salokcinnodrog

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.

For my big fish water, I have stopped using curved hooks, simply because I now always buy Solar 101's, in a size 6 or 4. Whichever is tied up in the rig bin is grabbed, no worry, winter or summer, no matter what bait size. You have a hair on your hook, that hair with any size hook means the hook will follow, and bigger hooks get better hookholds. It is only with pop-ups that I worry about matching hookbait size to the hook, my 20mm pop-ups will lift a size 4 101. After seeing fish eject even curved shank hooks tied with a knotless knot, I always use a line aligner, and in most cases, lengthening the hook shank length makes it harder to eject as well.

For years my preferred set up was banksticks with a goalpost setup, but I carried a pod in case the swim could only be fished with pod (or stage stands). Then I went out and bought the Solar P1 pod, and it is set up in every swim now, simply as I have no need to be carrying extra banksticks and buzzer bars just so I can go back to my favoured goalpost setup. As BC has said, stainless will last a lifetime; I still own my original Solar banksticks that I bought in the 1990's, and despite abuse they are still straight as a die, even Sky has not managed to bend one, and rust free, although I have probably replaced thumbscrews where I occasionally mislay one, or it falls out in the holdall.

Can be a bit scary trying to put a bait next to the tree that sticks out of the island...

To be honest, you don't have to get Delkims with receiver to start as the ST versions will take the Gardner Attx system dongles and receiver at a later date, as I did. Otherwise if you want a set of alarms that come complete with receiver as standard, then look at TFG Magrunners which are around £70-80 for 3. I used to work in a tackle shop, and rarely had any come back faulty, unlike some other makes... https://www.totalfishinggear.co.uk/buy.cfm/tfg-bite-alarms/tf-gear-dave-lane-mag-runner-bite-alarm-set/39/no/64552 Delkim St's in 2003/4, the same set this or last year...

That wonderful Delkim sound! Mine have been warbling that since 2000 ish! I honestly don't want to change alarms as I have alarms I know work. The repairs I had done to my Delkims were down to my own stupidity, leaving flat batteries in, and tearing battery connector wires free I did remove a post on this thread as someone tried to turn it into a Fox vs Delkim thread.

I use the same hook size in summer and winter, usually size 4's, although a large 6 in another brand will also get used at times. I don't want to lose what I hook! I don't know if you remember my winter session a few years ago on Nazeing? 4 fish in January, 3 over 20lbs on a 4 day session. My rigs were exactly the same as in the summer. Think they were size 6 Gardner Muggas, even with them, I actually had a hookpull, as the fish came over the net cord, and it sunk into the net I honestly don't think a carp can differentiate between hook sizes, they feel resistance, from the hooklink pulling tight to the lead, and being 'pulled' out the mouth, or the hair being taken to full extension, and the bait being unable to go to the back of the mouth, so the hook not even entering the mouth. My usual answer to that is lengthen the hair and/or the rig, one at a time to try to confuse the fish. This theory of the hooklink laying flat and straight can work against you, especially with stiffer hooklink materials, including totally coated braid, even with a short length stripped near the hook. A braided hooklink that falls and coils rather than falls in a straight line could be a 'confuser'.

Starting with the lighter leads will actually get you to generate the tip speed for casting, although going to heavier leads will change the momentum slightly. Its Daiwa Sensor I used for a lot of years, in 15lb, and its not a bad casting line, supple, not wiry. The theory is that for each ounce of lead, you need 10lb breaking strain of line, although as said 15lb Daiwa Sensor takes the brunt of a 3oz lead, anymore and make sure you shock up. With shockleaders, I actually use a different knot to Gaz, that knot works with the overhand hitch on the thicker line, it works with braid to mono, mono to mono when there is quite a difference in diameters.