salokcinnodrog

After working another early morning breakfast shift at Honington I managed to get to the lake again for 9. Todays result was just the 2 Jack's, reckon 5lb tops The outflow is very high, so I fished the sheep fence swim. It is still weedy, and the wind is blowing it around.

As @yonnysays, any big pit reel will cast the distance as long as the reel is big enough. When I had my Century SP's twinned with Shimano DL10000's, the maximum distance I could cast with 15lb 0.35mm line was 90metres. Put on the Beastmaster reels, a big pit baitrunner on the spool, the distance went up to over 130m. There are ways to reduce line twist, and one simple one is DON'T play fish off the clutch or drag, use the back wind. Not sure whether it is just me, but I also think lead clips can cause twist, a reason why I prefer run rings, which are not fixed to the hook link swivel.

Facebook seems to have taken on all the keyboard warriors. On any post on a topic like HuffPost insults get thrown. I've actually had my account restricted in the past when someone insulted me and I responded by calling the person's post stupid and meaningless. Even fishing posts in some fb groups get 'queries' on fish weights, not the "are you sure that weight is right?" but real digs. There are some very good Facebook groups I am a member of like the PAC, Chub fishing, roach fishing, but most others run personally are not worth the effort.

You will get loads of different views, a Delkim vs Fox argument and probably each answer is right and wrong😅😉 Personally I bought a set of Delkim St's back in 2000, I'm still using them. I have a mate who likes his Delkim EV's. The Delkims St's still keep popping up on the ebay, at between £50-80. I have 'borrowed' a set of Gardner TLB's to play, nice alarms, but I think the ATTS are the current version.

I know the area, it is a proper fishery, right next to a Carmelite monastery, not far from Banham Zoo. You can be sitting fishing and nuns walk round the lake. Can't remember the fence or stile.

Stalking at Quidenham Mere

I've read through this, and with a couple of exceptions, it seems like we are all fishing gravel pits. What about other lakes, ponds or even meres? My current lake is a proper lake, mostly clay/silty lake bed, with feeder stream running in one end and out the other. Other than an old Causeway it is nearly all softer lakebed, with loads of weed. The spots I have found have not been in the weed, but have been rich in Bloodworm, depressions in the lakebed, or alongside rushes, proper Norfolk Reeds I can't claim any fish, so far it is theory, but I'm sure the causeway is not the best hard spot, it is down to finding spots the fish are currently harvesting

That 10lb pike from the double take has put on weight, I had it again today at 12lb. The twisted mouth and scar on the back was the give away. Caught this time on a dead roach. I also had another Jack. The jack was lightly hooked and the hooks fell out in the net. Mackeral tail for that

What about RH DMX range? I've got RH The Ones as well as my Century NG's and in terms of feel The Ones, although a lot cheaper, are very good. The current DMX rods also feel very nice. https://rodhutchinson.co.uk/product/dmx-mk1-rods/

I would get one base mix and stick with it. I don't know how good Trigga is since Bill Cottam left Nutrabaits, but personally I don't have the same faith in the company I used to. Solar Club Mix, not bad, but Monster Crab is a Rod Hutchinson boilie as well, available as a frozen or shelf life. I keep some selfies handy as despite the stink, they are a top bait. You do not need much flavour, stick to the recommended maximum, or even go lower.

I have a mate who had a habit. He used to spend most of the day monged out in his shelter. We fished the same waters, while he was smoking, I spent time looking and figuring. He got so wound up with me catching regularly. Eventually his habit and not catching he sold all his gear, including the stuff I gave him. Eventually he managed to quit. It has cost him thousands to buy new gear, and he still refuses to get into carp fishing like he used to.

Just thought , Fox do a range of their Rage Warrior rods in shortened lengths for boat fishing

Rod Hutchinson often explained something similar about the carp using gravel bars as the routes across gravel pits, and the silt in between being the feeding areas. Day time may be the time to fish on gravel and night the time to fish off them. The day is an 'inquisitive' take, night is a feeding take. RH also mentioned that the carp may hide in lily beds and weed in the day, occasionally picking up a bait, and again coming out of the weed to feed properly at night.

Again at Taverham, I spent a lot of time out in the boat or wading. The most productive spots tended to be small gravel patches, even harder margins, not the biggest bars or plateaus. These gravel patches were not true bars, often being no more than the size of a dinner plate. One of my favourite swims was a tight corner swim looking to an overhanging tree with gravel under it. The productive spot was not the gravel, where carp would often pick up every free bait, leaving the hookbait, but a grubby patch next to a fallen branchless tree stump. It was the route into or out of one of the back channels. Brackens on Nazeing was a lake where for some reason you had to fish on the gravel if you weren't fishing the margins. If anyone has ever seen the lake empty, the gravel bars often rise vertically from the lakebed, no slope. You simply could not get a take from the deeper silty areas. I think that some gravel bars are 'roadways' rather than actual feeding areas. If there is bait on it, you may get a pick-up, but carp are more wary and inspect everything, whereas in the silt adjacent to it is where the food is.

I definitely think there is something with garlic. It is the base for one of my most successful pop-ups, Verselle Laga garlic oil bird food liquid. It does also get used in a bait soak with liquid yeast if I can get hold of the yeast. Rod Hutchinson KMG I do believe stands for Krill, Mackeral and Garlic, and I have had a load of fish on that.

10? She's a Husky, make it 20... I should convert my barrow!

I think that 'no night fishing' is my problem as well. I have the motivation to walk Sky dog every day, but that is just about it. I've got plenty of bait ready, boilies and Vitalin in cupboard, ice cream tubs full of prepped particles in the freezer, so bait isn't an issue. Walking to the park with fishing gear and Sky is a pain, although I would have run that far with it as a kid! It's not like my pike gear is much, just a Rucksack of gear and deadbaits and my rod sling, but is so much easier to drive... Which doesn't exercise Sky...

I did split the topic, if you need the link

I know that feeling. When I fished Taverham in one swim I always used to stick a bait on the corner of the island, and the other in a bay just on the side of the island, for years it produced loads of fish to me and most others. Nowhere else in that swim produced. Bruce and I had a week there, stalking and surface fishing during the day, rods on alarms at night, which being as I 'knew the swim' was to the aforementioned spots. After 5 blank nights, I was fed up, being rained on and just chucked 2 rigs to the lily pads to the left where the swim shallowed up. I had 3 fish within minutes from a spot that had not previously produced.

I very rarely gamble. I used to stick money I couldn't always afford in the fruities in the pub, which while I won a number of jackpots, meant I rarely did more than break even. I can't remember the last time I went inside the bookies. Liz and I occasionally used to make a night out with a trip to Romford Greyhounds, even then we gave ourselves a limit, and never used the track side bookies.

I've struggled with motivation recently. Furlough from work is doing my head in, putting me off doing anything. Saying that I have put fresh braid on my marker rod, and my pike rods after weeds and mussels fragged it, and respooled my carp and spod rods. I don't fancy spending silly money for a day ticket taking the 10minute drive to Suffolk Water park or Hintlesham, and the syndicate is 23miles away. I could get the pike rods out on the park lake now its thawed, might do that once the car is MOT'd tomorrow. I can always walk there.

I know what we have all said about prebaiting in winter, but if you do know the location of the fish, it might be worthwhile trickling a few baits in. I have written about this session before: Years ago I used to fish a lake called Thwaite, which in winter often produced the occasional fish to bright pop-ups, but you did need to mix and match, until you found what they were after any week. For some reason I couldn't get to Nazeing and had time off between Christmas and New Year, so I spent a week on Thwaite. For the first couple of days, once I had found the fish, every take came on hi-attract pop-ups, but I was feeding my usual food bait, probably around 50 boilies every day. From day 3 onwards I started catching on the food bait, I seem to recall it was a 15mm hookbait with around 5 freebies on a PVA stringer. I ended up with a good number of decent winter fish. It was a proper winter session, freezing temperatures at night, and a cold rain almost every day, just warm enough to stop it freezing over. On the occasional day trip to the end of the season it switched back to finding the right bait on the day, pop-up or even sweetcorn as I wasn't still baiting regularly.

I've managed to knock a centre spindle off true and break a handle on one of my DL10000's. For the cost of them I was not happy. The older 4000/6010 Baitrunner reels definitely better quality

I use a multi rig for pop ups now, quite happy with that, just think a nice simple d rig would work well enough as a bottom bait rig They do work as bottom bait rigs, I used to catch a lot of fish from Taverham on them, although for some reason I started using pop-ups more often, and found as a pop-up rig the presentation was perfect, especially with 20lb Amnesia. I don't like the extra metalwork either. You are almost committed to a pop-up whereas a standard D does work as both.

No, never, it is not my basic pop-up rig, I don't ever use them, they don't work.... 😳😅😋😉