salokcinnodrog

I fish running rigs both with or without tubing. I tend to use tubing when there are things that can rub and frag the line down near the lead. The tubing protects the line. If the water in the swim is clear, block, snag or gravel free then I will fish with no tubing. I don't buy (😁) into tubing 'protecting fish', it was originally used to prevent tangles with softer hooklink materials, and is called anti-tangle tubing for that reason. I do not know which tackle brand it was who started advertising or promoting it as fish protection, but in over 30 years of carp fishing I have not seen mono line cut a fish or lift a scale. If any fish was going to have a scale lifted, I think it would be a big scaly mirror where scales are prominent. A common has its scales overlapping and smooth. If you buy Korum Run Rings, I seem to think they do come with silicone tubing to cover the link clip

Welcome to Carp.com. I have moved this into UK Where to fish section of the forum. I did have a quick look at existing threads, but as you said, there is no up to date information.

I live in Suffolk, near the River Gipping, and that is low and clear. Most fish are in the streamier areas, where the oxygen is higher. I have been up to the River Wensum in Norfolk a few times recently after I spotted a couple of large barbel in an unknown area. The mills and weirs are low, just downstream of Hellesdon Mill is very shallow, not helped by the mill having flow diverted as work is being carried out. The main flow is coming from the Tud downstream of the mill. We really need some consistent rain to get the flows going again, and we need the rivers to hold their levels rather than the pressure weirs just allowing any excess to rush out.

Excellent result. The nice thing is your thinking solved your problems and you worked out what to do.

I have had a Solar Sod Pod and have the P1 Pod. The original Sod pod is good, lasts for years, and still make money when sold, because they last. However as you said, stability with 3 rods is always a worry on a single central buzzer bar. The P1 pod has a wider double locking system, but you do have to buy the buzzer bars separately. From looking at the Worldwide compared to the P1, the difference is the legs are longer; I had already got longer sticks so I could make it higher. Quality of Solar gear is high, you know it will last

I went through a stage of having fluoro yellow, fluoro green, fluoro pink, orange, white, purple, or yellow as the fish in the lake I was fishing at the time would change what they wanted or would accept week to week or session to session. In one winter for a couple of weeks, the working pop-up was Green Zing, fluoro green, then it was Pineapple in fluoro yellow, a couple of weeks of popped up sweetcorn, then Monster Crab in orange on one rod, and Squid and Octopus in pink on the other, and orange Tutti Frutti produced the occasional fish. The Strawberry ice cream in red failed to catch, The Secret in purple caught a few, then all of a sudden halfway through a week session in winter, coloured pop-ups stopped working and from then on every fish came to Smokey Mackeral food source bottom baits. When I moved onto Nazeing I simplified my baits; Squid and Octopus (pink) and Monster Crab (orange) were close to the Smokey Mackeral in terms of smell, so I used them as the top bait on a snowman, and caught regularly on that, along with a dark red Garlic Oil and Spice combination of my own, used as pop-up topper or as pop-up. Bromeswell in spring last year, the pop-ups that worked were The Secret, and Pineapple Juice. On the reservoir last season I just carried my Garlic Spice combination, and fished that on one rod. If I caught on my food source bottom bait, (KMG) I didn't catch on the pop-up, and if I caught on the pop-up I didn't catch on the bottom bait. A few fish this year have come on snowman baits, a pink KMG pop-up over a KMG bottom bait. You can either get every flavour or colour combination going, and keep chopping and changing, until you find what works, although fluoro yellow Pineapple are a pretty good cert on many waters, possibly confusing the heck out of yourself, or just get a couple of pop-ups, maybe one to match your bottom bait and that pineapple, and have faith.

I'm not one for glugging baits or hook sharpening. My view is the hook is straight out of the packet, it is sharp enough. There is a but in there, I use Gardner Muggas and Solar 101's, they are sharp from the pack, and they will penetrate my finger, and the carps mouth. As for glugging or soaking baits, I have not done so in goo or other soak for years. I know my hookbait work on runs waters, and my harder venues.

The few trips after I have had after lockdown has been fishing over hemp with boilies. Around 5-10litres of hemp would go in when I arrived, and I would fish over it with boilies on the hook for 3 or 4 days. The only extra baiting up was done with boilies on PVA stringers.

I gave up believing the amount on the spools. On my 10000 Baitrunners I have loaded straight onto the reel spool. On my Beastmasters I have some backing line. Backing line is usually just 'last' years line, and then when I strip the old line off I just go as far as the backing. At some point I must have been sad enough to work out that a bulk spool spread across 3 reels and I loaded the original backing so that it filled exactly. That bulk spool will give you 3 reels, plus leftover, so you might as well use it at.

Stick to one water, preferably a fairly easy one. Find out what works. It could be pellets, particles or groundbait with a boilie on the hook. Stick to one rig, stick to one bait. I look at every single session, every trip, on every water. If I blank it is what am I doing wrong? If I catch it is what can I do better? In most cases we screw up our chances on getting into the swim. We pile bait in, sit on it, and have given the fish all the food they need to take their time to eat. The weather at the moment is warm, so warm that the fish may not be comfortable feeding. It can be better to just put out single hookbaits, maybe a small PVA mesh or bag. It may even be that right now the way to catch on some waters is floater fish at dawn or as the day cools down. In terms of rigs, a knotless knot rig will still catch most fish. Don't get confused with Ronnie Rigs, German rig, 360 or whatever. Put your rig where the fish are, you can find them. It may be that you need to go to an easier water to catch a few fish

I was going to make a comment before reading your last post, I'm glad I held back for a change😖😉 My honest answer is many rigs are sold just to sell more tackle for tackle brands, and confuse anglers, however you have a genuine reason for buying ready made rigs. I would still buy just a standard line aligned hair rig for bottom baits or D-rig for pop-ups. There are a couple of ways of attaching bait to the swivel: Put a pop-up or bottom boilie on a baiting needle, A pellet band through the swivel, then the pellet band through itself, then put the boilie on the band and stop it with a boilie stop. Or you could tie a pop-up to it.

As much as I like 'rare' shaped hookbaits, I do tend to just grab a boilie out of the bag and stick it on the hook, simply because I now get my bait direct from RH rather than make my own. I have caught on various specials; massive cube boilies, sausages boiled then cut into discs, boilie mix rolled flat and then cut with a playdoh cutter (Bart Simpson), cut down boilies, uncooked air dried boilie mix, then obviously the boiled brick cut into cubes.

I'm a Gardner Pro fan myself. Used it for a few years now with no problems

I did used to turn my own casters in the past, although 2 pints of maggots would only give me 1/2-3/4 pint. Your tinned products should still be good. I was watching a programme on TV a few weeks ago, a tin of sardines from the 1960's was opened and found to be still edible with no loss of nutrition or taste after scientific testing.

I was more interested in getting the fish to accept the bait, so wherever I fished they would be happy to eat it, pick up the hookbait. No matter which swim I fished I caught, all over the lake, I believe because they had come to accept my boilies as a food. Also I made no secret that I was using Trigga, but what I had kept quiet was I had added a flavour, (Liver Elite), taste enhancer and sweetener (Sweet Cajouser) and added extra GLM extract. My version outfished the standard version that was available as a freezer bait or shelf life.

Prebait what you can afford! When I was fishing Earith Virgina Water, about 20acres, I was only putting in a kilogramme of boilies every week. Ok, I had put in around 10kg before I even started fishing, but when I left every week I would put in a kilo over various spots in the lake. I was only fishing over stringers, bags and a few freebies, a mix of pellets, whole and chopped boilies, no more than 500grams at a time. Basically I was taking 3 500gram * bags of boilies, one for fishing with, and two to put in at the end, and a small bucket of pellets, around a kilogramme. * I was making my own bait, so always bagged them up in 500gram bags. Any extras would get airdried and after they were totally dry would get added to the pellet bucket or saved and used instead of frozen baits.

You might find that some of the single bleeps are actually fish bumping into the line before it is along the bottom, where it 'pings' as they catch up with it on their fins. Tench, bream, carp even pike can give liners. The other possibility is that at the longer range, it could be a proper take. I have had my Delkims give only a couple of bleeps at 100metres, yet the fish had moved a fair distance. Nylon monofilament at long range could well be stretched, under tension; you have tried to tighten to the lead, the line is slightly elastic. You will remove the bow, and stretch the line. The 'semi-tight' affect in my mind is you giving enough slack to allow the line to go back to the non-stretched state. At any long distance you want the line as tight as possible, and even with that, I think that at around 60metres, the line above the lead will be running on the lake bed (did someone mention catenary effect). Possibly, dependant on rules, you might find at distance, braid is a better bet, there is minimal stretch (around 1-2%). Undertow itself does not necessarily go directly against the wind, bars, islands and plateau's can change its direction, but it can definitely mess up your baiting and line lay. It can be bringing lumps of weed against the line, 'bleep', or moving the line and lead if it is strong enough.

Can you do me a favour please? Don't include swearing or inferred swearing with asterisks in your posts. I am asking nicely, because you can be banned for it😉 You will find a lot of new waters are like that, you have to earn respect. It can be as simple as offering the bailiff a tea or coffee as he comes round, or even other members, if you show willing they might give you tips that help you put fish on the bank. Acting like you know it all can be a way of winding other members up, and can get you straight into trouble. If you are catching quickly, then don't boast, but admit quietly you have caught a few. If other members know admit what you are doing tackle wise, even baitwise, BUT, don't admit to everything... Losing fish is not a good thing, nothing to brag about, it signifies a problem that you need to solve. I tend to go on a water with my own ideas, ways to catch fish, but advice from other members is always welcome.

On furlough to the end of July, and hoping I have a job to go back to

I just got a message from a mate, we have been invited up to have a look around when we can fit in with the syndicate manager. Glad I have been holding back on money while I've not been working. Saved up in case the worst happened and the hotel didn't reopen.

I would say yes, because I often use the marker to bait up to with the Spomb or spod. A mate of mine uses the Sonik Vader Carp Marker/spod rod. I have used it with a Korda Marker and 3.5oz lead for feature finding on the reservoir.

Welcome to Carp.com. The most important thing on any water is finding the fish. It can be a lot easier on smaller waters than bigger waters to find them. On 8 acres I would imagine you can see most of the lake, if you see anything showing get on it. That may mean just casting to them, or it may mean moving swims and getting to the right spot. Don't confuse yourself over rigs. Get faith in one rig, put it in the right place. The same with bait. If you have faith in your bait, fish with it on the hook, and just a small bag, mesh or stringer. No need to pile it in. Make sure you get best indication, and be prepared to watch the water and line. With helicopter rigs, something I have found, you may need to hit single bleeps, you might not get proper runs. The carp can move the rig a long way with no movement on your indicator, and if you are fishing with roller wheel buzzers it might not make any noise at all!

It may be the best sleeping bag, but I'm not sure on your food bowls😖😆😉 Sky always gets fed outside the bivvy, and her water bowl stays out there. Big dogs are such messy drinkers...😉 Looks pretty tidy that Mate, mine always ends up looking like a bombsite

I don't think it is just carp either, especially in the warm and dry East Anglian region, although river anglers are few and far between. I have spent some time on local rivers recently, and even the rivers are low and chub and barbel are hanging back in more oxygenated water, non-fishing weirs, mills and the like. On some stretches of the Gipping it is rare to see fish in some shallow flowing stretches, but this year where it washes fast over gravel that is often where the fish are. We really need some low pressure and steady rain.

I am using the Wychwood Morpheus 4 sleeping bag, but I do find it a bit warm in summer, sleeping in t-shirt and combat trousers, so I often just end up sleeping under a bedchair cover. In winter though, it is good down to -5, so with the cover I stay warm. They now do a Morpheus 7 I think it is. Another couple of alternatives are the Gardner Crash bag or the Rod Hutchinson All Season, although you are looking at £60 vs £120 https://gardnertackle.co.uk/product/camo-crash-bag/ https://rodhutchinson.co.uk/product/all-season-sleeping-bag/