t7tzH/

Other than my buying tackle because it is 'shiny', I tend to analyse every tackle item I buy, and that includes end tackle. Various purchases have been made, and the item tested and slung in the bin, line, hooks, clips, PVA. I don't like lead clips, pretty much full stop. Their original reason for manufacture was as a way to remove a semi-fixed lead at the end of the session, not as a way to dump the lead on a take. Whoever came up with that idea, deserves a place in hell for littering and pollution. If you are using a pendant lead on a lead clip in weed, it may be an idea to change to a distance shaped inline lead. The inline catches up less, a lead clip might get jammed up with weed and not release, you are then playing a fish and a weed covered lead. On one day at Nazeing I retrieved 5leads, leaders and rigs all on lead clips from the snags, and one of them may until my intervention have had a fish attached. @yonny makes a point about the safest set-up is the one that lands the fish, however it does not mean fishing in the thickest weed or up to impenetrable snags, which I think too many are still doing.

Without damaging the fish. And that is why my usual set up is a run ring straight on the mainline or tubing. Suggestions work, they are the basis of invention and problem solving. However, in every product the idea then needs full inspection and development before production, or full proper instructions for use. @elmoputney that is not aimed directly at you as Korda (in my view) were responsible for a lot of bad angling practices with lead clips. As I have said above, I don't think that it is a true running lead, compared to a standard run ring and slack line you will have resistance, the internal bore of the lead clip reduces free line movement and any detritus can jam up that movement. It will need to be fished as a standard semi-fixed set-up. However as a lead clip, it is possibly the best version available. As long as the line is still able to go through the lead clip the rig will be ejected. I should add a point that whether running lead or semi-fixed lead, tubing increases resistance and although the line should pull through, and crack-off above may cause a 'wind knot' and so stop it pulling through.

I'm not sure, you have what is essentially a 'pulley rig' system as is used in sea fishing. There is inbuilt tension, so I don't think it is a true running rig. I've seen fish eject rigs when there is no tension, and Ken Townley wrote about it in Tim Paisley's Big Carp, where a lost fish at Savay came into Snags with a rig in its mouth. 2 days later the fish was swimming around in the snags minus the rig. As I mention, the majority of the time, the line breaks at the swivel anyway, the knot is the weak point. When I hooked the swan last week, and the line snapped, it was still in the clip, so I was able to check where it had broken; the loss was minimal, more where I cut off the curly-wurly. A fish trailing just rig and line is not likely to be giving false indication to other anglers, unless there is detritus caught up on the line, whereas a lead clip that hasn't ejected, and I have retrieved a lot of them, will. Not all had the tail rubber forced or pushed right on, some were just jammed up with a bit of weed, mud or stick! Something else, the loop of line in the PB lead clip, with the lead or lead swivel butting up against it, may be at risk of damage from the lead itself. If that loops breaks you will still be losing line and the fish. I don't think it is as secure as a standard knot to the hooklink swivel.

We use boilies as a practical and easy bait as standard, although as you mention, most other baits are not carp specific. I do love particles, especially maize and chick peas. Maize can be left quite hard after soaking and boiling, and chickpeas can be coloured and flavoured, but you also have maples, sweetcorn, the list is endless. If you buy sweetcorn from the freezer, I've found it best by adding two teaspoons of brown sugar, a grind of salt (rather than straight from the salt cellar), covered in boiling water and left to steep. That is for one bag. Tinned sweetcorn is good as it is, obviously put it in a suitable container, but also slightly 'stale'. As for other baits, luncheon meat, pepperami, various meat sausages, even chorizo, although I do struggle with that, it's known as Nick loves chorizo to eat...

From the crack-off with the swan, it went at the hooklink knot, as it does in the majority of cases. It is normally only if the line gets fragged by snags or detritus does it go anywhere else. The run ring can travel up the line and off. I think every trailer I have found, has been caught up with a semi-fixed lead, usually on a lead clip... I have removed and freed a couple from snags in the past! Yet never found one with a running lead on.

I can't remember where I first bought them, but I had to replace my dwindling stock of run rings and clips. https://www.korum.co.uk/en/products/rig-accessories/kp-00170 I've lost a couple or rigs recently, blooming swans, one swam through the line and tangled up, the other picked up the hookbait, both resulted in losing the lot. On the tangled up loss, it was just after the cast, so the line was still in the clip. The swan swam towards the splash of the PVA bag. I checked the line, and it had gone at the knot. As for the running leads, and slack lines, the two carp this week were absolute screamers. The second carp during the fight I could see the lead on the run ring, and as the fish kicked right, I could see the lead eject off the clip, not losing the run ring, just the standard type clip like the picture. I'm not sure but it may be because I cut the swivel off the leads, and the wire loop can slip between the prong.

I think that the stiff coated braid was wrong for the multi-rig over that area of lakebed, and the hook sits wrong. It might work in other spots, or maybe a standard braid would have been better, but a hookpull is a hookpull, and I analysed it thus. I thought that over particles the fish would pick everything up, but I think that the stiffness stopped it being taken in properly, whereas the braided reverse combi could be sucked in. The reverse combi rig I had one take today, and the hook was well in the mouth, so definitely was the right choice for that spot. Oh, and relevant to another thread, it was cast out in a PVA bag of mixed pellets and chops/crumbled boilies. It is weird that despite the right and middle rods being at the same distance how the lakebed is different within 10metres. I do check presentation for the rigs in the margins and at times on the spots.

I'm still using both the 360⁰rig and the reverse combi rig, and both still catching. I've tried a Multi-rig for the pop-up slivers over maize and birdfood, but did lose a fish to a hookpull, so went back to the other rigs, and specifically the reverse combi over the particles. I've shortened the fluorocarbon section over particles, to no more than 10mm.

How you doing? This session was a rather decent one, despite managing to leave my hookbait bucket at home with my medium Spomb in it. I spent an hour cursing and swearing as I used the small Spomb to put a bucket of maize and birdfood in. The first night produced a tench of around 6lb on a straight out of the bag bottom bait, which somehow managed to go across the middle rod. The 2nd night was quiet. Last night around 11pm I had a strange occurrence on the middle rod, it pulled to the right, with what appeared to be a run, but there was nothing there, so I recast with a fresh stringer. At 3am I had the same thing happen again. I think that it was a goose or swan swimming through the line just in front of my rod tips, or a swan picking the hookbait up. A couple of miscasts with stringers, but 3rd time lucky. I was sat drinking coffee and eating breakfast when the rod went with a 22lb mirror, one of last years stocking, and a 10lb weight gain. Caught on a 360 rig with a meshed 15mm Nutty Bait pop-up with a stringer of 6x 18mm Nutty Bait boilies. This morning I was starting to tidy up ready to pack up when the right hand rod went, which was the rod over the maize, and managed a rather nice 26lb mirror on the 'sliver' of Monster Crab pop-up on a reverse combi rig. This fish was from the 2021 stocking and went in at 11lb.

I've done that one, and required a hospital visit for a grass splinter in the eye. As for other stupid mistakes, leaving the tackle box at home a few times, requiring journeys home to pick it up from Weybread No.1, Suffolk Water Park and Earith. I've left my rucksack at home, and this trip my hookbait bucket which also contained my medium Spomb. Not checked a combi-rig knot after landing a fish, I just recast and on the next take the hooklink parted at the knot. I've forgotten how many times I've fallen in from leaning over too far, a couple of times from a tree, and the numbers of pairs of sunglasses I have watched go 'plop' from the top of a tree, although at Yew Tree I did manage to recover a pair that fell off. Oh yes, the wading one, I even had a wading stick in hand, but as I waded back to land a large pike decided I was invading it's territory and went for the stick and me. I fell backwards and over the top of my chesties in water up to my chest. Oh yes, and I think possibly the worst, leaving my insect repellant at home and getting a bite that caused the blood poisoning which despite not being a disease, caused the life threatening illness I had last year.

I have been seen up to my chest in the lake raking a swim to make it fishable, plain ordinary garden rake. I think we all go through 'the struggles' at times. I had a bad year on Nazeing on the Lagoons; I couldn't get onto fish with people in the swims as I was arriving late after work and there were full-time anglers on there as well. It made me more determined to catch. If I had not gotten a job locally I might well have stayed on there rather than fish Alton Water, but travel time put it into touch. Not nice finishing work at 11pm and then having a 2hour drive before setting up. I even struggled on this syndicate first year, not really getting a feel for the water, but I think that was the numbers of fish, or lack of, in 45acres. A 45minute drive is bearable, but it does mean that I can't spend time or a day watching and looking for fish. I even struggle doing a day's pike fishing as really hurt getting up at 6am and taking Sky for a walk before fishing. At least now I can spend a few days at the lake, and watch and walk Sky. I do tend to fish one rod over a bed of particles, one just off them and the third at another feature. Saying that, last year I did fish one on hemp around 10metres out, and the other two were on the edge of the weed where I was convinced that I had seen fish. All 3 rods produced! I've also caught fish within an hour of Spombing in a bucket of bird food, or a day later when they move in. We can be trying to compete with a lot of natural food, yet boilie only or over particles both produce at times.

When I was fishing Nazeing Meads and Bromeswell I landed a 10lb carp from Bromeswell, and was chuffed to bits so photographed it. The same week I landed a 10lb mirror from Nazeing and slipped it back unphotographed, disappointed. I did lose a fish 2weeks ago myself, the week my phone crashed, but got it right last week. I hope this week goes smoothly and the fish are over the bait I keep putting in.

I must admit that Ali Hamidi went down in my eyes when he wrote an article about extending a fishing session rather than go to a family function, a parents birthday. I also dislike his 'loudness' on camera and I did find him a difficult watch, and his attitude with Korda. OMC seemed to have missed the market with silly prices, although the 'Ali followers' will buy it. As, despite not watching it, the Dragons would say, I'm out.

Found this one from 2023. With the tips up, it looks like I was fishing over a bank of weed. The water tower in the background is the last remains from a WW2 prisoner of war camp.