salokcinnodrog

Mine came through last week, I do love his artwork. He has appeared on BBC Countryfile (as has my syndicate😉) Mine are all saved in my wallet, but i'm looking to get them framed, along with a few other pics I've taken.

I think that until spawning is out of the way boilies are often the last thing carp are wanting to eat, even more so or especially on richer natural lakes. I do like a mix of small items in my background feed, Vitalin, crumbled and crushed boilies with a few small pellets, even (fresh) molehill soil, which is often rich in wormy goodness. I think it was @JordanNW who asked about PVA mix, my mix is on here I use it as my baited patch and for my bag or mesh mix.

@yonny, yes and no. I work in the hospitality industry, we don't want to turn customers away, but I am not having any of my staff harassed, abused because of a rude (often drunk) customer. We have to turn the customer away, refuse service, yet it means we have lost money. @greekskii was actually replying at the same time as me, and I agree all fisheries should check your licence, especially day ticket commercial waters. Any business that sells a service I would think is registered or licensed. It would be quite possible to register day ticket fisheries. In the fishery doing the licence checking, it would save bailiffs needing to visit the fishery.

It is actually legal for any business to refuse service if they believe that there is valid reason. So a shop, restaurant or pub may refuse service to a rude customer. A fishery is exactly the same, they can refuse to let an angler fish if they believe that he or she does not have a licence. That in the current climate is stupidity. Our friends who decide to take fish for dinner.

I think I posted on the same question a few months ago, but it could be longer... I have switched to the same rod for both, so occasionally even old dogs do learn something. 50lb Angry Fish braid, I have a run ring running on the shockleader, with my lead link attached to a Breakaway Spinlink Clip, at the end of the leader is an oval ring attached to a ball bearing swivel. When I'm leading or using the marker float, the marker goes on the oval ring, and lead on the spinlink. When I spod or Spomb, I remove float and lead and clip the spinlink to the ball bearing swivel. I'll try to put pics up, but signal in the swim I'm in is awful. Just to get any Internet access to check my emails I've had to go up the other end of the lake. Hitting the clip with braid can 'flatten' the Spomb so it doesn't always open, so at shorter range you may need to lob it.

PROPER REELS! I would get them serviced over buying new current models. If you do decide to go new, of all the current Shimano range have a play with the current Beastmasters, but shop around for price. I think they are much better than anything over the £85 price range, including the Ultegras. That's from working in a tackle shop. https://fish.shimano-eu.com/content/fish/eu/gb/en/homepage/Product-detail.P-BEASTMASTER_XB.html/

Saute potatoes, with onion, mushroom, baby corn and a rare rump steak for tonight.

Nigewoodcock isn't banned😉 Just not posting😒

I used to do that to test my PVA as well, mesh, bags and string. I also test them in the margins in both summer and winter. Not all PVA is the same, there are some good brands, some 'ok' brands and some that just stick them in a hot wash in the machine and they still won't dissolve... I stick to particular brands of PVA wherever possible because I have tested them. Kryston bags and string, definitely good, along with mesh by Gardner and ESP. However after an incident with Nash PVA bags 10+ years ago that did go through a 40⁰ wash without dissolving, I won't touch that brand. We also have the joys of direct Internet sales, so if you use a supplier on ebay, check and test it, and I would recommend, even if you use the same seller, test every purchase. I know some batches will come from different manufacturers, look and feel the same, but taste different and have different dissolve times.

You haven't fished a water full of natural food where you have to wean them off it and onto your bait then. Sometimes the only way to do this is pile in the small stuff with boilies mixed in, and hope they will take the boilies.

I've been thinking this over since my last post, and obviously the carp are feeding on the smaller feed items. If I bait up with them when I arrive; Vitalin, crushed boilies, maybe maggots, breadcrumb they will be feeding on them, so fish the Naturalz Wafter over it, and when I leave bait up with a bit more Vitalin and whole boilies to get them onto bigger baits on the spot.

A barbel or specialist rod is a very good floater rod

I can give you an add to this: Start off with a basic hair rig and adapt and play with it. I mention the perfect hooking point, middle of the bottom lip. If you are losing fish to hook hookpulls during the fight at the start, are hooking them at the very front of the mouth, the hair is not long enough. When the basic hair rig stops catching move onto the next development, the sliding or extending hair, or add a line aligner. As @yonny says, a bottom bait rig, and a pop-up rig it really is that simple. I don't fish zigs, so I can't comment on their effectiveness. How effective your rig is can be changed by what and how you feed. A rig with a short hair can be good for fishing over particles or groundbait, yet over boilies may be very ineffective. A rig with a long hair may be great for boilies, yet awful for fishing over particles; the long haired bait may be blown in and out with no hooking, or alternatively cause bite-offs.

A coated braid, in this case Kryston Snakebite, line aligned with a short section around 10mm stripped back on a size6 Solar 101 hook, sliding ring on the hookshank, with a 4lb mono hair and a meshed mishape boilie. The rig ring means I can alter the hair length, in this case I found this gap was exactly right on the harder chalk lakebed.

I'm positive I had fish feeding over my bait this week, in fact this morning, but I felt because it was over birdfood and Vitalin they weren't picking up boilies, so with previous sessions in mind I had ordered some treats for them for hookbaits. The massive flat patch is where one of my baits was, but a snowman hookbait, 15mm pop-up over an 18mm bottom bait, not a bleep. I'm pretty positive it was carp clearing the smaller food items.

Totally agree this warm then cold weather has definitely made catching much harder. After my common I haven't seen another fish in the area, they just seem to be picking up the occasional bait, not feeding properly. A few fish have been out though, one of the 2019 20lb stock fish has made 30lb, and some of the 2021 December stock fish have come out at least 2lb heavier than stocked.

Sorry, I forgot to reply to you after my last post, although it has given me a chance to use and abuse mine over a winter of pike fishing and a couple of months of carp fishing, so I can give a fair appraisal of the Sonik Sk-tec standard chair. It's comfortable and at a sensible height that is easy to get level on sloping ground. Carpfeed did do a review on them, might be worth a Google. Shop around for best prices, and here is Soniks link https://www.soniksports.com/product/sk-tek-folding-chairs/

Yes, and yes. Very similar to the current Beastmaster reel. If you can have a play I would reckon they be a decent buy

Oh definitely, waters change over time. Wind and wave erosion can turn islands into sub surface plateaus. Weed beds move, enlarge or shrink. I agree that neither marker float and lead or deeper tells you everything. If anything, only getting in the water can tell you more, and that can be fraught with risks. Neither an echo sounder nor marker float can tell you that the depression in the silt is or was a feeding spot, nor that the gravel patch has actually got a layer of silt on it and is currently being left alone, or the carp have cleared the gravel by feeding heavily on it. Something with leading around is that certain weed does not clog, drag or hold up the lead, it can actually feel clear during the day. Yet other types of weed as soon as you attempt to drag back you feel them and even pull some in on the lead itself. The Deeper will or may only show weed, not what type. The two may need to be used in conjunction if allowed on the venue, but if Echo Sounders are banned then the marker float and lead is still going to give you very useful information that potentially Deeper can't.

With all the posts on this thread, I'm glad I split it away from the Tackle and Equipment thread it was on. I found the difference in water depth was easy enough from the bank WITHOUT a fish finder, in fact probably easier, as mapping by hand (if anyone ever saw my Earith map @elmoputney ) and with a marker float you have bankside references or aiming points, whereas with the Deeper you would still have to reference it in note form. The high and low water points can be quite off putting. I think Earith lost a metre of water depth, and Alton was 3 or 4metres, and you could gain an extra 10metres of bank as the water dropped, however some features that produced fish in full reservoir times, could also produce in low water times, yet some were totally above water when the water was low. A feature that produced fish when it was 8ft deep, (marker float counting hence in feet) still produced when it was 20ft deep. I mention cross references in note form, on the Deeper can you put in GPS positions or does it have to be additional notes? Obviously reason I ask is that sea going boats do have regular fishing marks that captains use and fish regularly, and they would have to be GPS.

I found these quite interesting, although compared to looking down from a boat or in chesties quite weird. I spend quite a lot of time on the bank and in the water trying to learn my syndicate lake, and sadly Deepers and drones are banned so we have to do it the hard way. Even using the boat is a 'naughty' except to free snagged or weeded fish, and then only if someone else is on the lake. The weed can move, clear patches one week can be covered the next, and a marker float or leading around does miss some.

http://www.scac.org.uk/membership/costs/

Argh! I just put a cupful of maize to soak in a bucket before i add pigeon conditioner on Saturday, for boiling Sunday. Blooming weevils started crawling out of the maize so I have had to soak my last 5kilos. Going to have to either put the lot in next week or freeze it. Something I have started doing with particles is save my slightly salted pasta water and soak the particles in it before boiling.