salokcinnodrog

Gipping in Suffolk. We had a few out from various stretches, although the 28 pictured was the biggest, then sadly it got poached, not by Eastern Europeans, but by local fishery owners wanting instant fish. Dippy the 40lb + Mirror went from the Gipping to Snake Pit 25miles away. The Stour on the border also has some very good fish in it.

Hampton Court area used to produce good fish😉 Carp have been caught as far downstream as the London Docks. River carp? I suppose I should go find some more...

A 1 egg mix makes around 80 baits, so I actually have 160 in total, half of each. Of each mix I have done a few in 20mm compared to the other 15mm😉 If the crays are active I will use most of them.

Just made a years supply of pop-ups with the secret ingredients😉 Two 1 egg mixes, 1 blue and 1 red, cork dust base mix, RH Megaspice, Versele Laga Garlic Oil, and glycerol to preserve them once dried out

Lake escapee I do believe though!

2.75😉 Daiwa, Korum or Shimano

50+! One helleur of a fish...😖😅😉

To be honest, I do try to avoid Fox and Nash as much as I possibly can. Nash because I do not like his ethics, too much tackle returned faulty or broken when I was working in tackle shop, and Fox not always the best with the same issues of faulty gear. There are also far better cheaper items out there by other manufacturers in most cases.

Nash luggage robust? All of the stuff I have had has fallen to pieces, on occasions under warranty. The customer service and after sales was appalling. It took a letter to CarpWorld publicising it to get my rucksack replaced after 3months. Rucksacks you are far better getting a military Bergen! Mine is battered, bruised and still going, on its second life. I also dislike the ethics of Nash and some of his quietly forgotten past history including Catchum, (his way into the bait industry via Rod Hutchinson), I dislike a tackle manufacturer advocating dropping leads on his fishery (!) and his carefully chosen published biography which I think is a little short of honesty. I think The only good item of Nash tackle I have had was a Nash Outlaw Hurricane bivvy, that is in fact still in good enough condition to use, which I picked oop on t'bay for £10 by looking for spelling mitsakes😮😉😆🐟 Fox on the other hand customer service was always spot on.

Selling a 'job lot' of tackle like that is to me annoying and worrying in a number of ways. Is it hot, stolen or not quite right? Has someone stuck the lot on a credit card, realised they couldn't afford it, and stuck it up for sale? Is it our fashion victim realising that fishing is not for them and selling the lot Someone who just thinks they need the new must have? Lots of questions under that little list!

I used to fish Hellesdon Mill in Norfolk. Almost every trip I got my licence checked! I reckon I have probably been checked about half my age over the years, so around 24 times😮😆

I use the same bait all the way through, often a fishmeal. I start the season on a bait and go with it all the way through. Since 2000 it has been a fishmeal bait. The only thing I do is reduce how much I feed. This is on my season ticket water that I do fish all season. I think the theory comes from anglers going onto new waters or day only lakes where a birdfood boilie may be more 'instantly' attractive compared to the fishmeal. Birdfood boilies usually have a higher leakage and flavours leak out quicker providing more instant attraction. Even birdfood boilies can be a long term bait, I used Enervite and Enervite Gold successfully long term, as well as my own home made baits. On day ticket or runs waters I may use a birdfood bait, but even then I have found a good fishmeal will work. A few years ago I fished a water near me for a 5 day trip between Christmas and New Year, for the first two days the attractor pop-ups produced fish, then the carp switched onto the long term fishmeal bait I had been baiting with since the start of the session.

A day ticket water local to me got to the stage of one of the bailiffs being a local dealer, and some anglers who weren't involved being robbed for their tackle. Police were regularly at the lake sorting issues out! I know a lot of anglers on my season ticket lakes like a little puff, and again now the Lea Valley rangers are stamping down on it, along with Eastern Europeans using the venue as a picnic and swimming site, leaving their litter behind. My local park lake, it used to be a place where I could let my kids fish by themselves, then the 'puffers' started turning up and kids had tackle stolen. Now on both the Lea Valley and the park I would not fish without my dog. I would not let my children go on their own. Greekski mentioned bailiffs. In East Anglia, it was one full time bailiff covering Suffolk and Norfolk, then he retired. I have not yet seen his replacement. I say Norfolk, you consider the Western edge of Norfolk is fenland, butting onto Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, then you have the Suffolk and Norfolk Broads many of which are boat access only. I used to get two reminders for my licence, now it is just one, and I saved the cost of two licences with the three rod job. Clubs are also in decline; waters being lost to day tickets or syndicates, lack of membership numbers. That puts children off, not all can afford day ticket money every week. I used to buy my son his club ticket once a year, not a problem, yet paying £10 every week for what was £50 a season... The waters themselves, my local club had specimen roach, tench, bream and perch. Now those fish are few and far between. Another issue is travel to waters. I used to walk or cycle to my waters, 7mile cycle ride at times, a walk of a couple of miles. You can't do that with carp gear, and due to my ex and my estrangement, or even work I could not take my children every weekend. Saying all that, Alton Water has started fishing well again, for roach and other fish, including the occasional carp.

I am so glad that it is not just me who uses that term 'fugly'.

I laugh at these people who say they haven't had their licence checked in years, for 5 years on the trot I was checked at least once a year on various waters. In Suffolk on the Park Lake when I still had Post Office receipt, then in Dobbs Weir and around a month later at Nazeing. Is fishing in decline? I think to some extent carp fishing is, thank goodness, maybe partly due to the older genuine anglers getting fed up of the current bull of the carp record, which I think before long will not exist due to the legal imports, what weight a fish is stocked at, grown on, basically the Big Rig scenario or even a dubious import like Oak Lodge and the catfish record. It was silly for a record to go from 50lb to 108lb, someone was bound to take notice! Is that licence sales or licence money? One carp angler buys a 3 rod licence now, instead of two 2 rod licences, which counters both the decline in licence sales and money. I think other 'disciplines' are on the increase, I for example now do more fishing for other species than I used to. From 1992 to 2010, I pretty much fished only for carp. Yet now I am back chasing roach, pike and other species. However as a whole there are fewer younger anglers coming into fishing. The joys of X-box, PS4 etc, take them away from an outdoor life, as does the fewer male parents (in most cases) taking their sons (and daughters) fishing. In addition to that, there is still a 'push' towards carp fishing, yet a youngster blanks and the kit does a trip into the cupboard never to cone out again. If they were catching fish, like roach and perch then they would want to continue going. Don't forget children under 12 don't have to pay for a rod licence at all. I also bet bet a few 3 rod set-ups include the 'sons rod'...

I have goodness knows how many rigs tied up in my rig bins, most on a simple knotless knotted hooklink with a line aligner, although there are some with a sliding ring on the hookshank. My pop-up rigs are on Ronnie, D-rigs or occasionally 360 rigs. I do not faff about with rigs, I use what works for me. As much as a knotless knot is good, there are times it needs a line aligner or kicker. What a lot of people don't realise is that by changing the hooklink material you can totally change a rigs behaviour and hooking ability. The other thing is that since the invention of the hair when it was originally tied around an inch long then being extended it has become shorter again, almost being shank mounted. Changing hair and rig length makes a difference! While Ronnie rigs are the current fashion, there will come a time when it stops being so effective, maybe because sucking and blowing by the carp means the bait becomes marked, or is simply unable to be sucked in with hook following.

I have been lifting the fish from the water in the net since the 1980's. Either by sliding the handle back until I can grip and lift the arms, or by popping the net out of the spreader block. Ali Hamidi winds me up with his open mouth before brain is in ignition, and this is another one, although he has gotten part right, and that is the fish must be at the bottom of the net, and the lead clip, hook eye must be clear of the mesh. It is why fine mesh was invented, so tackle and fins don't get caught in it! In fact, watch him on his programmes, The Big Fish etc, and guess what he does, lifts it out of the water in the net. Or even Monster Carp, The German. I am sure that fish was netted, lifted out then unsprung before being put back in the water and towed to the bank. Add to that, if anglers did what he is suggesting, we would find a large number of fish escaping the scales altogether...

Real Spomb for me every time. I won't put any money towards the Nash marketed Dot Spod as I put as little money his way as possible.

The obvious answer is walk and locate, watch and learn. I mentioned last year on a thread how carp didn't show on a water, they do, I just wasn't up early enough! In the end I was having to wake up before first light to see them. If you can get down with a marker rod then have a play and find features. Feature wise, remember it is autumn, coming up to winter. If there are any weedbeds, then they can be good winter spots. Fake pink corn, is extremely unlikely to be the key. It is more likely the carp was being inquisitive! Bait, keep trickling in a few boilies, a decent food bait, but don't forget sweetcorn. Sweetcorn is a particle that often does work all the way through. I would save one out of three rods (if it is a three rod allowed) specifically for trying different baits. If it is two, I would be playing with one rod for various baits, and using the other on my baited area.

I think Nash are a unique thread to themselves. I have swapped Solar and Fox indicator bits around from memory, but wouldn't buy Nash as I couldn't find anything matching thread

I tend to use a bait consistently all the way through. I get on a food source bait and use it straight through the year, no change for winter. That bait also needs to be attractive as I will use it on a runs water on occasional trips as well. In summer I might add in particles, but in winter it is boilies alone, albeit some are crushed, crumbled or just chopped. My summer particle mix is Pigeon conditioner, Pigeon Mix, the two are not the same. Pigeon conditioner is the tiny seeds, Pigeon Mix is the maize, black eyes, maples, etc. The Pigeon Mix needs 24 hour soak and boil, the pigeon conditioner is pour boiling water over and leave overnight. Dependant on water, I might use some particle hookbait, easy that, it is known as sweetcorn. I do always keep some pop-ups in my bait bag, and one stands out head and shoulders above almost everything else, Garlic Oil and Spice flavour pop-ups. I have caught on them when even the bright yellow Pineapple whatever has failed! My runs water, those Garlic Spice pop-ups caught almost every pop-up caught fish this year, and I tried a fair few others.

I did have a large carrier bag of foam nuggets as it is often used as packing material. I have checked dissolve time in the past of how it breaks down so I do know how it should be ok. One thing I will say with rig foam, it preferably don't hook it. Fold it around the hook/hair and lick and stick it. That way it should come free of the hook. Hooking it some takes 12 hours to dissolve.

Shelf life baits have moved on from the high preservatives used in most years ago. Most shelf life baits are now preserved with a glycerol sugar syrup rather than 'unnatural' preservatives. It is finding the companies that do use the same bait frozen as shelf life. Freezer baits boiled, dried then frozen, the same base mix as shelf life which are dried, dipped in the glycerol sugar syrup then dried. However not every company does this. I know Crafty Catcher, Rod Hutchinson are treated in this way, and I think Nash does, however I do try to avoid Nash baits, (personally, the less money I put in his pocket the better). Some shelf lifes are even dried totally with no preservatives, but they are lighter and rock hard. Rock hard baits are not all a bad thing!

I have a couple of locals, Birds, Breakaway and Markhams. To be honest, Markhams has the nicest attitude, but is the smallest shop with the least stock, however it is the one I enjoy visiting most. Birds, massive amount of stock, loads of choice, but only one decent member of staff who I enjoy talking to. Breakaway, hmmm, I do dislike ignorant people, one of theirs is very, so I do minimal shopping there, unless I have to! Saying that, the deadbait freezer is probably the best stocked.

Your Dangly bits should most definitely be removed! First thing in the morning is spotting time, not baiting up time😉 I have been out on a lake in a boat first thing in the morning over my baited spots, and if I didn't catch the night before, my bait is usually still there untouched. There are some occasions when I had been sussed, or a tangled rig prevented a take, but very few. Carp and other fish cannot visit every spot in the lake that has food on it every night, and they simply can't eat it all. Add to that night time darkness takes, they cannot see the rig, so it is suck and blow ejection, not visibly avoid. Carp do not always feed at night on every water, I have had numbers of fish during the day. Some are night waters, but some are definitely waters where the carp will feed during the day. If you do catch first thing, the only bait to put in is with a PVA bag or stringer, don't be spodding loads more in. Even cattying baits in can be enough to spook some fish. The splash of a lead and PVA is one splash. Cattied or throwing sticked baits is numbers of splashes, as for the spod/Spomb... If I was turning up for a day session then all my baiting is nearly always done with PVA, a single chuck with a stringer or bag. It is very rare I spod in. It is extremely unfair on other anglers, disrespectful and plain ignorant. If no-one else is on the lake, maybe I will if I know the fish respond to loads of bait, and maybe if I am baiting up for later, but most definitely not around other anglers, Just a few first light fish: