salokcinnodrog

Probably daft. I did also manage a size 4 barbed Partridge treble in my finger when tying a trace on the bank. I did scream at that especially when I had to remove it at the time.

We keep getting wrapped up in the definition of wraps, which I still rarely use. I automatically convert to a distance, probably because I still walk my rods out to clip up. I can do wraps, using spare stainless bankstick's, but prefer to walk them out and count the distance. I found I get less line twist. A wrap is usually 12feet or 3.65metres, although as has been said 12ft6in rods will be different and 13ft or 3.9m sticks set at rod length will be different again.

So far this year I have pike fished the 1st and 2nd and blanked. Now doing a few nights for carp. Think I should have got that the other way around... 😏🤣😉

Is this any use?

A few years ago I tied a rig with a Korda curve hook pinched from Big Daves tackle box, rather than going to get my tackle box from the car. Nothing, no fish when I was convinced fish were over the bait. I quickly reeled in, grabbed my own rigs tied with Gardner Muggas, recast and had a fish. It set me thinking and to test my theory I tried lifting the hook and rig attached to a 3oz with the point in my thumb. I was able to lift up the whole lot. (there was a pic on Carp.com) I honestly think that compared to the Muggas the Korda hooks were blunt, either that or I am thick skinned...

Can i remind all user's of carp.com that swearing isn't allowed. If you hide words behind asterick's or the [censored] box is seen on any post, the post will simply be removed. No matter how tame you think the word is, if its in the [censored] box then its banned, and you will be also. You have an edit button in the top, right hand corner of all of your post's, there is no excuse, rules are rules

You can get a couple of layers doing that. As the egg dries it gets quite hard, but because it is not boiled gradually softens in the lake.

Sorry, I edited the thread to remove some of the off topic posts.

It really depends on the lake and the residents. I'm lucky in that I have not fished a lake with such wary fish, but I have seen it. I have spooked carp with a lead landing near them, but they did return. I have fished a lake where to get the more wary bigger fish you may have to have your hookbait in situ for 48hours before you got a take. Very weird as baiting up to the marker on a bar could see a fish in minutes, yet fishing a spot tight to the margins, baiting by hand and you needed to leave the bait unmoved for 2 days. Two of my 30's from Brackens I had lowered the hookbait in, baited around it, then left it. These were both fish that did not often get caught!

A tactic I used years ago was to coat boilie in the base mix powder. After drying cover the boilies in whisked egg and liquid food and then drop into base mix and give them a shake around until they are covered in the base mix, possibly a quick roll in the hand to even out the powder, then allow to dry.

Try this for a budget https://rodhutchinson.co.uk/product-category/black-friday-weekend/ Personally, yes I prefer to use more expensive rods, having had Century rods for years, although I also got a set of RH The Ones at a very good price which I am currently using. I can build rods, rebuilt some of my Century Armalites and I built my stalking and bass rods. Building rods is a labour of love for me, but not always economic. It didn't help when my blank supplier who imported the blanks and guides I used from America sadly died. Some, but not all cheaper rods are awful. If the rrp is £50, how much are they made for? Considering the price of transport from the Far East, and the carbon used... Some higher quality carbons the Chinese are not allowed to use due to trade embargoes. For that reason I would prefer a better blank produced in Japan, UK or US

Here we go again! A good food source bait will outfish a lower quality bait, and in both shelf life and freezer forms. Fred Wilton worked out that a decent bait prebaited and fished well will produce more fish than a rubbish bait. Look up the history of Darenth and the Kent waters Shelf life's now are a very different bait from 25years ago, improvements in preservation, the preservatives used or no longer used are very different. Some freezer baits are identical to the shelf life bait in the same form, only the preservation is different. I know Crafty Catcher use a glycerine sugar syrup process to preserve the shelf life. King Prawn is the same bait in both forms. Shelf life food baits can be more instantly attractive than the freezer version, the glycerine syrup is providing the attraction, where freezer baits can become more attractive on day 3 or 4 as the sugars, salts and enzymes come to the fore through a process known as efflorescence. (Also happens to food's and concrete) You are mixing up the baiting situation on various lakes. If you fish over groundbait and/or particles with a rubbish bait, you may get takes as the fish clean up everything. However, if you fish with just boilies then the carp often have a preference for a decent bait. Added to that you may use a high attract bait in limited quantities to try to provoke a take. I go back to it, but I fished a week winter session where day 1 and 2 takes came to the high attract pop-up, from day 3 the only takes came to the food source bait, despite fishing the high attract baits all the way through. The number of times and lakes I have seen decent food source baits outcatch a rubbish bait! Sugar, a very interesting ingredient, works differently in different forms. Normal granulated sugar, exactly the same product as icing sugar, yet not as attractive an ingredient as icing sugar, a different reaction totally.

Kevin Maddocks mentions it in Carp Fever although not the flavour.

It wasn't Seafood Takeaway, I used that myself in freezer and shelfie version. Rolling them is not that hard to be honest, quick boil of an 8mm in my case then paste wrap it, roll by hand and boil as normal. Long winded yes, but it did work. More faffing to roll the bait made it unviable

I have had carp while the marker float is still in the swim after feeling around and baiting up to it, and had takes within minutes of reeling in. I tend to lead around, or even use the marker float every trip. Sometimes a feature is so 'tight' that I need to be hitting it, a metre either side could see my bait in missing the gravel bar totally, or in a thick weedbed. Right now I'm using the leading around to find fishable spots, and then get my rods clipped up to that length, with far bank markers as my aiming point. Just casting out 'blind' could, again, see my bait in thick weed. I don't mind my freebies landing in weed, but it is soul destroying reeling in a ball of weed with your hook point masked in weed, and the contents of the PVA bag stuck in the middle of it. I may know the features of the lake, even mapped it out, but a marker float, and/or leading around are invaluable every trip. Some trips, I may actually cast and bait up to the marker every day.

Strangely enough we had a dog otter on the lake and his favourite food was coots, probably easier to catch than most fish. He left the carp alone, picked up the occasional pike and mostly coot. I tend to use the spod mix when I want to clear an area from weed and bring in the naturals for the carp to feed on. In the weedy areas that are fishable (mostly cleared) is where I tend to use pop ups

Pigeon conditioner, maize, pellets and boilies whole and chopped. Be careful if you have birdlife on your water; swans, coots and tufted ducks will make fishing over particles a 'mare in shallow waters as they won't leave the bait alone, even at night. Sometimes this is where a 'free moving' pop-up can be beneficial, the movement of the hookbait can spook the coots. It doesn't always work though

I tend to fish a high attraction pop-up on 1 rod (fishing 3 rods) every session. For some reason I seem to catch on either the bottom bait rod(s) or the pop-up, rarely both, and I don't have any explanation for it. Years ago I was fishing for a week in winter, for 2 days the pop-up was catching, then every take after was on the bottom baits I had been feeding. Other things to consider are the lakebed; some areas are black and smelly, sulphurous, a bottom bait on that is rarely taken, whereas a pop-up may well be as the fish will just grab it and run. On or in 'decent' silt, a bottom bait may be better, even on harder lakebed areas, a bottom bait may be the one. Your hooking arrangement, basically your rig, and how the carp feed can determine bottom bait or pop-up. If the carp are mouthing baits to take them, then a pop-up could give you a better chance, whereas sucking and blowing, a bottom bait on a proper hair. Or perhaps you find that a single bright pop-up fished on its own is the best way to catch. That to me is usually the rod with no other bait around it. The bottom bait(s) has (boilies) bait around it. Possibly you want a pop-up over groundbait, loads of small crumb size particles, There is no fixed way to fish a bottom or pop-up, experiment and experience may tell you.

I went the cheaper route to get what I was after, and have had no problems. Mine have been worn while pike fishing, a swim on the local water is one that requires waders to be worn to net fish. You don't have time to faff putting them on. They also do the job when carp fishing, I have spent a lot of time wading the past 2 years. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303283926650?hash=item469d21767a:g:LYcAAOSwSC1de8fr

This morning at 9am

The coots definitely tell you when there is an otter about, and otters will get a few of them. It was the bird life disappearing that gave away the presence of an otter on a local club water. No dead fish were found, but the moorhens and coots disappeared. The water is now fenced and the public footpath alongside the water has auto shut gates to keep otters out. Sadly the otters have been on the big chub instead. I've had Sky rip her lead peg out of the ground when there is an otter on the bank near me, she wants it! She slipped her lead one day, took 45mins to get her back, she followed the otter to the island and didn't come back until she chased it off there.

Other species, tench, perch, pike (which can be a nuisance) and maybe some roach, and old bream. Boilies, pellet, maize have been going onto spots. I did find a couple of spots in one swim that were fishable and rich in bloodworm and baited them up for a few weeks. I caught off them, then another angler fished on there, and had a fish, and didn't put any bait in. The fish moved off and won't feed there now.

I agree, Best way to test them. I'm not a Burco man, I have a large cooking pan that I use on the cooker, it doubles up as my Ragu and chilli pan when I make enough for 4 meals (prep and freeze) I use a lot of maize myself as tiggers😉 are banned on my lake. I usually soak for 48 hours in water with some sunflower oil and then slow boil, as in bring to the boil then turn heat down to simmer for 20 minutes. I will keep it unused for no more than 2 days before use. I get lovely maize this way, soft enough to put baiting needle through if I want to use it on the hair. I had some awful particles a few years back mid summer when I was on Nazeing. I'd used up all my own ready prepared stuff and the fish were really on the munch so I popped into Johnson Ross to buy a large tub of mixed particles. When I opened the tub the oil had solidified; I had to use a bankstick to break the lump up just to tip them out into my bait bucket to mix them with Vitalin. I didn't catch over them!

Definitely tried raking spots, and unless it is over natural food, the fish avoid them. I spent a lot of spring and this summer on a couple of spots that I had cleared myself. If you bait on your raked spot, nothing. You have to find fish cleared spots with natural food on that they are happy to come to. Made slightly more difficult by not being able to use a boat, every weed clearing session is in chesties or from the bank.

At the moment I'm regularly blanking, but so are all the other anglers. One thing I don't or didn't have until recently is the ability to prebait before trips, although now landing a job 5miles away from the lake... Just to get time to fish now is the hope, as Assistant Manager of the hotel is always on call... I try to analyse every trip, learning from every session, although on a hard lake when no-one is catching is difficult. I think my biggest failure is finding fishable weedy spots or weed free spots that the fish will visit. Some weed free ones they avoid, especially when they have been caught on them before or the natural food is gone. My usual answer is always 'must try harder'.