salokcinnodrog

Best advice is point your rods at your lead, or as close as possible to straight. I nearly always use 3 rods on my pod now, so tend to have a slight fan or splay from left to right. One is usually on bait, one just off, and one as a rover or cast long. If I fish 2 rods, again as straight as possible on goalpost buzzer bars. If you do need to fish in opposite directions on separate features then individual sticks is better. On one lake I fish, its possible to have my buzzer bars with one rod on the near margin, and one to the far margin.

No worries, sometimes a bit of provocation gets you to expand on your opinions, I wanted you to open out a bit. No offence was intended I think the amount we see of the EA varies across the country, and definitely in the number of bailiffs we see. Admittedly the EA don't help themselves at times; a friend of mine was fishing a match on a Sunday on a river. A whole row of anglers, probably not all with a licence, maybe they all did, who knows. Anyway, he fished on the Monday, the only angler on the stretch, when it was tipping it down, in a peg that had thrown up a couple of big roach the day before when he was 'disturbed' by the bailiff. The bailiff commented about not checking licences the day before with 'we don't work on a Sunday'. Do non licenced anglers not fish on a Sunday?

I was being slightly sarcastic It was made to get you to see what the EA do, there is no distinction between syndicate, club or season ticket. I think you will find, Bayeswater had already been warned by the EA that the amount of weed could cause a potential oxygen crash. The aerator was already planned. A syndicate local to me had the same issue with their water, and so did a club. The EA provided an aerator until the syndicates aerator was repaired. The local club chose to get committee members to de-weed the water. In the Lea valley, a water had an oxygen crash after sudden rainfall cooled the water at spawning time. The EA did the post mortems for free, even though the Lea Valley have their own fishery manager. Not being funny, but any club or day ticket water that does not have otter fencing is a fool unto themselves. £100,000 on stock and £10000 on an otter fence. Don't fence it and you spend the same on stock again next year. To me that is not necessarily an EA problem, that is a fishery problem, but the EA are putting grant money to the fencing. The EA will prosecute for a fly tip, members clearing it themselves means no prosecution can take place, or getting a private company to do it. The EA will investigate. I hold by my point, if you as a syndicate want immediate help from the EA, then you should pay for a licence for that help. A dog walker could see that lake 'explode', call the EA, and help is given.

You may never have been checked in 23 years, but I actually got checked 5 years on the trot, and on more than one occasion in a year. I was checked on my season ticket lake, a park lake and a stretch of the Lea. If a lake is syndicate and suddenly develops a problem, it will be the EA who reacts, although under your scenario they wouldn't need to, after all, your members can deal with it... Or maybe the EA will bring an aerator in that you need, as fast as they can, and its done for free. Some areas have a major problem, its not just fisheries and fish. Its dealing with fly tips in watercourses, although maybe your syndicate would be able to clear up the rubbish if they got tipped...

Thinking about your situation, and wonder if the JRC Defender shelter would work for you? http://www.jrc-fishing.co.uk/jrc-bivvies-jrc-defender/jrc-defender-shelter/1454191-0300.html#start=7

I get my dog to keep the spare canister warm, saves getting cold feet on one in the sleeping bag.

Quite simply YES! I also think fisheries themselves should be licensed, especially Day ticket commercials.

Get Butane/iso-butane/propane gas canisters, rather than plain butane propane mix. Simple tip; never boil more water than you need. I do laugh (and cringe) when I see 'go petrol stove'. After issues with Coleman stoves on the bank I will never ever use a petrol stove on the bank again. I had a Peak1 stove fail on the bank. It refused to open the valve, despite being properly serviced. After taking it apart, servicing it on the bank, it eventually sprayed me with petrol. Thank goodness my Mrs had the foresight to tip a bottle of water over my face and head. Add to that, carrying a spare gas canister in the rucksack is easy, extra petrol is more awkward, needing a fuel can explicitly, plus the added risk of petrol on the hands as you fill up.

I prefer red, white and green indicators to match my alarm heads. I have got them set very tight here to cope with tow on The Lagoon. The actual reel is quite loose in the event of a take though.

Best way of keeping them sharp when fishing? Don't use them You may find some waters your hook will go blunt just being cast into the lake, and sharpened hooks can be worse for that! Anything can blunt a hook, snags, running over gravel, sticks, twigs or stones, or even sitting in silt. Personally, I don't sharpen hooks, I use makes that are sharp enough out of the pack to bring tears to the eyes. If the brand is not that good, then find a brand or make that is.

I use the Fox Warrior 42" net, standard one piece handle; they do two versions, the two piece handle or the one piece. Have a word with Buzzbomb, he can probably tell you what tackle can be imported into the USA from what shops to use.

I've been very lucky then, I have never purchased a bad Spomb, never had one open on the cast, unless I have overfilled it, (blocking the fin end from closing), or gotten mix in the closure pin. I have however had a few casts where it stays shut, usually when the cast flattens as it hits the clip hard. I do turn the front closure round as well, and when its in the rucksack, or not in use set up on the bank, make sure I put the rubber band around the outside to keep it shut. When I was in the tackle shop, all those moons ago, we did have a number of Fox Impact spods come back with front closure problems, where they would not stay shut.

It wasn't just hinge pin faults with the Impact spods, it was also the front closure on them, they had a tendency to open in flight, or even not to close properly in the first place. With all due respect to Fox, I would avoid the spods, and stick to the Spomb. I have bought a few Spombs, (and lost a few) and would not consider the Fox Impact spod at all. The only reason I have lost Spombs, is my own incompetance, I have never had an issue with the opening in flight, unless I have overfilled it into the mechanism, or the fins.

I love them. I use the short arms myself, not just for carp, but for feeder fishing for big roach as well. From super slack, from swingers to quiver arms, locked up mega tight, long or short range they seriously do do it all.

Not sure Layer was KHV or SVC, think it was actually oxygen crash from algae. There are problems with drip baths. The first is that UV light and a dry net is the best way to kill any disease transmission, not dip tanks. You have to be sure that your dip will kill any virus or parasite. Next problem is the solvent strength, as it gets used solvent may get into the lake, which may be harmful to fish, so dip and rinse. The tank as it gets used may actually decrease in strength of the solvent, weakening the solution. The real answer is to use a different net for each fishery, so a fishery providing their own net and mats may be the answer. I found the FB post I mentioned above, I linked it into the quote.

I've seen waters closed down, drained, cleared, and left fallow with no water in for two years before being refilled and restocked. A private syndicate water at that! Sadly I think that there are too many irresponsible owners around now. I had it on my Facebook page about how Tim Paisley restocked Birch Grove and The Mangrove swamp, but the base was this: he bought the fish from Ben Gratwicke of I think Priory Fishery Farm, put them in a stock pond of his own, mixed with a few of the fish from those waters, and kept them in there for a year, before putting them into those two waters. If anyone wants it, i'll try to find a link, on my Fb, but he has also written it into More From The Bivvy, which is in itself an excellent read, written during sessions on the bank, covering waters like Ashmead, Rainbow, Mangrove and Birch Grove.

You lie If it meant not being able to get to work...

The order they were caught was 26, 20, 26, 16, all caught in January a couple of years ago on a 4 night session. I was just about to photograph the second 26 when the best looking fish of the lot took, that beautiful double. Picture order is the third fish was the 20lb, the top was the second 26.

I use the Gardner Pro lines for most of my fishing, although admittedly this year I have been using P-line Floroclear. Never had any problem with the Pro light or dark

3.25lb TC rods are a real casting tool, although I don't know much about the quality of Sonik rods. Putting the emblems on them should match exactly for big casting. Get your lead size right, it may need to be 3.5 or 4oz to get the best out of the rods. Check your mainline, a 0.40mm line won't be as good a casting line as 0.35mm line, or even 0.32mm, and many 15lb lines are over rated, but many 15's are now available in 0.35 or 0.32. Do you need a shockleader? Are your rigs short and tidy? Look at your leads, while pear leads are not the best casting leads, they should hit 100 easily, but tournament distance leads are the most stable for casting. Inline leads wobble and reduce distance, unless inside a carefully constructed PVA bag, lead clips and run rings will not go quite as far as a helicopter set up. If you do need to change rods, you are looking at a lot of money for top range casting tools.

With a small Gardner Bait Pocket rocket you can put bait out with your standard fishing rods. In fact, at times I cast out a load of stringers on my normal fishing rods, and my 'last cast' gets left out there. I know then that my bait is right on the spot.

Not as far as I can see. I've used braided rigs for hundreds of years, plain braid, combi rigs and coated braid. It was Danny Fairbrass who said he never needed rig tubing on knotless knotted rigs, but I'm wondering if that was with stiffer materials. I watched fish in Chantry park lake pick up my carefully positioned braid knotless knotted rigs, from a distance of about 3metres. I saw the hookbait go back, in the mouth, saw the hook and bait come flying out again, on both semi fixed and running leads. I swapped straight back to a line aligner and put the rigs back in the same place, and hooked my next two pickups, from fish that I had watched eject the other rigs. On Thwaite, I used to use the water as my experiment lake, where I researched lead setups, running vs semi-fixed, helicopter, leadcore, and even baits. I got numerous single bleeps with the same knotless knotted rig, (water colour meant I couldn't watch them close up), no development of the take, even though we could see the water rocking. A switch back to line aligner there with running leads and I started hooking them again. Thwaite was not a particularly pressured carp water either, mostly fished by match anglers, so rigs should not have been a major issue. Longshank hooks tend to be more difficult to eject, but the length can supposedly lead to mouth damage, a line aligner replicates the difficulty to eject as the bent hook rig, but with tubing no mouth damage.

Make sure the spod rod is strong enough to cast the spod or Spomb you intend casting! A fully loaded large Spomb probably weighs about 8oz, not many rods are capable of casting that (Big Bertha and her DD's were able to). My marker rod is only 2.75lb test, again a Century, but that has put a float and 3oz lead over 100metres, and I can feel everything as I drag it back. On some items, buy cheap, buy twice. When I first fished Ardleigh, I bought a cheaper range spod rod, from a top manufacturer, it did not last more than a year before I had killed it, and had had braid wear through the tip and butt rings. I already owned the Century marker rod even then, and it is still going, over 10 years on.