salokcinnodrog

The Alacarp PVA bags I use are melting fine. I know that I can't afford a miscast or I'm just reeling in a ball of sludge where I've licked and sticked. Must confess I've not used the Gardner ones yet as I've got another 3 or 4 packs from Dave, and I don't want to have to experiment with a different brand.

I avoid Nash PVA bags after an incident years ago when a pack went through a 40⁰ wash in my combat trousers. The plastic bag they came in was full of water after the wash, the bags were still whole, when they should have been a bundle of mush. Never used them since. I have got a Fox Rapid loader, and to be honest, it really only works with the specific bags from Fox, other brands don't seem to be the quite right size. I've tried it with the bags from Dave at A la carp, and it's easier to open the bag, blow it totally open, then drop the rig inside. In the pic earlier in the thread I'm using a Multi rig, but I do also use a short braided line aligner with a sliding rig as well, often with a (wait for it) Infusion Naturalz

Stick them in a bucket and cover in pellets and they will keep.

Not a problem I've seen. I use both my phone and tablet, neither have come up with that problem

The search engine can be a right pig, you have to be specific, and even then... For example 'follow the wind' as your search term, will bring up 7 answers on this thread and 4,400 other possible answers from Catch Reports, to Non Carp Banter. I'm possibly lucky, (or not) that I can remember specific threads so can go back to it using the actual thread name. The other way is just to go back through the pages and pages of threads. I wish it were that simple. Carp are Carp, they respond in a similar manner, so in theory yes you have an average behaviour. Then there is a BUT, the follow the wind happens in so many different ways. In some waters fish follow a North wind in summer, in some it's a southerly, or the south westerly. You may have features that slow or stop the wind or water, gravel bars, islands, maybe snags are the natural fish holding spots. It is not a new book, but the best explanation on the wind and pressure I have ever seen is in Big Water Carp by Jim Gibbinson if you can find a copy. (Look on abebooks, you can pick up a bargain or two). My best advice is to get onto the wind, and try it I'm not sure on pressure and how it affects carp, whether they come up or down the water column, feed more or less. The lakebed is where the majority of food is, every fish needs to survive, so they eat. Fish can feed in groups, or individually. We probably notice group feeding more than individuals, so a single fish cleaning out a patch is possibly just a few bubbles, compared to a massive oily patch of coloured water as groups of fish feed. It is where that food is, in the margins, or in the middle of the lake. Is there a gravel bar or plateau that holds food, either natural or anglers bait? Is the middle of the lake too deep to hold much food? Or is it shallow enough to be a bloodworm fest?

As Framey says, they are the ones that matter. We can give you advice from our experience, but every water is likely to be different, angler pressure, lake shape, size etc, so our advice is right, but wrong, If they are crashing, they are showing, and glad you learnt something.

Welcome to Carp.com, and to winter fishing. I've got the same problem in not catching. You've picked the hardest time of the year to be fishing for carp. Choose your water, make sure you fish a lake that has fish in it, has winter form, and easy to find fish. On both of those, there is absolutely no point in fishing the wrong place, a lake with no fish in it, or a swim where the carp are not present. Fishing in winter is hard at the best of times, don't overbait; you don't want to be putting much bait in, and most pellets, and some groundbaits are too oily to attract in winter. Boilies are not the best bait, at any time, but in winter you will only need a few to last a whole day, quite literally your hookbait plus 1! Low oil pellets, Sweetcorn, worms or maggots may be a better bait. The best carp or any fish catcher equipment you have available is your eyes, look for the fish; tiny shows, rolls, fins breaking surface or even bubbles or flat spots in the waves. Don't think that a 3oz lead cast out on a carp rod is the only method to catch carp. A basic float rod setup feeding a few maggots or pellets every few minutes around the float, or a feeder/ledger rod casting a small feeder or plain lead with maggots or worm on the hook.

Funny thing on my lake, which is roughly east to west, the fish have all been holed up in the western end. The Eastern end is too shallow, they start hradually working their way up there from March

Some fish can be resident in a particular area, almost pushing other fish away. Big Scale at Waveney nearly always used to get caught from a particular spot on D/E lake. (Big Carp by Tom Paisley). That one fish may also feed differently, or slightly off the baited spot, and can avoid capture by doing so.

If anyone is interested 6x Coleman canisters on ebay at £28.45https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325188216652

Layer Pits put a ban on spodding baits, must be around 2000. The response from all the carp anglers was balling in hemp mixed in Vitalin. The spodded bait ban was lifted a season or two later, although not being a CAPS member I don't know current rules and conditions. @framey Thanks. I was on 'set times' for looking at the forum as I was fishing, First thing in the morning and last thing at night. @Danny Hearn if your bait and baiting is working, stick with it, but look for when results start to drop. At this point it may be time to adapt and come up with something different.

The Method ball moulded around the lead works, PVA free, and is an underrated and underused tactic in todays fishing world. I caught all of my carp except one like that on Ardleigh reservoir, and that one was the smallest when I saw fish starting to group up in an area, so just cast a pop-up to them. I'm still using PVA bags, the whole lot going inside; hook through the bottom corner, adding crumbed boilies and liquidised breadcrumb and Vitalin. I've also got a supplier of PVA bags I'm comfortable with. I bought the Gardner ones a couple of weeks ago, out of courtesy from Bex, but I get most of mine in person from https://www.alacarp.co.uk/a-la-carp-shop/Terminal-Tackle-c107009585 Lick and stick, and compared to the Kodex ones I was using, the taste is bearable.

Shelf life baits are now falling into 2 categories; attractor baits and food source baits, where maybe 15-20 years ago most were just attractor baits. As attractor baits, you don't want many around the hookbait, maybe 5 or so, with limited feed. You are relying on the attractor qualities of the bait for a pick-up. You could fish them (or a food bait boilie) over your background feed, groundbait, particles etc, but you don't want to prebait with them as the nutrition may not be high enough to get continued feeding. A food source bait, whether shelf life, air-dried or frozen can be pre-baited, conditioning the carp into eating them permanently. As a spotty youth, a bag of shelfies would last me weeks. I couldn't afford to pile in bait every weekend, so it was an out of the bag hookbait, with a stringer and maybe a few freebies catapulted around the area. Spods weren't invented, so any background feed was impossible! The advance of shelf life food baits, like Trigga, Solar Seafood Takeaway, Crafty Catcher King Prawn and Crab and Sea Salt, Rod Hutchinsons KMG and Monster Crab means that now I'm comfortable with shelfies. We then hit our next 'barrier', the type of water. A water where the carp are reliant on bait, of any type, 'overstocked' as it were, where the bait is needed to survive is a different kettle of fish (sic) to a water which is rich in natural food. The overstocked water you can get a take on anything, yet the rich water the carp may have a distinct preference for a good nutritious bait. They may pick up the attractor bait from being inquisitive but it may not last long as a viable bait. The food source will potentially be chosen over other foods; effort equals reward, or 1 food source boilie provides more nutrition than 2 mouthfuls of bloodworm, and is easier to eat. We also have the DF spod mix approach. A background feed composed of groundbait, be that Vitalin, particles, pellets, and a boilie over the groundbait. The boilie only approach, either food source or shelfie is now very rare.

@Danny Hearn I hope you don't mind an essay in return. Very few waters have proper thermoclines, they aren't deep enough. You are normally looking at a depth of around 10metres, or 33feet. The water below a thermocline is of a significantly colder temperature than above. In carp waters, we might get a localised patch of warmer water, the margins or around reeds but not a true thermocline. The water at the base of a lake is always in winter, going to be around 4⁰ Celsius, as water is densest at that temperature. Warmer or colder water will not sink to the bottom, but 'swirls' above it. It won't be until spring that it warms up, and even in deeper water, in the Lochs and Lakes it may stay that all year! Wind is weird, especially now in February. In winter it is rare for the fish to be following the wind at all, unless it is a really heavy warm south Westerly. You are also in the period when carp are hanging around their winter areas, the rushes, snags, gravel, old weed beds or food beds of bloodworm etc. Year after year they may use the same area, staying around the spot from late October/November until February/March. Even for loads of angling pressure they may only move a few metres. This is NOT always the deepest water in the lake, its weird seeing carp a rod length away from the bank in 4ft of water at the base of the rushes, when there is 6feet depth water a little further out. It is only some waters where carp will move up into sun warmed water if the day is bright, that area has to be close to the winter area. If it is half a mile away up the other end of the lake, then it is unlikely they will move. They may however, rise into the warmer water. Back to the wind, the carp following it is unusual, and I think to some extent that there is some celebrity bravado "I fished into the teeth of a cold North Westerly and caught carp in freezing conditions". Yep, I believe you, but you know that in the lake where the carp hole up over winter is a shorter 50yard cast rather than with the wind behind you where you will have to cast 200yards +. A bit of mickey taking, but you get my drift. I have fished in winter, where the bank facing the wind was the only one I could get a bivvy flat and comfortable without a serious slope down to the rods. Cold, very, uncomfortable at times, but yes I did catch 10 carp over 4days. Yet there may be times when the rule book goes out the window.

I don't do the gloves, but I do check the hookpoints. I bait the hook/hair with my bait, and leave that bait on the whole trip, or if getting takes, until it is unusable and pulled off the hook. I sometimes even take the bait off at the end of a session and use it next time. I'm wary of the smell of superglue, never gluing my knots, but if it is a water with blunting properties without burring the hook over on a snag or gravel, a dash of Lipsyl on the hook tends to sort that out.

Professional overthinker? I worry about my smell affecting hooks and bait! Now I'm not saying it doesn't happen but I'm not 100% sure you need the hook stuff. I've seen some lakes where a hook goes out sharp at night, when you reel in in the morning you can see that it is blunter. It is on those waters where a dab of Vaseline or this stuff might protect the point.

While it is not carp fishing, BBC have produced a fishing podcast about perch. The Facebook link is https://www.countryfile.com/podcast/perchandperfection/

Welcome to Carp.com

Sounds like sidecutters time! A right pain in the rectum, not nice to deal with. I've snipped a few hooks over the years, the 28lb 2tone from Nazeing was hooked hard, and it was safer to snip the hook, but that is the only big fish I can remember. That was on a curved longshank pattern as well. I seem to recall snipping a few Patridge Piggybacks.

Long shank curved hooks causing mouth damage has been a problem on a few waters, even big fish. I think Luke Moffat banned them at Les Graviers, in fact all curved shanks. It seems that you may be getting 'double hooking', like the Bent hook rigs used to do.

CLO should be a good binder in its own right. I have c&p'd it's properties:

Welcome to carp.com Your reels are fine. Don't be conned you need to upgrade every few years. My advice is use your gear to destruction, until you NEED to upgrade. I have some Shimano Aerlex 8000's I bought in 2003 that I still use for fishing and spodding. They actually cope better than some newer reels. I also have Shimano DL's I purchased in 2010'ish, still being used for pike fishing. My Shimano Beastmasters must be 5 or 6 years old. The one thing you might find, is that the current trend for 8/9ft rods don't cover everything. Your casting distance might be compromised. A longer rod (within reason) casts further than a shorter rod. Just a point of note, most of the Sonik items I bought have not stood up to Nick normal use/abuse. Sonik SK-Tec recliner that the extending legs retract under any weight, Sonik Vader rods where guides have dropped or broken rings. I use my gear regularly, no other rods by Rod Hutchinson, Century, Shimano, Daiwa, Shakespeare or even Dragon have had eyes break. The one exception was a rod guide on an Abu rod where spodding with braid grooved the tip and butt rings. It may pay to think about upgrading/upsizing your rods for France or larger waters in UK to 12feet.

I get in trouble being the old man, heaven knows what I can do as a new man🤣 Problem is I'm early 50's so the waiting list is longer. This was Sky enjoying the time out.

Right an add on this: To give them a fair chance I bought a pack of 6 Sunn Gas canisters. They have now been used in winter weather down to -4⁰C and I can say that they do need a bit of warm water under them when the gas is nearly out at air temperatures below around 6⁰.

Been told I need a hip replacement and have lower back problems. To deal with that and the other life problems I shut myself away from the world. A bit chilly this morning. Most of the lake froze over last night, just the area in front of me stayed clear, and it looks like the ice is gradually spreading. I'm only hanging on from packing up just to let the 🌞 thaw some of the gear. My net got frozen to the rushes and the overwrap is covered in frost. Sky however is enjoying laying in the sun outside.