salokcinnodrog

Most definitely a through actioned rod for dealing with that surge close in, you want to be able to 'feel' the pressure you put on and a through actioned rod definitely does that. Personally, I would go for a 9ft in 2lb or even 1.5lb if you can find one. While fishing close in, you get always keep back from the bank, and unless you are jungle fishing, fighting through undergrowth, the longer rod is a better choice for me. You don't even need to think of necessarily rods described as stalking rods, there are good alternatives. Stalking rods are often 'carp taxed'. An Avon or Barbel rod with those 1 1/2 or 2lb test curves makes a very good stalking rod. For years I used a 9ft Spinning rod, my current incarnation is a barbel rod. My stalking goes from freeline floater fishing under the rod tip, to lowering bottom baits in at my feet to a gentle flick out with a float. I have landed 20lb carp on an Avon rod with 6lb line, not once feeling outgunned, although playing it away from lilies was a bit hairy😖 This is where the extra length comes in handy as you could be fishing in 6 or 7 feet of water, and casting a float set slightly overdepth with a 6ft rod can see you struggle.

Don't know if you remember my comment from years ago about being able to splice 25lb Kryston Merlin, I think it is possible with a number of braided hooklinks. The only difference in my case was the only knot was to the swivel and it was through the eye of the hook, but I reckon you could Multi-rig with any uncoated braid over 15lb.

Do you remember Kryston Supersilk? Until I got worried about its diameter and possibility of cutting fishes lips and stopped using it, I used to stain my Supersilk hooklinks in tea or coffee, although it does take on the colour of the silt on the lakebed.

My Mrs moaned at me summat terrible when I made some Trigga with Liver Elite. She reckoned the smell was so bad it woker her up at 1am in the middle of the night. That is the main reason since then I have mostly bought my bait ready made, although I do still make the occasional batch. Garlic and Spice is not too bad, but Monster Crab would have got me killed...😖

I bought the Att dongles to go onto my Delkims years ago, must be 10+? I'm sure I had them when I first went onto Nazeing in 2008, so they have lasted. The receiver lasts at least a year on a single Eveready or Duracell AA battery, however dependant on use or type the dongle batteries will need changing around every 3 months. The GP batteries don't have a good life, the ones I got from Maplin were a whole lot better, sadly Maplin😖 I know this goes against Emmcees opinion, sorry, I have found the ST Delkims with the dongles worked for me, and I know it is a common judgement that Delkim TXi's had water ingress problems for a few years.

I have never 'worried' about hooklink colour. I put worried in inverted commas as although I often do use green or camouflaged hooklinks, it is down to my preference for the old Kryston hooklink materials which just happened to be available in those colours. Merlin is a black, white and green mixed colour braid, I use it straight or as part of a combi-link over weed, gravel or silt bottom. My coated braid is Mantis in dark grey or Snakebite in green. Again I use them over all bottoms. If camouflage gives you confidence, then go with it, a confident angler catches more than someone who does not believe in what they are doing. Going back to your hooklink braids, weed stems can be green or brown, even red tints on some. Gravel is never just brown, it can be yellow, grey, or brown. Even softer lakebeds like clay have different colours from lake to lake, area to area, county to county. Some are a blue grey, yellow brown, red, or red brown. About the only consistent is silt, it tends to be black, or dark brown.

I've not done much that is 'carpy', other than the going into work straight from an overnighter, but I did have showers at work, and always spare clean clothes there. My cup, that gets washed, can't be dealing with caffeine or tannin stains, and I'd much rather not get funny guts. The beard thing, not for me, a weeks growth of stubble is about my limit, and it is probably 20 years since I last wore any of my earrings, although I know the holes haven't closed up. Must admit my car is a tip though, normally got my bedchair stored in there, but is full of dog hair where Sky sits in the back. Oh I lie, I may have proper carpy roughing it:

Close and lick, sorry, lock the thread since you can't keep civil

Yonny, I agree the NHS will be overwhelmed, but because of previous mismanagement, and our insistence on using A&E as a walk-in treatment centre, because we can't or couldn't get a GP doctor's appointment. The call for 250,000 retired staff, that has received 400,000 replies, that number of FRONTLINE staff should still have been working for the NHS, instead it was an excess number of administrators, managers and accountants who were kept on. Doctors and nurses weren't being trained, teaching grants and bursaries were stopped. Money was being spent on non essential services, or diverted into those. Equipment that for years, that should have been available wasn't. There weren't enough stocks in storage, of face masks, of oxygen tents, ventilators. They hadn't been ordered, they weren't in warehouses or NHS storage distribution centres. Local hospital storage departments being closed down and used for other purposes. (An example of this is in Ipswich; St. Clements mental health hospital was closed down and moved to Woodlands in the grounds of the main Heath Road Hospital. Woodlands had been the storage centre for the hospital for extra equipment, for face masks, extra ventilators etc) Every year since the Swine flu outbreak in 2009, the NHS was being overwhelmed between November to March, seasonal flu. Our insistence that every minor ailment, or minor symptoms needed to be treated at hospital. Nurses and doctors left the service, they were fed up with being second class citizens, having to go through four managers to fight for equipment they wanted or needed. Coronavirus is not giving the vast majority any symptoms worse than a common cold or flu, some do not even know they have it. No symptoms at all, or maybe just a slight cough. The symptoms are the same as flu, a temperature, feeling weak or aching, possible headache, possibly sneezing and coughing, real Man flu😖 Things that you know you have flu, but don't bother going to the doctor for, just buy Lemsip, paracetamol and ibuprofen and carry on, maybe taking a few days off work. Now every one of those symptoms is seen as having coronavirus, and is inundating the NHS 111 service. It is a tiny minority who get anything worse. That tiny minority, yes, they should be treated, and yes at hospital. Yes, they should get oxygen, any treatment they need, but most coronavirus sufferers can be treated and cared for at home, by relatives, family, as they should for flu. Strangely, this is what lockdown is achieving, going back to your household caring for you when you are ill. It is however skewing figures, how many ill at home people now are coronavirus or flu sufferers? We don't know, not everyone who is ill is being tested. We are now doing, by Government decree what we should have been doing for years, helping our household, rebuilding family ties. Families or households are now going out as a unit, walking the dog and kicking a football along, cycling or running around the park together. We also have another point, coronavirus deaths, yes, they are happening, to people with underlying conditions, and to people who have sadly contracted flu and coronavirus at the same time. The cause of death or it being reported as down to coronavirus, yet it was a horrible fluke they had both. Cases have been reported as down to coronavirus, no underlying health issues, yet as I mentioned a long way earlier in the thread, no mention is made of the 10 cigarettes he smokes every day. No mention of the croup that damaged the lungs when the child was between 3-15. No mention is made of the working environment or breathing in polluted air every day, that has damaged the lungs. The projected figure by Scientist is 1,400 deaths in the UK will be directly attributable to coronavirus, that is, suffering from no illness other than coronavirus, no underlying health conditions. That is far less than the average each year from flu which can be as many as 17,000, even with the flu jab! Worldwide every year, flu is responsible for between 250,000 to 650,000 deaths. Is Lockdown effective? I still say no. We can still pick up coronavirus while doing our essential shopping. The person we don't know has coronavirus in the shop, who sneezed, up to 3 hours ago, and droplets in the air infect us. The social distancing? An uncovered sneeze can travel 4metres, a cough for 3metres. You are not going to get coronavirus as you pass someone on the pavement, yet that is the impression the 'forcing' of social distancing is giving everyone. It has created another horrible side effect, people no longer even smile or talk as they pass in the street, whereas people who were total strangers would chat when they walked their dog. The speculated date that coronavirus came into the UK was 24th January, yet China only went into lockdown on the 20th January. Many, many travellers had travelled between China and UK from before December when the outbreak in China was identified and declared. Travellers who had gone across Europe, via France, Italy, Germany, the rest of Europe, or even into America, Australia.

Hold your tone back. I'm making a point about something I don't agree with, not just for me. You ask the question, about a close one, I have. My Nan, 20 years ago, respiratory failure, caused by pneumonia. In hospital, on her own, none of her family able to get to hospital. My Nan, who looked after me for a year when my parents split up. My Nan who always encouraged me to be myself, who I think knew about my differences and autism long before it was common knowledge Lockdown in Italy, Spain has caused deaths, and will do so here. Lockdown in China, included boarding up houses with people still inside. How many have symptoms? How many is it minor? The actual death rate is no higher than seasonal flu. The massive majority of coronavirus deaths are down to underlying conditions, not just coronavirus. Have a read https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic/?fbclid=IwAR0zd7Z58ZlWNoCdvf-znZucDfoPxtifjPHLV6KWUEGusR6AS91FGQ1eCSQ&__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=da2a01441f8e89b0e32174750da068c9c5b2f6a0-1585215005-0-AWZUUXAz81BD3TbhcIWoNUCeAxkPUlBhWVhNJuOZtL59uS4v_25V0v407TuMp4I4gA8YBPjqEyI_Qvv6LLrFFMezfBBhRtJ6IkFEnEZGoK7FP0oPGx-6w5gxIyNXxKzH8E-_upnT0DhB-HliiSdUpKl0cpa0FIstQd7ppMUidiowLKUyz2PCsYUO3E3Us7UIfm0BNLxsVy_Hvda3DC3ArSBzMGBEuM4fauTSssMi7D_pGE4t3p9mcnlJSibsJrSnnZN6jBH1qNk2F4euDAisF2lr06dsmFIGRwCTcE3JS-JWEPwMJevtVUjqJtDQTkqbz0y6pMCOuj5v8_ugl0tL9_Xtk2U-OdyVoCgTn_-bSxghJ7gzyBFcAJNXAI3vgjsEd-z8rKim9I19AXgphNcdU4KMaXSj0J8LhzkcJ3bMqDedHEt22Dj7Hy6YoH5TBy4E7Q

This lockdown, only going out for essentials. If I was bivvied up on a lake, as I was supposed to be this week, I would not be going to the shops at all. I am going to have to go out to top up my electricity and gas meter cards from the shop. Mr or Lady shop worker has coronavirus, but no symptoms, or a person who is also on essentials run, coughs or sneezes in store, the virus is in the droplets that hang in the air, for up to 3 hours. I have no symptoms, but I do have a smokers cough, my own stupidity, I'm also sneezing plenty at the moment as I keep getting moulting dogs hair up my nose, although I do still cover my face when I sneeze or cough. Add to that, how long do you think you are infectious for? Even with no symptoms? The answer will surprise you, 2weeks after you have recovered, your spit may still contain infectious traces of coronavirus, but you are infectious before any symptoms show. So the total time you are ill, plus 2 weeks after, and some time before. Add to that, the incubation period, nicely put by the media as 2-10 days, but studies have shown that there have been cases of up to 27 days. There are many people who would be totally isolated, bivvied up on a lake, camping out in the middle of nowhere, or in their mountain hut. Coronavirus has been in Europe a lot longer than the forecast date of 24th January in the UK.

You wouldn't like my answer if I give you some figures from some research. Coronavirus is only going to contribute to 1,400 deaths in this country 'more than usual', that is those who have just Coronavirus. The massive majority of deaths are down to underlying health conditions, not just Covid-19. Those who have had 'no underlying health conditions', nothing about the chest infection that they had 2months ago, and still has not totally cleared, nothing about the 10 cigarettes they smoke every day, or the croup they suffered as a child that damaged their lungs, or the fact that the majority are elderly who would have died from their body being old. Lockdown in many cases, is contributing to some contracting the virus, and even being unable to get medical treatment or care.

@oscsha Thing is though Mate, try explaining to people what essential is. What is essential to them is different to you or me. To some Sky Sports is an essential, yet to me its not. In fact Sky full stop is not. (Other brands available) Essential shopping, any biscuits to me are a luxury, not essentials, yet to some they are an essential. Is coffee an essential? Not really, I could drink water, but my shopping always includes coffee. To some people the only way they keep fit is playing golf, they don't jog, or cycle, their daily walk is a round of golf, however many miles it is around 18 holes. It is their essential. You can't change somebody's perception on what is essential. You can explain blue in the face I don't need coffee, I would argue otherwise. Even the government can't explain essential if to somebody what they are doing is essential to them. Essential to keep your fitness, so people go where they have been keeping fit. To them that means driving to the park where they go on their 8mile mountain bike trail, or driving to the park where they try to beat last weeks time round the track. Walking their dog, yes, they can walk their dog around the pavements on the street, yet to some it is essential they go somewhere with a big open space, drive to the park. It is essential I walk my dog, for at least 6/7miles a day, AND she has to go out round the block for a wee as I live in a flat with no garden. I'm lucky, going round all 3 of the local parks I can just make 6 miles, but I have to be out for at least an hour with another walk to come later, yet strictly speaking I am going against government essential time of 1hours exercise.

I'd agree, but to some people their 'exercise fix' is cycling round the the reservoir. That is where they always go to walk their dog, or run... To them it is essential. No essential travel, so a golfer buggies his clubs up from Woodbridge or Melton to Ufford...

Sadly we still have idiots jogging in groups, or walking dogs together around the local parks, or they were when I walked Sky this morning. Every time I saw someone coming I simply changed direction, zig zagging my way across the park with her. She got let off the lead inside the old tennis court enclosure on Chantry Park in Ipswich.I saw one woman with her dog off the lead, as another dog was playing her dog ran up to play as well. She had to go retrieve it, and was most definitely within 2metres of the owners.On my way back I had to go to the local shop, still some items out of stock, breakfast cereals and bread, so to find essentials will have to go further afield.The golf course and hotel at Ufford Park where I work is totally closed down and the 'essentials' chosen. Even though officially on holiday I have to go do the year end stocktake then I will be on furlough. Yes I am peeved I can't go fishing, it would be total self-isolation and I did argue the point on the Alton Water Facebook page when they closed the Anglian Water Parks before the AT announcement. I'm also willing to bet that local residents will still be walking their dogs around the reservoir, even though it is supposedly closed. It is such a size you would need constant ranger patrols around all 12miles of footpaths!

Not many pike come out at night, but there are occasional captures, especially on full moon and at tail end of season. Never freeline, it gives too much movement of the bait and can lead to deep hooked fish. I actually go to 'fixed' leads (sinkers) on my hook trace, around half an ounce, and a 2oz paternostered lead on a weak nylon link, then I can fish a sunken float or surface float. The other rod tends to be ledgered (paternostered), with a floating or popped up bait. Pollan (a type of fish) float, or I use balsa or cork to pop the bait up.

In the £100's at least.

Solar P1 pod, you have to use the Solar buzz bars or something of the same diameter. I do love mine, it gets used almost every carp trip, but the buzz bars not having threads can be annoying if I don't need a pod as sometimes I do prefer a goalpost buzz bar set-up on softer banks. On the stony banks of the reservoir it is a godsend though.

I have a plain mesh weigh sling and a retainer bar type. It is often easier to use the plain mesh sling than the retainer sling, it is easier to slide the mesh under the fish than lifting it over the bars on the mat. With the retainer type you need it open on the unhooking mat before putting the fish on.

The big mistake was doing it in front of other people. Trap it, cage it, then 'remove it' later as I believe the law allows. Justice at the moment is on the side of greenies in most cases, with one big exception of HS2. There are some organisations who receive 100% help from CPS, some of which is totally misaimed. I have seen the RSPCA get prosecutions pushed through for very dubious cases. I find it maddening that the UK Wild Otter Trust or any other nature group has no figures on how many otters there are in the wild. You can pretty much guarantee that we know nationwide approximately how many deer there are in any particular area, yet we don't know how many otters.

Delkim ST alarms with Att dongles and receiver. Century and Rod Hutchinson Rods, both with Shimano reels, TFG Oval brolly and Overwrap, Fox landing net, Solar P1 pod, JRC bedchair, Wychwood sleeping bag and a Carp Porter. Whatever suits my fishing, any camp...

To start with I would be sitting in the gap between the two trees under the name of the lake with a pair of binoculars, watching the whole of the lake, 10.9 acres is not that big, then I would walk the lake, finally going back to that original spot for a few minutes. Then if there were fish signs I would move round to them. The hard part is that day ticket fisheries you rarely get the chance to move onto fish, but the bonus is that the bailiffs should give you an idea of where the fish are.

You might find this thread useful:

Followed it up with another 12lb fish

Been having a few pike trips this year, nothing special until today. A ledgered pollen produced a 20lb1oz fish. Hadn't been out more than 20minutes