salokcinnodrog

The bay

There are some decent braids around for mainline use that aren't mainstream tackle brands😉 You just have to double check every one first, getting other angler's advice and experiences. I think I paid £15 for 3 spools of the braid I have on my marker rod and pike rods. That has definitely been better than a major tackle brand braid I had been using

Forward this weekend to BST. Blanking can be a sad sign of winter, even if you know where the carp are getting onto them may be difficult, especially if other angler's are on the lake. I must admit I have not been putting much in recently while fishing, but a number of pike trips have enabled me to prebait a little bit with mostly Vitalin and maize. I know where there were fish on Saturday, let's hope they are still here today... A full day from sunrise until...

To be honest the only thing I would use it for would be on the marker float rod, or on pike fishing rods as mainline.

I think I could say in all honesty on Virginia that prebaiting was responsible for almost every fish. On Alton I am not sure, but have a feeling it may have given a couple of fish on first night rather than day 2 or 3. I wish I could say I had caught carp this year, but on the syndicate I joined in September I really had no idea where they were hiding over winter. Lockdown and no night fishing when we could get out again meant I honestly could not find them. For the past few weeks I have been trickling in a few boilies with Vitalin when I went up for a day's pike fishing. This week I did see carp, so at the moment I know where they are.

Or even with the Angling pressure on a spot! I used to have a very good spot on the end of the back channels at Taverham, once people saw me regularly catching from it, the spot got regularly fished and stopped producing. Another area, alongside one of the islands, a small gravel plateau just in front was also another favourite. The fish moved further out and down and stopped swimming between the plateau and the island.

A good 20mm from hook shank to the bait It really worked well on Nazeing Brackens pool; a quite heavily fished, even crowded at times, 2 acre lake with some wise carp, where you pretty much had to fish on gravel. Added to the running lead and I got proper runs. In 3 seasons I caught a number of rarely banked fish, including 3 30's. The only reason I stopped using it exactly like that is I moved onto the lagoons, and crayfish could be a 'mare playing with the bait.

I love and hate waters like this. Hate because it can be so difficult trying to switch them onto larger baits; I know you said bream and tench will clear up baited areas, will the carp push them off? And if you bait up with a mix of groundbait like Vitalin, and add 14/15mm boilies to the mix would they start to take them? It can be worth going in heavily with maggots, almost every fish will take them, but a Medusa rig, a Cork ball or piece of foam with boilies attached, either Superglued or threaded onto it can get attention. I did have a decent mag aligner rig, a fake maggot creating a line aligner, then a rig ring on the hair to attach a 'string' of maggots. The more maggots introduced and The bigger ball of maggots for bait seemed to produce bigger fish for some reason. Worked very well on one water in particular.

Don't think you want mine, I dislocated both shoulders playing American football. That and my knees... That is a beautiful looking place.

You will notice the smell reduces over time, so may not be as effective as new. Whether you keep them or not is down to you. Pellets, groundbait even boilies have a shelf life, including freezer baits. The oils in pellets and groundbait go rancid and can become repellant (even toxic) rather than an attractor. Anything you put in your freezer, is recommended to be used within a year.

Everything comes with practice, using a bait boat, casting, even playing fish. I fish waters where bait boats are banned, so my spod rod gets plenty of use, even with practice I still get the occasional miscast. It usually occurs when I try to rush a cast. Even on the reservoir, where bait boats were allowed, I preferred to spod bait out. A very good thing to practice is getting used to casting with the line clipped up, both with the spod rod and fishing rods. Something I do personally find useful is using just enough lead to get the distance. So say my cast is 100metres and I can easily reach it, or beyond, with 3oz lead, or just reach it with 2.5oz, then I use the 2.5oz. By adding a stringer or bag I should still be right on the clip. Loss of Aerodynamics vs test curve and best casting weight.

If you use a rig ring on the hook shank, with a line aligner and a bead to stop it, you can change hair length if required. This has been my version for years. Rob Maylin called it revolving or extending hair with the rig ring. It can be fished as a snowman (hence an orange Monster Crab pop-up as top bait) or bottom bait rig

Quite possibly because it was on my purchase history:

Actually comes under latest purchases, but got this for sitting on my bedchair https://www.ebay.co.uk/vod/FetchOrderDetails?itemId=303638460183&transactionId=1845725758020

In theory, the rig ring should allow the rig to reset itself. It may possibly be that the hook pulls could have been from fish which picked up rigs that had not reset after being ejected in the first place. The number of times I have seen fish pick up, move and eject rigs on semi-fixed leads with absolutely no indication at the buzzer still astounds me!

If you need a bait boat for medical reasons it is not cheating😉 If for the sake of using a bait boat it is... Even if you can't park behind the swim, being able to drop off the gear will surely help. That is something I do whenever possible. My gear seems to have increased now that my PTSD care dog (Sky) comes with me almost everywhere. She has her food bucket, which usually contains extra treats... I found that where I used to walk with Rucksack, rod holdall, bedchair and tackle box the ordinary barrow does make life a lot easier so I can be more comfortable with an extra chair, more water etc.

I'm not sure about all of Adam Penning's argument. Like you I've used various lines back to 6 or 8lb line for 20lb fish over the years. I've landed carp on 12lb through lilies, and 15lb line from snags. To some extent I think thicker heavier breaking stain lines encourage people to fish sometimes where they shouldn't. If you tie a bad knot, learn to tie a good one, check it, test it, something I do regularly. It seems to be a mix of thinking between pike and carp fishing. Pike fishing you CANNOT have any tackle breakage, a baited trace picked up, or a broken line is a dead pike. Whereas carp fishing, the carp can eject hooks even when well hooked. If they break tackle they must not have any 'extras' like leads or leaders to snag up as it becomes a death rig.

Pain, love it, it makes you know you are alive... 😖😳😉 Seriously it really is not funny, can be a real session killer, stops you enjoying it. I have arthritis in my knees, and a sore back, too much sports and probably not enough looking after myself. Sciatica down my right leg, from buttock to ankle, and my right knee especially can get very stiff and sore. Even walking Sky a few miles in the morning now hurts, but her welfare comes before my own. For some reason it seems worse in the morning than the evening! I have had to stop using tackle brand chairs, they are too low, and switched to a directors style chair, which just happen to be cheaper. If I can I do drive to the swim and unload, then put the car back in the car park, or as I did at Nazeing, fish 'car park' swims. I don't find pushing a barrow too bad for short distances, but anything over around 200metres and it hurts. Sciatica, I found massaging my right buttock and trying to lay flat reduces the problem a bit, as does sitting with hips higher than knees, so even at home a low sofa is not good. I'm more comfortable standing than I am sitting, but obviously everyone is different. I go through stages of needing painkillers, then none for ages. @Carpbell_ll I'd be interested in the diet you are with as if the red meat is a potential problem.

Tufty's can be very useful at identifying spots, although as @framey has pointed out they can be a pain if they are on bait. They do tend to feed on the same spots as carp, quite probably the same, as their usual diet is molluscs (snails and mussels) and insects. Bait for both just happens to be a sideline... On some waters I have been plagued by coots and tufties, getting continual pick-ups, then the next bleep becomes a full blooded run as a carp takes the bait. Yet on others if the coots are about the swim the carp aren't. I have watched coots suddenly surface looking spooked, and had a run immediately after, so it is something I look for. It may be pike spooking them, but it can be carp...

Loads of different answers on line, and as Ouch has pointed out, 'different strokes for different folks'. I have used and tested various lines over 35years fishing (really😳), and found some good lines, some awful lines that I couldn't get on with yet others liked, and others I know are overrated by angler's and manufacturers alike. Now personally I pretty much stick to 2 lines; Gardner Pro in light or dark, dependant on water clarity, P-Line Fluroclear which is a fluorocarbon coated line.

Leave them in the bag until you use them, either shelf life or in the freezer frozen. You shouldn't need to drill them, I recall Sticky baits were not particularly hard, and if you want to attach them to a rig swivel, use a loop of dental floss or hook link braid pulled through and bait stopped or lighter tagged and melted to the bait. Best baiting needle I have ever found is the Gardner braided hair needle. It goes through most baits, but does struggle with rock hard baits which I do drill before putting needle through the hole. https://thetackletavern.co.uk/product/gardner-braided-hair-needle/

You will or may find that smaller reels on heavier test curve rods don't balance very well. It is better to have larger reels than too small, and should you go to larger waters in the future, the reels will be right. I found on my 2.75lb Century SP's Shimano 4500's and 8010's were too small, so bought 10000's. Even with the DL10000's and 15lb line, my casting was limited to 90metres. (The lake was 100metres wide, so I'm sure on distance). I didn't like the Wychwood reels, I didn't find them comfortable and they felt 'cheap'. I would actually shop around and for another £10 or so look at Shimano Beastmasters. I love mine although they are 5 or 6 years old now. A baitrunner spool doesn't take much to get used to, I found it pretty easy. I honestly think that they are a better buy than the latest £100 plus Shimmy's. As I say shop around, but here is AD link https://www.anglingdirect.co.uk/shimano-beastmaster-xb-reel

Not really fill a carp up, it goes in one end, and straight through while continuing to eat. Tigers are also not particularly good for the carp, the only nutrition they can get from them is the surface, once they are eaten, either chewed, crunched or whole, swallowed, they come out exactly as they go in. Obviously most tigers are crunched and broken in the pharyngeal teeth. Tigers can be an addictive food, carp will eat almost nothing else if they are baited in large quantities, hence mixing up with hemp. For one litre tub of hemp, I have a handful of tigers in there. A single tiger on the hair, and a 5 tiger stringer works

In reference to tying rigs, is this any use?

First answer, bin the leadcore! Seriously if you use it, the ONLY safe way is with helicopter rigs. I experimented years ago, there really is no safe set-up I was comfortable using that was safe for fish if there was a break or crack off. Instead of having the line run through the lead swivel, get yourself some run rings, various makes, Gardner, Fox, Solar etc. The lead can clip onto them with a snap link or quicklink. Keep the buffer bead on, save the run ring crashing the knot. You can then leave the rods set up and just remove the lead between trips.