salokcinnodrog

You just reminded me about an incident I had with one of the blue canister Camping Gaz stoves I had years ago. I put a new cylinder on, but must have made the hole too big, or it split as I screwed the stove on. I didn't hear any leak but when I lit it the whole lot went up. I had to kick that into the lake.

As I said, if you are happy with the pattern then good on you, but I would suggest that you learn to improve the sharpness, or use their (?) Kamakura extra sharpened patterns. I found, personally, Gardner Muggas (a curved shank pattern) and Solar 101's (straight shank) are sharp enough out of the packet.

Almost the same here. I don't know if you saw the pics, but in summer the levels dropped by 4metres on the bridge supports. Where my rods were in summer is now 2metres deep underwater and you are setting up 10-15metres further back up the bank.

I never use a bivvy heater, I would much rather have the clothes and sleeping equipment to keep warm, even in winter. I have seen too many accidents, from a sleeping bag falling on a lit stove, burning a hole in it while my mate sorted a fish, to a complete bivvy burnout and an angler needing hospital treatment for serious burns. I even use my stove outside the bivvy rather than risk fire inside. Even doing that I have melted holes in a groundsheet by taking a pan off the stove when I went to strike a run and putting it just inside the door.

That looks like a nice place, Enjoy

I'll stick an add on that, only change one thing at a time, until you feel you have got it right, the fish will tell you... Personally, I refuse to use Korda hooks as standard. I found they were not sharp enough straight out of the packet, and I missed takes and had a few hook pulls. I even managed to lift a 3oz lnline lead off the work surface with the hook point in my thumb or finger, it was not sharp enough to penetrate. The pics were on the forum somewhere. Yonny, I think does give his hooks an extra touch up with the sharpener, so he cures the problem I had with them. I use brands that are sharp enough straight out of the packet, that I don't have to sharpen

As Yonny says, Vitalin is good for pretty much everything, margins or out in the main lake. Seeds are attractive, but even though I use them, I think that there are more attractive particles; hemp, chickpeas, maize. The seeds are basically a filler to add to the Vitalin. As for Molasses, you can't overdo it, but you do get to the stage of how much you use is dependant on cost, and Vitalin doesn't really need it. For glugging boilies or adding to particles though, definitely.

Some more on the reservoir I'm fishing, that may or may not be relevant to you. While I have fished the main reservoir, I still prefer features; bays, structure, like bridges or the original stream culvert, inflows, even snags. Places where the water flow changes direction. An arm of the ressie may appear straight, but by walking it you can see gentle curves in the bank. Ardleigh is divided into two arms, but my fish didn't come from anywhere near the main dam end. If you can Google a map, I caught from Lodge Lane Ardleigh and Wick Lane dam where the road crosses. Wick Lane shallows up to 3metres deep, has a small inflow stream and an inflow under the road. Lodge Lane has a small bay where the bank takes two 90degree turns. A place where current changes direction. It was also the place where you got hit by strong winds coming down from the main reservoir. On Alton I have caught from a number of the bays as well as around the bridge. Obviously if your reservoir is bowl shaped ignore the above, but most are dammed as water supplies and take the form of the stream valley

Going back to spawning; even though the reservoir was closed until this week, the carp have spawned at the end of May, in at least two areas. One is the nature reserve end of the reservoir, where it shallows up and is fairly weedy, the other is near the deeper dam wall area, a small shallow bay. I was shown spawning footage, so good I was able to identify a particular fish to the ranger who showed me. Sorry, the only gripper leads I have used is the Korda ones. I found a few on the bank at the reservoir or round and about. They do grip, so I do tend to use them mostly for pike fishing to tether baits on rivers.

Just a couple of pretty simple rigs I use. The hair is tied to the rig ring, so I can change the length if I need to. I suppose strictly speaking not basic, but pretty simple. (Dave Chilton) Kryston Snakebite, line aligned and a sliding ring on the shank with a double 20mm KMG bottom bait on the hair. The second rig is a Kryston Merlin to Amnesia combi-link, again line aligned, sliding ring on the shank and a snowman 20mm KMG and a 15mm Garlic spice pop-up. While the leads are on run rings, because of undertow I do tend to fish tight lines

If it floats it is a pop-up, if it sinks it is a bottom bait. If it is neutral density then it is a wafter. At least that is how I look at it. I still say critically balanced though😉 Do check fake plastic baits are allowed. I know a few waters have banned them. My bait soak for wooden balls is Liquid Yeast, glycerine and the garlic oil with 1 or 2ml of Megaspice in there. I don't use much flavour, simply so it is not repellant.

It can be difficult to see a normal marker at long range, even with minimal chop on the surface.

Think you have just saved yourself from carp tax...

I saw Dave Lane fishing zig rigs with dog biscuits on Suffolk Water Park in swim 1. The swim is at the extreme left of the far arm, and he was casting to the left side of the swim, next to the rushes, and continually firing in mixers. The little wind and drift there was was pushing the floaters to the left towards the rushes. He had a number of takes from there, including the biggest fish in the lake close to 40lb.

That is very handy. A depth finder and prod sticks will be a very handy addition. You said the bailiff has caught from the deeper water? I found on some deeper waters if the surface layers are too warm and there is no wind chop, then sometimes the fish go down deep rather than up. I think Rod Hutchinson did write something similar about French reservoirs. Whether it is the water is cooler, or more probably, more dissolved oxygen in the cooler water.

I wish! Barrow for me, although I have been lucky and seen fish near the car park a couple of times, which meant just unload and go. I did actually bend the handles on one it was so heavily loaded! I know that Luke Moffat banned curved shank hooks at his lake in France as he was concerned about mouth damage; some big fish them! Korda, Caperlan and Atomic all do decent gripper leads, although years ago I simply put swivel leads in a vice and gave them a squeeze to flatten them. Or a hammer...

Welcome to Carp.com I hate to destroy your illusions, but a number of tackle brands all use the same factories to produce their gear, hooks are no exception. For example you may find Mustad make hooks for Atomic, Sabre, Nash etc, as well as their own brand. Many hook patterns have been around for years, and have come around from different fishing areas, fly fishing, sea fishing, but carp fishing for changing rigs and switching to the latest fashion...

A pop-up is not always the best bait for a zig rig, especially a bright yellow one. Looking up from the lakebed, any surface bait appears dark, black, whereas at the same level in the water you can see the colour. I have seen carp regularly caught on sweetcorn and yellow pop-ups turn their noses up at them, they totally switched off yellow baits. Also some flavours in high levels can be repellant, pop-ups can be in that level, or the flavour itself can be a switch off. A lake I fish you can catch carp on any colour pop-up except yellow; orange, pink, white, brown will all catch, but stick a yellow pineapple or an aniseed and bunspice, nothing. Another lake we used to fish over beds of sweetcorn, then the carp stopped getting caught over it, and totally switched off from Enervite Gold boilies. I suppose you can class a bait fished at mid depth on the marginal shelf in a metre (3ft) as a zig rig. I caught a lot of fish on them two years ago, a piece of black foam with a few plastic maggots sewn to it, or even just a plain sliver of green or black foam whipped to the hook shank. I even caught on 'zig bugs' fished on the surface with mixers around them.

I'm not going to be much help on the rod or reel as I still use my Century DD Big Bertha and Shimano Aerlex. However when it comes to line on it, I still stick to 15lb Mono, with a 40lb Mono Shockleader. I personally, have had braid cut a groove in the tip and butt ring of a spod rod. I have also found that because there is no stretch in braid you are more likely to crack off if you are hitting the clip hard.

Thing is carp pairing up is often males, no females in the area. The females move in and the groups of males then jump in. I have watched it, and in carp, as many are loners more so than most other species it is identifiable, especially if you know which fish are females. Male carp are, as most species smaller than the females. The grouping up can actually take place a week or more before spawning occurs, and if a cold snap happens, the fish would be waiting around. The best way to find out is the males (of most species) develop breeding tubercles, and apparently from research, the more prominent the tubercles, the more chance the male has of keeping his mate, although you get 'chancers' On Nazeing Meads Brackens Pool a few years ago I caught a male dripping milt, I got it straight back, yet that year they did not spawn, a cold wet snap put them down and they did not spawn at all. The males stayed grouped together until late July hoping almost. Again pike can be the same, a few males pair up before the bigger females move in, she may be courted by more than one fish.

Most of the time the old closed season March 15th to June 16th covered the tench and carp spawning times, although occasionally they would go through to the end of June or early July. Possibly the only fish it may have missed is pike, which I have seen spawn at the start of March, even the end of February in warm early months. If you think about it, almost every species of fish in UK, we want to catch them at their heaviest weight, so will be fishing right up to spawning times, including pike. This year I stopped fishing for pike when I noticed I was getting males chase the females in the margin as I was netting or returning them. One of the fish I landed was 2lb heavier than her autumn or winter weight, she had recovered from a cormorant strike, not long before a mate caught her, the scars and markings were a match when we checked pics. She had obviously fed up, enough to heal and build her roe up. This is where Yonny and I disagree on fishing during spawning times, but I do understand his views. One of my Ardleigh carp I caught while fish were spawning in the reedy inlet to my left, the fish I caught came from the deeper water around 50metres away. Had it spawned, or was it going in there? It wasn't an empty fish, no 'spawning scars', although long term battle worn. Again at Taverham I watched fish spawning on The Meadow area, yet there were fish who weren't Meadow fish, at their end of the lake still feeding. I would think the best choice is close off swims that can reach the spawning areas when the fish are there, but then again, if the lake is fished by numpties at any point, or those who don't know shutting may be the option. I have seen fish spawning, emptying out, and quite literally within hours are feeding heavily again, at the other end of the lake, or even munching their way through their own eggs. Some fish are always 'footballs', that is their shape, the strain or mix that they are. Look at Italians, often dark, but massive gut. Get a mix of strains in a water, you get Leney scale pattern for example, but with Italian shape. Dinks or Dinkelsbuehl carp are also gutty. I started this reply, but Dayvid made another post in meantime, so I'll do a quick edit. 16.11 in Nazeing normally weighs 45/46lb. A couple of years ago she had dropped to 36 in July, she had emptied out totally, and was caught just after. By September she was back up to 45lb.

Better to be safe. If you don't think you can fish to them safely, then you are doing exactly the right thing, trying to draw them out. Fishing to snags, as @Carpbell_ll has said, you need to be set locked up, and on your rods. No leaving them unattended! I prefer pointing the rods directly at the snag, no bent round tips as that can be enough for the carp to pull the rod over the alarms and take it into the drink. The theory is not giving any line, the fish arc away from the snags on the take.

Yes it does mean you can see some of them. Uncaught fish often show up at spawning time April is unlikely when they spawned, larger and deeper waters take longer to warm up to the temperature carp need to spawn, so even now some may not have spawned yet, and if the carp are area residential, they may not be ready. Not every carp in a lake spawn, although @Levigsp has written about an exception, or they do not spawn all at the same time. The exception is if new male fish have been stocked into the water, the next year all female fish will spawn. I must say though, and I am not disagreeing with Frank, but in a large reservoir it would be difficult to prove that. So if not every fish in a lake spawn, there are some that can still be fished for! In fact to be honest I am not totally sure of the need to close a fishery when fish spawn, other than to stop anglers casting into splashing bundles of spawning fish. Some aren't spawning, some are munching mates fish roe! In fact it is likely carp seen splashing in April, could well have been eating perch, roach or other fish spawn that do not require such high water temperature. Not all carp appear to spawn in the same area, although there is often one feature that provides the right environment, be it rushes, lily beds, overhanging waterside grass, then most will spawn there, but on larger waters like reservoirs then there may be more than one spawning area. Pretty much as soon as the major spawning is done, fish go on a munch, energy and protein hunt, protein for tissue repair, and energy as first requirement. Carp may also spawn more than once if the temperature is warm enough. As soon as they are emptied, the body starts producing eggs again, so they can go off again.

Something else that works as a zig bait is real or fake maggots on the hook or foam, but real can be a pain if you have loads of silver fish in the water. Using real maggots is not that hard but can be fiddly. Using a needle thread them onto a length of dental floss or fine mono, and then attach that to the foam or cork on the hook. Spraying a few maggots over it with a catty, or even floating maggots in groundbait... You get some real hits on that! I do prefer using adjustable zigs to keep the hooklink length shorter. With the adjustable zig I work from surface down rather than bottom to top.