salokcinnodrog

I believed that for years, and based everything on that premise, but sadly Covid messed up the blood flow to my right leg especially, so I now get cold feet. My legs might be warm, I'm not cold, but my feet... The overtrousers come off as I get into the sleeping bag. I struggle getting waders on full stop!

I layer my clothing, usually with an army Norgie over a standard tee-shirt and a fleece over that, with a Hoggs of Fife jacket and overtrousers. As @yonny says, I don't go for fishing brand clothing, preferring shooting clothing, although I do have a Dickies camo smock as well. If it drops to colder than -4⁰ then chances are I will be packing up as it is likely that the lake has frozen over, although I have reeled in a few times as I heard the lake freezing over and just climbed into the sleeping bag for the night and packing up in the morning after coffee and breakfast. Quite spooky hearing the surface 'tinkle' as the lake freezes. The hard part to be honest is footwear and socks. Yuedge socks and a Merino pair of socks over the top keep my feet warm in normal combat boots to around 4⁰ but I do have a pair of Tundra boots if it is colder.

Welcome to Carp.com OK, let's go through this in order, and it will depend entirely on your waters. Would I Spomb or spod on a 1acre lake? Yes if it is the best way to get the particles, groundbait or pellets out to where I'm fishing. How long between a recast? I've left a bait in place for 48hours. I was convinced that after baiting up and casting in, the carp would not come onto it for 2 days. It worked! If there is no sign of showing fish? I'm nearly always binoculars and watching the lake. If I see fish I will move onto them. If I don't see anything then I'll leave the bait where it is until the morning on an overnight or longer session. Yet on a day session fishing I might recast after 15minutes or less if I have had no action. Are plastic or imitation baits effective all year? They may be, but I refuse to use plastic baits, I don't like the thought of me leaving plastic in the environment in the event of a crack-off. A hook will rust away, plastic takes years to break down. I would use wooden balls soaked in glug in a crayfish infested water, but on my current water, all plastic and fake baits are banned. On arrival at the lake, if I don't see fish, I will go on weather, current and predicted, my hunches, or whether I have prebaited swims, or areas that I know that the fish move onto.

I've just lost 2 friends to carbon monoxide poisoning in the bivvy. NEVER, NEVER, use a bivvy heater, gas stove or burner in your bivvy. Proper clothing and sleeping bag. https://forum.carp.com/topic/33876-bivvy-death/

I think that the original ball pellets were hard compressed with no liquids, where trout pellet shaped fast breakdown pellets get extruded through a machine (gun or rolling table) so must have liquids added. Eggs definitely slow the breakdown time compared to water as water totally evaporates and doesn't bind like eggs.

The block method was basically a way to get a particle type boilie. It's easier to block and cook the base mix, then cut rather than roll 8, 10 or 12mm boilies. The floating edge pieces made great critically balanced baits, even pop-ups on stack rigs. The floating bits did also work well for surface fishing like floater cake made with base mix as per Brian Skoyles method. Glugging wasn't really a thing back in the 1990's, it was coming in with a decent food source bait, glugging started early 2000's I guess, maybe a bit before. Fast breakdown nuggets? When the ball pellet was a fashion, I was rolling baits (and additives) mixed with water and airdried. They did go out with a throwing stick as well.

Personal choice would see me avoid Nash, even if it is better, I try not to put money in his pocket. Too many failures on most Nash tackle in the past. Saying that, I have not had a problem with Solar. Big problem is often finding one shop that stocks all brands.

In that price range I would think on a budget Shimano Beastmaster rather than any other make.

Years ago I was at Taverham Mills testing baits against each other, steamed versus boiled, (various boiling times) blocked and cut (the whole block being cooked in boiling water then cut into squares), and just dried. The results were inconclusive, not a failure because the fish loved them all, clearing the area within minutes of a handful of bait going in. If anything the only failure was discovering that edge pieces of blocked baits floated. It was then down to breakdown time, and steamed and boiled baits took longer in a large tank break down than the other forms, because of the harder outer skin. Final point, there is absolutely no need to boil a boilie for any longer than 2minutes, it is down to drying time on how hard they are.

Out with the Spomb and homemade baits £10, £20, £30... And the few that fly off course £80, 90, 100...

More so if you buy from supermarkets than locally. Many egg suppliers refused to sell to supermarkets unless they paid a fair price to egg producers. I get my eggs from the greengrocer or butcher, no price increases. I was bait making yesterday, working on a base mix for early spring attractor baits to go with the garlic oil and Megaspice flavour. 5ml of Verselle Laga Garlic oil, 2ml of Megaspice to 5 medium eggs.

I was running a village pub and restaurant, and another Marina restaurant near Ipswich, 5miles from home, so easy to get to. I was supposed to have Mondays and Tuesdays off as when I was taken on at the marina, it was closed Monday and Tuesday, but the village pub was 'given' to me after the manager there left. Even on Monday I often ended up going in to get change for the weekly float, but the owner refused to let me know the bank details so I would have to pay the post office to get change, and I would sort out my weekly bar stock orders. I discovered the 'area manager' was using her credit card to swap payments from card to cash as I started doing an 'x' reading at the start of shift when cash and card did not add up. I then had two of my waitresses in the pub had both been given holiday at the same time by the area manager and she had not arranged any replacement, so I ended up hiring someone out of my own pocket. The Marina restaurant I was lucky as I had an assistant manager who could run that while I was at the busy village pub. I don't have a problem with hard work, but when you have proven the area manager is fiddling and stealing cash from the takings I was not going to take the blame with an owner who wasn't interested. The second one was just after Covid. I was assistant manager at a 20 bedroom hotel. We'd had a Christmas party and had used plenty of stock, so Sunday morning I did a full stocktake before the Sunday Carvery and mid service the manager came in swearing "I can't order that, we don't sell that", complete with expletives. Wednesday as I was due to be in, I got a phone call asking me to go to MY cash and carry and buy the stock we needed as she hadn't placed a spirits order. It took 3 weeks to get my money back from petty cash as there was a £100 weekly limit. I was having to deal with things my overall manager had 'forgotten' or not done, customers not had a return call, bookings, and her spending more time off site. Next few weeks over Christmas I was rostered lates on Friday and Saturday with an early Sunday 12 hour or longer shift. I can finish at 3am after a party, but can't start at 8am with a 45minute drive either side. We still had covid restrictions in place, and I was losing staff to illness left right and centre, and despite having staff, the rotas were continually being cocked up. I had enough just after New Year when every shift was a reverse, late early, late early rather than able to catch up.

I've been in the same position myself, a couple of times. An absolute pig of an owner /boss and long hours can really grind you down. What is sad is that I loved the place I was working at, loved the people who came into the establishment, but the owner or overall manager really screwed it up.

Hydrolyzed beef and liquid liver are both good additions. Decide what liver you want as both liquid chicken liver and beef liver are available. Something else that is useful in baits is garlic oil, very low level. The other thing is that a number of powders are hydrolyzed, beef, fish etc. They may go under the name of bio-active.

Bait companies have to roll baits that are economically viable, so few can go to the 'edge' of preparing ingredients by fermentation, and often have to use ingredients that are off the shelf. Also bait rolling companies need to make baits that will go through the machine, whereas at home I may have to roll by hand. Not many anglers are willing to pay for a bait that works out at £10 a kilo to produce. An example of being different from others was when I was rolling my own Trigga. The standard Trigga worked and was quite simply Trigga base mix, Liquid Trigga and eggs, but by adding extra Betaine, Liver Elite and Sweet Cajouser it outfished the basic mix, either as a shop bought frozen or angler rolled Trigga. I can roll a basic nut mix bait, tiger nut flour, peanut meal, semolina, (for example) and it will work, but by adding garlic oil and liver powder creating a meaty nut mix improve the base.

Always nice to get positive feedback

To be honest I'm more upset at the abuse and threats in public and via Messenger I received about my post on FB because I also know the second angler who died in the bivvy and his mates assumed I meant him. Even Ann-Marie got upset about it as she felt the abuse was taking away from her point. At the time of my FB post I didn't know it had happened and found out later that day!

I don't know how many times I have been playing a fish trying to get my jacket and boots on at the same time after grabbing the rod. Putting left foot in right boot, and then struggling to get them off to put it right. Humour aside, I have a trip to Essex as his partner is donating his tackle to charity although I know some is not saleable as its so old and well used, it's my second hand bits. Ann-Marie is distraught and my teenage godaughter is wondering about her stepdad. Even worse is I know of another this week in almost identical circumstances.

Today's thought: Well first word is repeated and begins with 's'. I was going fishing today, but after the news last night and constant messages coming in until very late that's not happening. On a positive note tomorrow's PAC meeting for Cambridge region:

I have shared the post almost word for word on my Facebook timeline and messaged it to some high profile friends, CarpWorld and Carpology. I purposely haven't named the angler as family need some time, respect and respite. Just after getting that phone call I got another one, another friend died at the lake from a suspected heart attack. He'd started packing up, felt rough as he got back to the car, phoned a friend to get help, and the friend found him in the drivers seat.

I got a phone call from a friend today about a close mate of ours who was found dead in his bivvy in the past week. The Cobb was on in his bivvy, and it looked like the angler had fallen asleep in his chair sat upright. From the description, another sad case of carbon monoxide poisoning. Another friend called me about it, asking if I had heard. I actually had a bit more info about the Cobb than Mark, but he had seen a YouTube video where in tests with a Carbon Monoxide detector in a zipped up bivvy, the fatal level with Cobb briquettes or pellets is reached in around 10minutes, a standard gas stove will reach fatal levels in 30minutes. An experienced angler, who took a chance and sadly paid the price. The thing with any level of carbon monoxide is that it makes you feel tired and can send you to sleep, so you simply never wake up. Please please, forget bivvy heaters, stoves on inside a zipped up bivvy and go for decent clothing and sleeping bag instead.

Many waters are classed as night waters, like my syndicate, yet at times fish come out at all times of the day. I had a 5 day/night session last year where a couple of fish came out just before first light, yet the majority of my 6 fish came out late afternoon or early evening. I actually had 2 blank days with nothing caught. Stalking has put extra fish on the bank, wandering around with a floater or stalking rod. That has been my standard fishing for over 30 years, catching 'bonus' fish during the day and the static rods at night. First light putting baits into patches of bubbling fish, or seeing fish in the margins and lowering baits to them, or putting in plenty of dog biscuits to get them on top. It is a whole lot easier if the water is close to home!

That's a big advantage for me now. We can't keep the car behind the swim, it does have to go in the car park, but unloading without pushing a barrow any distance is a big plus. I struggle to even push a barrow with my pike rods and one bag on it around 100metres!

Strangely enough on Nazeing the bailiffs were the opposite side of the coin. They did do a ticket check almost every day. In the rules it was 'no wading' so when I had a fish snag me up I did go in for it to get it out from the undercut where it had caught up in the roots. The bailiff had heard my alarm and came round to help and approved my actions. He also took the pics of the bionic common that was only just 20lb. Another bailiff would happily tell you (or me) where they were baiting, and while I never knowingly went into the swim if I did know, I did once by accident on seeing a fish show. He shrugged it off as he knew how much I walked around the whole complex. Or Gary, walking around in the dark about 6pm in winter, Sky heard him and barked, so "oh Hi Nick, no worries Mate I know you have your ticket". I did have one bailiff who @kevtaylor I will use your word, mine wouldn't be so polite, troll, didn't like me fishing. I used to fish a Saxmundham Angling Club water called Loam ponds, and one of my favourite swims was right next to the 'no fishing bay, not in the rule book, but he didn't like people fishing in there. I used to sit on the ground or leaning against a tree about 2metres from my rods watching the fish swim along the treeline and go into the bay. It wound him up something chronic as I 'wasn't in my swim'. You could guarantee as soon as a car pulled into the car park, 20minutes later he would walk over. I really wound him up one day, as well as my club ticket I put the rule book in my pocket, and fished a tiny stalking swim on the far side of the bay next to the pumphouse. 20minutes after arriving, "You can't fish there". My reply was along the lines of "its a swim so yep I can". "I'm a bailiff, it's in the rules, you can't fish in the bay". Out came the rule book from my pocket and turned to specific Loam Ponds rule pages, and swim map, there was my swim marked nicely with a number 15. His face, strangely enough he never bugged Bruce or me again, although sadly the original Leney carp were lost to otters and the water was taken over by a syndicate.

I've got a water that is right under the skin, my current syndicate, although I'm not sure if it's Chestnut who goes 42'ish or the big uncaught common I and others have seen. 45acres with around 165 carp, so it's not overstocked, and is in a private estate. The growth rate of some of the fish has been phenomenal! Please! I really loved Alton Water and was catching a few, but the problems got me to the state of apoplexy; Eastern European anglers casting lures across anglers lines, I had the same two cast across me two days on the trot. The amount of barbecues and rubbish left on the bank got ridiculous by said Eastern anglers. I would frequently fill a bin bag and call the bailiff if I was a long way from the car park bins so he could put it in the buggy Parking became a nightmare, worrying about your car being safe. When I complained about the problems, I was told my ticket would not be renewed. Let's just say I'm not a fan of the reservoir manager or Anglian Water.