salokcinnodrog

No they don't, although the matching led is bright. I've never needed a bivvy light when my alarms go off, and half the time I don't even bother with a bivvy light at all. About the only thing I use a light at night for is to read, or actually unhooking and weighing. I play fish in the dark and that includes netting them.

I'd agree with most, except No.5. The best tool is, as described in the armed forces, the mark 1 eyeball. No matter how often we rely on technology the human eye is often or usually much better. Technology can go wrong when you most need it, or not give the full picture. Now bear in mind that I used to be a bait boat user, so could do the quiet drop in of rig and bait; at Taverham I caught loads of fish by putting my rigs in by boat, but the first 20 I caught from the lake came to a bait cast in. A number of waters, bait boats are banned, so I had to do the casting myself. Or the watching the water, without my eyes (and binoculars) I wouldn't have seen a number of fish showing. February fishing after a thaw at Nazeing, I saw a show in 'the wrong area', not the usual winter area. Over 4 days I had 4 fish on my left hand rod, 26, 20, 26, and the prettiest of the lot a 17lb mirror. Casting accuracy had to be spot on, they all came to one rod, and the middle rod fished within metres produced nothing. I'm still intrigued what you class as big as to some extent my values have changed, or are even variable. At Bromeswell lakes I was chuffed to nuts to catch a double figure mirror, yet at Nazeing Central, I was disappointed with a fish of the same weight. Even now I'm almost disappointed with a double figure carp from my syndicate, I want to catch fish over 20lb, and even better when they are originals or the Cavenham stocking (long story). You can only catch what is there, a big fish in a 'match' lake might be 15lb, yet in a 'carp fishery' that is a small fish.

I used something like that, actually a mix of a Multi-rig, Hinge and a 360 with Gardner Stiff Link. The boom section was Kryston Snakeskin, but instead of the hinge or multi section being tied to the mini swivel, it went through the ring doubled over with a counterweight held in place under the swivel with the link being knotted and lighter tagged. It produced a couple of uncaught fish from spots by the edge of the weed with bright pink pop-ups early season. I'll try to find a pic, but John Claridge was using something similar.

I go against the grain as per usual, I won't use an out-turned eye on rigs, you are pulling away from the point, basically opening the hook out. My pop-up rigs tend to be on straight shank hooks, Solar 101's, whether multi-rigs, D-rigs or sliding ring on the shank. I might use a curved shank Mugga on a Ronnie rig

I really don't need to be spending another night in hospital attached to an intravenous drip receiving antibiotics, painkillers and steroids after having a quinsy lanced. 6months into the year and I have been ill for 4 of them...

Yes and no. I'll try to walk you through my view of naked Chod or Helicopter setups, over around 25-30years of fishing. If you have a break-off with a helicopter setup, it is usually above the lead, and the rig. The rig must be able to pass over any stop knot and any bead to come off the broken line. By having the lead fixed in place, on a quicklink it can do so, you DO NOT want to drop the lead. Problems with naked chods and helicopters are using a swivel straight to the mainline, they get scratched and can eventually scratch and break the naked mainline, so that swivel needs to be on a proper helicopter bead, in simple terms a dumbell shape bead, or you need to use a stronger leader or tubing. Which brings us back to the rig needs to come off the top end, and the leads needs to be fixed.

Over to you:

I would say a tackle shop gift voucher. Most anglers, fishing tackle is very personal to them. I have a brand aversion to a couple of manufacturers after shoddy tackle and personal ethics, and brand loyalty to others. There are a couple of exceptions, my eldest daughter as a Christmas present bought me a Moka Pot Bialetti coffee maker. It is my fishing coffee maker. My younger two as a Fathers Day gift around 15years ago bought me a camping cutlery set and a thermal mug, both of which are still in use.

Welcome to carp.com My personal advice, fish for 'other' fish in waters with carp in. The way I started carp (and tench) fishing was fishing one float rod for silver fish with maggots, bread or worm, and then a ledger rod to one side with a bigger bait, sweetcorn, luncheon meat or boilie. I don't know the Surrey area at all but I'm sure that there is a water around that fits the bill.

That is your choice. I didn't intend it to happen, I'd much rather it hadn't happened. I do know that people have spent ages writing posts for their own computer to have a freak out and lose the lot, or as my mate did who designs websites, hit a button and wiped out a whole website because one server is used for a couple of sites who 'piggyback' each others design. It is also some of the same reason that Karlos had so much problem getting his forum back on line, so much data on the server that that could not all be backed up. Normally when I edit a section I can shift it offline and then quietly edit it with no problem, but because Catch Reports is constantly live I didn't. The amusing and annoying thing for me is that as much as I dislike Facebook, it is my back-up for pictures and stories. I have gone through 3 tablets, more phones, pc's and laptops, and once one dies I've lost those pictures, which include 3 20's in a night from the 450acre Alton Water, and many of my slides and prints from my partner and my children. What goes in here on catch reports has gone on the Syndicate Facebook page or my own Timeline since I refuse to pay for a photo host after photobucket started charging. Again, a major annoyance as I do or did slideshows, talks and presentations for work and various PAC regions, I've personally lost pictures related to life, work and fishing.

Hard work this fish, spombed out a bucket of hemp and pigeon conditioner and a pike decided to chase the Spomb and then sat in the margin. I got the rod sorted and the pike got caught up in the line eventually biting through it and fragging around 50metres which I had to take off. Rerigged and had a frap up and crack-off. Got sorted again and took another 3 casts with PVA bags and a Multi-rig to get it right. 20lb 2oz We've also been through the stocking lists of the syndicate and found it was stocked 2 years ago at 15lb 8oz and apparently there are no other capture pics by anyone else.

As @hutch says fishmeals are still viable baits and digestion of any bait slows down, especially baits with high fat levels. Carp also usually eat less in winter than in summer because of that. In summer you might fill in a kilo of boilies, and know in 20minutes, a single fish has eaten them all. In winter 4 or 5 baits might be enough to fill them up. In any situation, nutritionally, the first requirement is for energy. Energy is needed for digestion, for movement, everything. While fats are an energy source, they are not so easily digested and utilised as carbohydrates (basically in simple terms, sugars). Protein is also an energy source (!), but why use protein for that when it is better utilised for growth, tissue repair? The original fishmeal baits were high in fats and oils, which was difficult to digest in winter. Something like 50% or more fishmeal and semolina. Protein, fat and carbohydrate but too heavy in fats. Then came fishmeals and fishmeal baits with lower fat concentrations, more useable energy sources, and a better winter profile. I caught as many fish in winter with the original Trigga as I did in summer, including at the time probably the largest common in the lake in February. I have a funny feeling, in fact without checking I'm pretty positive, Manilla and Live System both contain yeast, and make good baits for all year round use.

That's part of the problem, there is so much of carp.com some had to be deleted as it simply couldn't be backed up anymore. I've been picking up and finding threads from 2005! So as I have deleted an individual page, somehow it has deleted a whole section.

Sadly it looks like it. I know how much effort went in as I had done some full session reports myself. I'm really upset that other people's great efforts, captures and pictures are lost

For some reason the catch reports have disappeared, I honestly have no idea what's happened. It might be a freak out on my tablet although I wasn't in that section beyond page3. If you would like to restart with this month we can try to get it up again

Believe me I rarely fish without dark sunglasses, and can handle setting up around 6am if it's straight after a late shift. Aye, but no day... Been thinking about this in relation to moon phase, wind and weather. Supposedly certain moonphases are best, as is low pressure and unsettled weather, but if the weather or wind is against the moon, perhaps a still high pressure, then the two would cancel each other out. Certain winds are supposedly better, south and west, and east and north the worst. My answer is just to fish whenever I can. When the wind is from the east, the fish bite least. When the wind is in the west, the fish bite best. When the wind is from the south, the bait just falls in the fishes mouth. When the wind is in the north, the fish, they bawg orf...

After going through some of my old posts I've just remembered one of my favourite groundbait bases. Go into your local animal feed supplier and look for Molassed Rabbit Mix, there are various brands available, some are more Molassed than others. While it is vegetable based, the molasses is an attractor, and it is a good base if you add flake maize and a few pellets.

Google can be your friend, especially if you can find a decent Google Earth picture. I did have a South Lagoon Nazeing picture, complete with every bar and distances marked. The time to put the marker float about is about an hour before you leave. The more you learn the better. When it comes to bait, many current food source baits are frequently on a nut or vegetable protein base, which I don't think are as good as the meat or fish based base mixes of 10years ago. Vegetable and nut proteins are not complete proteins in as much as they miss a couple of essential amino acids, where fishmeal, meat meal, or yeast based are rich in all essentials, and as such I think are better baits.

Don't think of prebaiting as a one swim tactic if you are on a food bait. The bait should be thought of as a food and the carp used to finding it anywhere. On Virginia Lake at Earith I prebaited Trigga putting in around a kilo of boilies as I left in a few spots, and knew that I could catch from any swim I went into next time. On Brackens, despite there being a no catapult or throwing stick rule in place, every boilie had to go in via a PVA stringer or mesh bag, I would cast in probably 100 boilies as I left. Again whichever swim I went into I knew I could catch. Again Taverham I was putting in the same bait, (along with probably 5 other anglers), so wherever I ended up I knew they liked the bait. On my current lake any prebaiting is to keep spots weed free, again, I'm leaving after putting in a kilo of food source boilies, but I have caught from various swims. I don't have any worries about getting back into the same swim every time. If someone is in the swim I will go somewhere else. Knowing the lake helps, I know most of the features, and I had the same on Taverham, Brackens and the South lagoon and Earith, with hand drawn or Google maps of the features.

Your bait approach might need to change depending on your fishing. If you are fishing various waters, then 'attractor' baits might be the best option, but on 'easy' waters where you fish regularly it can be an option. By attractor baits, pellets, groundbaits, spod mix, and the boilies and pop-ups. Not every water responds to the same method. Then you have one water you are fishing as a campaign where you are concentrating on catching regularly, getting the fish to concentrate on one bait. This method is slipping out of favour as real food source baits seem to be becoming fewer. At one point you had Trigga, Activ8, Grange CSL, Monster Squid, Live System, BFM amongst others. My fishing I tend to concentrate on one water, and sort of mix the two approaches of particles/groundbait and food source, and for years I have stuck with this, except on Brackens Pool which was boilie only; mostly because of size, waters ranging from 40 to 500 acres.

It can depend the features in the swim whether you fish more than one rod on the spot. If for example you are fishing a gravel bar or plateau, 3 rods on the spot might be the right method, whereas a silty weedy lake you might have 3 rods in totally different places. I turned up for my last session and fish were showing alongside the rushes either side of the swim. One rod on each side, and one on the baited area in between. Now when it comes to bait on the rods, I have a pop-up on one rod, a snowman bait consisting of a 15mm bottom bait 12mm pop-up on one and the 3rd is usually my experiment rod. Funnily enough it's the experiment rod that produced this week, a Multi-rig with 2 6mm pop-ups on as bait, however I've caught on pop-ups, snowman and bottom baits. However, if I was fishing 3 rods on a spot then its likely that I would be fishing 3 identical baits.

When there is a 'y' in the day. Just not early mornings, I dislike early mornings...

Everything in a PVA bag works for me, even if I do have to recast 3 times after pike decided to get in on the act...

And what do you do if bait boats are banned on that venue? Or even simply impractical? Running a bait boat in between 24 sailing dinghys on a day only water on the day they have their tattoo... Not every feeding spot is going to show up on a fish finder; some feeding depressions fill up with silt again, only knowing it is slightly softer than the surrounding area will tell you it's a carp spot. Holes under the weed, a fish finder is going to be screwed looking through that, yet my eyes can see the froth and bubbles coming up.

That looks like the one. Thanks. I actually popped into Gladwells today and completely forgot to look. I was more concerned with picking up mixed pellets and a sack of hemp.