salokcinnodrog

17lb with a rare view, still holding the smelt 23lb

First pike trip of the year, in fact this season, has started well with 4 fish. The 2 smallest are 9 and 10lb, but I have just broken the pike PB as well with a 23

If there are loads of crayfish, otters will often munch them over fish. I know a few lakes that we discovered otters on by crayfish claws and mussel shells appearing on the bank well away from the water line. The other predators for crayfish are grebes, catfish and eels. The cats and eels can actually get into crayfish holes to eat them. The most simple rig I suppose is mono fished with a simple knotless knot. I prefer to add a line aligner to even that. As I said in my first post, a mono hooklink, properly tied hook, line aligner and that lovely whipping thread or dental floss hair, tied to the eye, then whipped down the shank actually still works

Andy, Like you I struggle with a low chair, although I do find the recliner useful. Have you looked at the JRC range? https://www.anglingactive.co.uk/jrc-defender-chair.html

So much weed in front of me, hasn't died away. I did hear fish splash the first 2 nights, but the last 3 were quiet, although the coots were active. I prefer the cold to excessive summer heat, although packing up in the pouring rain was a bit much yesterday 😳

Crayfish and rudd, proper rig tanglers; anything with soft braid you might as well forget it. Use a mono hair with crays and risk it being cut off, although 25lb braid won't get cut in half. How on earth crayfish can find a pop-up above them and walk it down to the lakebed beggars belief. This is where coated braid or if the braid section is VERY short, a combi-rig comes into its own to deal with rudd and crays. Worse is when you can't use real bait and have to go wooden, even if you do go to a genuine meshed pop-up. For me that is time for the rig ring on the hook shank and a braid hair with a uni-knot loop to hold the pop-up. Saying that @nigewoodcock has seen crays flare up at carp trying to get the bait, although I've caught carp with the pop-up chewed or even totally missing.

These ones? https://rodhutchinson.co.uk/product/3x-enduro-carp-rod-12ft-2-75lb/

Rod Hutchinson did have some Enduro's on the Black Friday sale on the website. There is a link on Selling as a set of 3 I think, but I do know where there is an unused pair of 12ft 2.75's

Yes and no! I'm possibly a few years older than you and can go back to tying your hair onto the hook. I think that the knotless knot was a late 1990's idea, (I could be wrong) as until around 1994 I was tying hairs on with mono, whipping thread or dental floss, and using either biro, shrink or silicone tubing to keep the hair to the shank, and extend the hook shank. Personally I found that on some lakes or fish, a standard knotless knot rig could be ejected, but add a line aligner and the fish would be hooked. This was watching the fish at close range, seeing the pick up with the knotless knot and watching the hook and bait get blown out. The change to the line aligner put the same fish I had seen eject the rig on the bank. Instead of ejecting it, they couldn't deal with it and ran. If everyone is fishing the same rig, same length, or even same material hooklink then the fish will 'learn' how to deal with it. Add in how you feed, your baiting situation and you can change things in your favour. There are definitely times when you need something different from the normal. Pressured fish, particular spots or how you bait up may need you to change your rig.

Same view this morning, but what a sunrise. Still - 2degrees but beats being sat at home

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...

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.