salokcinnodrog

Google Maps and Google Earth can be brilliant (see my Nazeing South Lagoon pic), but sometimes you have to go old school and resort to Ordnance Survey maps for incoming streams and contours.

Trying to find a legitimate reason for them. Doesn't appear to work with light leads, doesn't appear to be needed using a heavy lead. Appears to be something else that could snag up in weed. Oh My Cripes...

I think since just before it's release I've used Gardner Pro in 15lb, light or dark with no worries and am comfortable with long casting with it. I'm just going through in my mind the crack-offs I've had and one in a heavy wind when the line went round the butt ring, and two when numpty forgot to check the bail arm was open. I did used to use 15lb Sensor brown, but since I started with Gardner Pro, never gone back. Beans and peas, Molassed Rabbit mix to bulk out your particles. Hot water to soak it around 12hours before use. It's a good background feed. The rest of your particles sounds good, the maize and tigers are the important bits, and if you prep some and stick them in a liquidiser you'll get a nice cloud.

I tell you what, if you can find some pics from directly above you could be onto a winner. If not book a hot air balloon flight, or convince someone to sneak a drone across lol. Pictures from above will potentially show features from above, even if not depths. Looking at the pic, I'd say the second arm on the right has an inlet stream, and the main feeder streams are in the devil's horns at the far end. The second arm you'll be on looks to be a ridge line bay, with possibly an inlet on the end near the green blob of trees

Sounds like fun! Ardleigh and Alton reservoirs are my forays into big water fishing although Alton is only 475 acres. I used to spend hours walking around it. Some days before or after work I'd pick a section and walk that, other days all the way around. I would usually prebait an area for a few days before fishing it, a mix of pigeon conditioner or chicken seed mix with tigers and maize plus a bucket or 3 of Vitalin (see current alternatives now it's discontinued), with a few boilies, but if no boilies allowed, maize, or tigers would be OK on the hook. If I couldn't prebait, most fish would come on the 2nd or 3rd night after baiting when I arrived, although I did have a couple of fish on my Garlic Spice pop-ups first night just cast out. I only had one fish on Alton in a bay, the rest came from the northern end of the reservoir in big south westerly winds, big enough to send spray 20metres up the bank into the bivvy, near the bridge over the reservoir, or right up near the limit of fishing where it shallower up. The one from the bay was after lockdown was over, and I found a couple of fish in The Wonder right at the end. Again a bit of bait around the weed produced fish. Depth wise, my fish came in depths between 6 and 15feet deep. For a reservoir of the size you are talking, I would think that the water will slope down, a possible drop-off, then slope again, probably based off a series of feeder streams gradually deepening towards the dam wall, deepest is not always best. @jh292 is this a fishing trial to see the potential, with possible long term fishing permission? Or a simple one off?

I think he was soaking it, then placing it on kitchen tissue in trays in the airing cupboard like growing cress or mustard.

I was upset and annoyed that Vitalin was discontinued, it was my base for baiting up for years, probably since around 2005, and I can remember my Nan used to use it for her dogs back in the 1980's when I lived with her. My alternative is Molassed Rabbit Mix, which I get from Gladwells, its 10minutes from me. https://www.copdockmill.co.uk/our-brands/small-animal/ Skinners dog foods also do a Muesli based Field and Trial dog food that I think could be a decent alternative, but I have not yet tried it. Unlikely you messed it up, soak and boil, but I recall Bryan Jarrett saying it was better sprouted. When I do maize I do add sugar to the soak, preferably brown sugar, roughly 2teaspoons per kilo of maize. On the syndicate a few years ago maize was fed during the winter, the spots fed with maize weren't 'dug up', yet spots baited with pellets were. I have a feeling, not 100%, but I think tufties were eating a fair bit of the maize rather than carp.

I never found butter beans particularly successful unless they were flavoured, don't know why, but a spicy flavour in as you soak them worked. Kidney beans I've done well on, both tinned and soaked and boiled. Black eyes, great bait, although the tomato soup method is messy. You don't need that many and tench love them too. The more you bait, the more tench... Like @Golden Paws I've used loads of beans, and caught on most, chicks, haricot (and baked beans, Heinz for freebies tipped in, cheap own brand for hookbaits), mung beans (beansprouts). I think it was Chris Yates who reckoned broad beans were rubbish, but he occasionally caught on them (The Secret Carp, I seem to think). Maize, probably the best known particle, can be brilliant, yet other waters almost nothing. Often fed to the fish during winter. I've found maize can be hit and miss, but when the fish get on it, they get on it big time.

I don't like helicopter setups anywhere near snags, they allow too much rig movement before indication. I've lost fish because of that movement, 20-30metres before any indication and Delkims at around 100metres, fishing in clear water, but the fish made it to an overhanging tree stump. Look at run rings with a tight line, or the (for me, dreaded) lead clip. In fact the run ring will or should also slide off the leader if it does break. Length is always tough, I tend to use a shockleader as 4/5 turns on the reel and drop, whereas snag leader does not need to be as long, as fishing next to the rod, you will be straight onto it, and only the extreme end near the rig will be rubbing any snags. My snag leader is Solar Contour Unleaded, don't think its still available, but I've had fish to over 20lb on it from the syndicate, and the length is my casting drop, minus the tip to first ring, so it doesn't affect my casting, probably around 1½metres long. I don't know if you can remember the pic, a large stump in the water, in front of that is a metal grill embedded in the lakebed. I had a few fish from that spot on the setup.

Check the size and format, and possibly the Internet speed. 4/5G can be so slow if signal is bad that photos don't load

I've had a set of 3 Delkims submerged when the lake and river broke the bank and joined after series rain. Got them out, dried them at home, and replaced the batteries. No problems they still worked

A device that strikes the hook automatically is apparently banned under fishing licence rules in certain areas.

Oh boy can that be fun... NOT! The way I found to get them was to pick that spot and heavily bait over it, and I mean heavy, a 5litre or more bucket of groundbait; my favoured choice was* Vitalin and particles, hemp, birdfood, and pellets with some small boilies mixed in and fish with a couple of 8 or 10mm baits on a hair. No need for finesse, either a lead on a lead link or run ring and a standard braid or coated braid knotless knotted rig. *was: I think that Vitalin has been discontinued, so my alternative is Mollased Rabbit mix with flaked maize, although you do want or even need to pour boiling water on it 24hours before use.

Think that is what keeps drawing the annoying swans in. I'd got the spot working, had a decent carp and a few tench off it. Now as soon as the swans move in, the fish move out.

Dale Jennings messaged me via FB and asked if I knew @welder or how to get in touch. He is, sorry, both are, on my FB friends, so now able to keep in touch.

Aye, that can be a problem, as can swans...

Tench will move in almost as quick as you finish, and carp not long after on many waters. Saying that, I've fished waters where raking a swim is the kiss of death ☠ Carp will clear the weed eating particles, but raking it is a 'No no'. I'm on that place now!

Used to happen to me with crayfish on Nazeing. I had the meshed bottom bait attacked and the mesh actually cut, yet the pop-up was left. I landed a number of carp that had taken what was left of the bottom bait and the pop-up. If the little gits had time, then the pop-up was taken after the bottom bait. Switching to wooden balls as snowman, the pop-up was taken, you'd retrieve a thread knotted to the hair loop. The knot held the ball in place on the hair.

I think last year's extreme hot weather was a very good reproduction year, and the small fish have been pecking baits. I noticed on Suffolk Water Park that baits would be pecked to nothing by tiny rudd and roach even in the margins. A standard boilie is softer than a pop-up, so it might be time to mesh them or even resort to wooden balls. I've had to do that to avoid blooming tufties and swans as well as silvers.

Sounds like a result. I have 2 landing nets set up now, for a couple of reasons: If I get a result like yours, and because I often fish 2+1, so there is an accessible net either side.

The type of water will make a big difference, snaggy, clear, whether you need to cast long distances. 15lb 0.35-0.38mm is probably the standard, and newer lines co-polymer are more abrasion resistant than nylon monofilament. I pretty much use 15lb on most waters where I'm carp fishing for carp over 20lb. For smaller fish up to say 20lb, it will be 10lb on a lighter rod.

It's around 100metres from peg to far bank along the whole arm, (just over up to 110m in some swims), the far end of the bay takes it to around 150metres. Don't ignore the area under your feet, it can produce fish when they are on the move.

Welcome to Carp.com. Suffolk Water Park is 10minutes from me and I used to fish it regularly. Pegs 5 and 6, far arm facing into a tree lined bay from memory, around 12feet deep. It's a swim the fish move through, you can't miss the obvious feature, or rather don't hang your rigs up in them. Definitely not my favourite area, I always felt trapped there if anglers were either side of you.

Similar, wind and bow in the line can mean you are well away from your spots. This week with a strong south westerly, I was landing around a couple of metres short of my marker, and for some reason I couldn't hit my aiming point to the right. I had to add another 'wrap', or 3.66m, 12ft to get in line, and that's just in 4 feet depth. And casting... Not sure about the King, don't wish him ill, but not happy that he took the throne after his divorce from Princess Diana and marriage to a divorcee... He should have married her originally

It proves my point that a wrap is not a unit of measurement, whereas a metre, or yard is That has been my argument all the way through.