salokcinnodrog

I would much rather be comfortable, but at times I wanted to be silent, in and out without advertising my presence. I would arrive after work at close on midnight, and then fish until the morning and pack up before the dog walkers and local numpties arrived. A full bivvy set-up and all the gear would have been far too noisy and left far too many signs of my fishing. In fact, my rods were even wrapped together around my landing net handle, no rod holdall, as that just added extra carry and most of the weight in the rod holdall is bivvy.

Old thread resurrected and I am still the same. Quite frequently I will have my 2 outer rods fished in the margins, the middle rod to 'the middle' is a bonus rod more than a catching rod. I mention catching 30's from the margins, and it still holds. THE BEST feature in any lake, including Brackens, and I caught from the margins of Nazeing South as well, even if the rods were on buzzers. My syndicate can be rock hard, maybe 150 carp in 45 acres, yet fish still get caught close in. My mate Bruce caught his first 2 fish from baits lowered in when he saw fish feeding in the margins. Within an hour one had its face on camera, in the middle of the night so did another, he was made up. My first 2 fish from the lake were caught around 10metres from the rod tip, just over the marginal shelf as well. The number of fish I have caught on dog biscuits lowered from the rod tip just touching the water, even with the centrepin.

Reckon pike spawning is about now on my lake. Not been really cold and now we are officially in meteorological spring pike and perch are the first.

I can laugh now, but got my car stuck in the mud as I came off the hardcore path. The lake owner told me to get my gear round to the swim and she would arrange a tow out in the morning. Bit of a telling off, but she is a lovely lady so know I deserve it. Two barrow journeys later, 1 Spomb that unclipped itself putting a bit of pigeon conditioner and Vitalin in after 3 casts, I'm now sat in the bivvy after dinner with a coffee.

The price of a house, around £115,000 for a properly conditioned one to original spec. You felt safe in them.

I liked the Ford's of the Sierra, Escort and Fiesta era. The modern Focus and Mondeo I really don't like; horrible to drive and no 'feel' with the exception of getting the ST version. Same with Vauxhall and the Cavaliers of the time. My 2.0l i Ghia Sierra was a beast. Ipswich to Earith in Cambridgeshire, 85miles in 45minutes, (Don't ask...), as was my Lotus Carlton. My eldest daughter didn't like it, until she discovered it was the Lotus. Funny thing is I ended up with speeding tickets in slower cars or vans. I do like my Golf, they go on, better than the A class Mercedes I had. Once one thing went wrong, the whole system and car went up the shoot. Believe it or not I can get me, my mate and gear for a weekend and Sky in the Golf, just by folding half the rear seat down. Just been keeping an eye on the lake, one of the VS stockies came out last night.

GVAC near me have a no floating bait rule on their waters. On one the ducks and seagulls fight over bread thrown in. It is in the village of Needham Market, and is the local beauty spot, public access so I can understand it.

My alternator packed in the other week. I'd driven around 20miles towards the lake when the battery totally went, must have been low anyway as I hadn't driven for a couple of weeks. Had to wait tor 2hours to get towed back to Ipswich. Cost £150 for tow back to mine, £50 for new battery as I think the old one was cold affected and wasn't holding charge properly, then £260 for the alternator. The garage had the car in over the weekend as the first replacement delivered Saturday was damaged. On top of £350 for MOT at end of December was not happy.

Buzzards, skylarks, grey wagtails, Egyptian and Canada Geese, along with the swans for me. That south easterly wind made it tough packing up. I would much rather have stayed curled up in the bag watching the water.

I have the joy of packing up today. Blanked, but to be honest I expected it. Far better 4nights fishing than watching rubbish television. The lake only occasionally throws up a fish in winter. Nothing carp wise has been out since December. It was the same last year, nothing out after the equinox until the spring. When those fish could be anything from 20 to 50lbs though...

I wish on a carp! Once the shelter is built then it is easy to keep warm, dry and out of the wind. I think this winter is the most I have set the bivvy or brolly up before getting the rods out, usually I get the rods out first before the bivvy in case I spot a fish and want to move. Putting the bivvy up almost tethers you to the spot.

Bialetti Moka coffee pot. Real coffee.

Best wishes from me to your wife, hope everything goes well. I'm at the syndicate lake now, set up and settled down with a good hot coffee. Sky is laying down outside watching the world.

I agree with the a lot of your post. I prefer to fish over small traps myself, and when I leave prebait for my next trip. The prebaiting means I can fish with small traps. However there are times when it can pay to bait up heavily and the fish move onto it. Larger waters or where a bait may be at its most effective after 3 or 4 days. The larger water I prefer to use groundbait and particles as well as boilies. I simply couldn't afford to put in 10kilos of boilies for 2 or 3 days fishing, and I don't think they are as effective in holding fish as particles and groundbait. I regularly used to fish Taverham with 10boilies left in the bait bag on the last night. Enough for a fresh hookbait and a stringer.

I'm back at the syndicate from Wednesday. The last fish out was in December and I think I know where they have holed up. It is definitely not the deepest part of the lake! The maximum depth of the lake is 8feet, but the spot I think they are in is 5feet deep.

Was at this gig, love Brixton

Frozen groundbait due to ice particles within being lighter than water often floats😉 The annoyance when I have watched floating groundbait drift out of position!

Not right now. Until I see the fish start to move I'm on bags at the most.

As much as I like the thought of fishing Ashmead, I can't see the benefit of joining the Carp Society. The only single species group I am interested in is the Pike Angler's Club

@yonny do you think that there are decent shelf life food baits out there? I'm convinced that some shelfies are as good as the freezer version of the same bait, RH Infusion, Crafty King Prawn, or even some shelfies being a food bait in their own right like RH KMG, where there is no freezer version. Solar did some, Seafood Takeaway was as good in both versions and for bait hardness I preferred the shelf life as a hookbait. KMG I took onto Alton and caught, and I am positive that it was not just down to the background feed (groundbait) as at times I simply could not spod groundbait at over 100metres, but could throwing stick boilies out that far. I think I have mentioned earlier in the thread about how Crafty Catcher preserve the shelf life King Prawn, a glycerine sugar syrup bath. The recipe is the same just the preservation, freezing or bathing. Going back to Tim's @newmarket new question, I have used the pale pink Krill and Garlic pop-ups, they are a match for the KMG in a colour that produces in the winter on the syndicate, (even better with around 5ml of garlic oil tipped and shaken in the tub) and a good top bait on snowman baits, BUT in terms of the Big Catch shelf life, I have not had any experience of baiting up with them.

I found that the threads turned on older Fox buzz bars after a few years. My mate couldn't work out why his buzzers would not stay straight. If you can pick up a set of buzzer bars that will fit the pod?

When I was rolling my own, I had to roll them before or after work. Shift times of 4pm to 11 at night meant I could be rolling bait in the morning between 9 and 12, or after work from 12 until 3am. 2nights fishing on my days off meant I could be arriving at the lake around 12.30 at night after work. Once I had the bait working well it did not get tinkered with, but I know what you mean. I got to the stage where I was making up a minimum of 10kilos of base mix every month.

Personally I think that the days of fishing a shelf life attractor bait as it stands are gone. I used to make a 450gram bag of Salmon Supreme, Honey Yucatan or Tutti Frutti last a few weeks, fishing every weekend. The only way I could ever get them to catch was to fish a stringer of 5/6 boilies with the hookbait. Prebaiting with them was a waste of time and bait. The way to fish now seems to be: A) fish over spod mix. B) heavily glugged or soaked hookbaits C) a and b together D) the few who still fish a food bait. It is a few years since I was fishing day ticket waters, Bromeswell was the last, and most of the fish I caught were on bright overflavoured pop-ups; pineapple and n-butyric or plum and my garlic spice and my food bait. There is one Crafty Catcher bait that I would happily take anywhere, the old King Prawn in shelfie or freezer. If I was on various days waters, I would also be probably fishing with PVA bags loaded with hemp and pellets, and quite possibly sticking with the bait I know. Even on day ticket waters I found the fish would switch onto the food bait at times in preference to the pop-ups.

No worries. The honest answer is I don't know anything about them

At least with the Carp Society you know it will continue to be run as a fishery, hopefully with the same 'neglected' but well-managed feel. A place I have wanted to fish myself since reading about it in More From the Bivvy by Tim Paisley.