salokcinnodrog

That line lay looks ok to me to be honest; I've definitely seen worse. The spool itself is probably narrower central diameter at the back than the front, leading to the what looks like forward tapering. I gave up on worrying about loading line on reels. I found the easiest method for me is to put the new line in a bucket of water, and wind it through the butt eye on the reel section only, slowly, reeling in between thumb and forefinger. DO NOT reel in fast, take your time. It does not always come off the line spool off the front, sometimes it unreels. It may appear to be twisting, but by going slowly you are pushing the twists up the line, where they unravel. Baitrunners by allowing line to come off the reel under tension create and cause twist, as does playing fish off the clutch.

Carp often have specific areas they hole up in winter, year after year. It could be silt beds, near gravel bars, natural foods like bloodworm beds, or even next to snags, decaying lily pads or rushes. It is most definitely not always the deepest water, I have seen them in rush beds with only just around 3feet of water above them. They were only visible if you got into the water right next to them, you couldn't see them from any swim, although you could cast to the edge of the rush bed, and catch. In winter I rarely fish with any particles, maybe some very over wet soaked Vitalin as groundbait and nearly all boilie as my feed, although sweetcorn can produce a fish or two. I also reduce my stringers; instead of 5-30 bait stringers, I go to only 1 or 2 (14mm) boilies on a stringer with a single hookbait. One rod nearly always has a hi-viz or hi-attract pop-up as the bait, and I recast this regularly, trying various spots and various baits. The obvious bright yellow Pineapple (in its various forms from different manufacturers) works sometimes, as do others, Monster Squid, Scopex, Plum or my own version pop-up Garlic and Megaspice, which I describe in the Bait Making section. I really don't know what it is, but that mix produces a lot of fish as an individual pop-up, or as part of a food bait mix. Even in winter, the food bait will often work. I have described in the past a session I had years ago on Thwaite. For the first two days the high attract pop-ups produced, then for the rest of the week all takes came to the food bait I had been feeding sparingly since the first day of the trip after no other prebaiting through the year. On Earith back all those years ago I found a swim that produced fish every trip, although because I was catching other people did start fishing it. A little digging around with the marker rod, I found a swim with similar topography at the other end of the island. I went on to catch from here as well. My pre-baiting on here was as I left every week after a two day trip. I put a kilogramme of boilies in as I was leaving. Every take came on my good source bait. Despite trying a few times, the high attract baits did not give a fish. I wish I had known about the Garlic Spice mix then! NOT all takes will come during the day. As much as fish may be caught during daylight, I found some fish still fed at night. I have caught a lot of fish at night, even in winter. My biggest common at the time, from Earith, was caught at around 1am in February. Saying that though, my best winter session 4 fish, over 4 days, just after a thaw, every fish came during daylight. The only reason I fished at night was the distance from home. Earith Winter February 25lb common:

That is exactly what I do. Put the front legs to the right setting and height and leave the back legs folded up.

I remember a Shaun Harrison article where he tipped some 'rancid' particle away, the fish and geese cleaned it up. Now personally, when it comes to my chicken corn, I actually prefer it slightly off, or left for a few days. I soak it for a few days before boiling it, then once boiled leave it for a couple of days. If it has been soaking, I would actually boil it as it stands!

I'm positive that Halibut pellets are attractive, I have seen them sit uneaten in an area for a month or so, in fact I put pictures on here. It was in fact in an area that fish visited, until the excess of pellets, when they avoided the spot for ages after. The excess of pellets 'killed' the lakebed for a while. To some extent 'non-attractive' bait is tested, because of curiosity. Is it a possible food item? As the legend Rod Hutchinson said "if a stone is covered in flavour, is fished on a short hair and sucked in, then the chances are you will hook the fish". Some spots are 'natural food areas', some are 'baited food areas', some are both. Fish on areas that are 'baited food' areas may become wary on that spot, testing every bait, be it particle, pellet, boilie, or even groundbait. Fish feeding head down snuffling or troughing through groundbait may be sucking in just groundbait, not any boilie. You want a bait that gets fish feeding on everything, hence our experimentation with various additives, when to be honest, I have found nothing that matches liquidised worms and maggots. 'Natural' extracts?

My big worry is obvious. On a serious note with molasses, it is very attractive, high in sugar, carp and other species love it, but without checking I wouldn't know what pH level molasses is? It would probably mix very well with molehill soil and chopped worm

Without eggs? try this

Thing is with any bait, boilie or groundbait, you have to put it where the fish will eat it. My favourite groundbait for years was a very simple mix of chopped and liquidised worm, molehill soil and plain brown crumb, with maggots or worms on the hook. There is no point in adding anything else as the salt in proprietary groundbaits kills the worms, including the chopped pieces. I have tried various liquidised ingredients in boilies, squid, liver, maggots and worms. If you do use them, you don't want too much in there. A mix of squid, maggots, and liver with some semolina works, and going over into

To be honest it is not the teeth that are a problem with using forceps or long nosed pliers to unhook them. I don't like using a glove, so as I unhook them by putting my opposite hand and holding through the gills I catch my fingers on the gill rakers and end up with 'raker rash', which bleeds more than a tiny cut should. I

Must admit I don't have any problems with Mainline Polaris pop-up mix, but I don't often pierce my pop-ups I do normally tie them on. The alternative I have found is screwing them onto bait screws or threading Amnesia lighter tag melting the tag ends to seal them. I have had more problems with corkball pop-ups (and I have made my own with finely sieved base mix), small fish and crays will take the bait off the corkball, leaving you with nothing on the hair. It may also be I don't want overly buoyant pop-ups that lift up a hook, swivel and another swivel. I want mine pinned down on the hookshank and weight (olivettes or tungsten beads in shrink tube). My pop-ups are buoyant enough to lift a size 4 B175 or Solar 101

Rock hard banks, struggled to get a bankstick in at all. Mind you we aren't tackle tarts like carp anglers, not even matching rods...

Well it is pike time again, so its resurrect an old thread This mornings view and the result of a day's pike fishing. 15lb (and a bit) last gasp fish came as the sun set and took a headless joey mackeral on the pike float.

I used to make baits and not boil them, but simply air dry. They do not last as long as a boilie, but can be a good bait. To use them on the hook you will need to drill them, and even then some will split.

There are loads of hi-attract flavour combinations around. Pineapple and N-butyric acid is probably the best known combination, but I have faith in a few of my own, one of which is Another combination I have used successfully is Eucalyptus Oil and Cherry Flavour, along with Cinnamon Oil and Peach, both have worked well. You could try Iso-Eugenol and Orange/Jaffa flavour. You will probably find some of those are quite similar to some well publicised pop-ups.

@crusian, through a couple of pm's made me really think about my fishing. I struggled for a couple of years on Nazeing. I was catching occasionally and big fish closest to my largest fish, but I never really felt on top of what I was doing. This year was a total change, going onto a large reservoir where no-one had really carp fished, no-one knew what was about, so it was all new. Plenty of walking, looking a few times 'camping', but over the year I have caught more fish, and more 20+ than in the previous few years. Even with no 30lb carp this year, I would say it has been more enjoyable; from the scenery over 350odd acres, to the catching of probably uncaught fish. Fishing has been mostly on my terms. From two days of mostly sleeping, to two days of watching. To prebaiting and catching, to learning.

Agree entirely Mate, although I dislike using them unless necessary. Think this pic shows how necessary it was in this swim.

I've mentioned how much I dislike using leaders for carp fishing, the risks of jammed leads on lead clips, lead not releasing etc, and why when I do use leaders I use a large bore run ring that can get over any leader knot. This morning I had a run that felt funny from the off, same spot I've had a few fish from, eventually got it free and landed another high double. This is what it did to my leader, lucky to have landed that one. I have lost a couple, broken hook link twice, so reckon they had rubbed over whatever.

I've got a bucket of chicken corn and hemp soaking ready for boiling tomorrow, once thats done I'll sling a kilo of KMG boilies in it, and since I've swapped shifts on Saturday from late to early, I can go prebait and walk the dog round the reservoir for fishing Sunday until Tuesday. As I said it has been taking the carp two days to settle onto bait. The 28 was excreting chicken corn and hemp shells all over me last week, so maybe prebaiting a day early will give me first night results... Thats a hope, I'll probably blank now. Not been the nicest weather for camping or catching my last three trips, wet and windy. I've had rain blowing under the brolly, so this week the overwrap came out of storage. Needed it as well, Monday night was weird. 10pm it was blowing heavily with absolute monsoon rain from south east, and I caught. By 11 it was calm and clear, could see the moon, then at 2am, windy as heck again with showers and I caught again. In fact, I haven't caught unless it has been persisting it down with a decent blow on the reservoir. I've found a decent wind with rain some of the best autumn to winter conditions for years.

You mean what I do most of the time?😖😆😉

It is a difficult one to gauge about moving. At the moment on my water my fish are coming on the second night over the bait I put in on the first night, although that may be skewed as the weather has changed and really gotten windy and wet and blowing into my spot. If I move I could be starting from scratch. If however I caught on the first night, and then saw fish the other side and nothing in my area, I would likely be upping sticks. I wouldn't be upping the bait amount when I'm fishing, I think baiting on top of them, especially boilies, can put them off, but you really need to know the water. If I see fish, I tend to fish up to them with stringers or single baits.

The honest answer as you have already said is every lake is different. I'm also not sure that naturals do decrease in winter, carp feed size swan mussels just dig deeper into the silt, and carp don't expend so much energy digging them out. Bloodworm I think increase in numbers, but I may be wrong. If you are starting to catch, you are getting it right, so keep on. If that is an increase in bait while it is still warm, go for it. If it means dropping down to single hookbaits try that on at least one rod against what is working. Autumn and Winter are actually the times I do catch more I think from memory. I don't add any liquids to boilies as such, they go in as they are. When I have prepared my particles I drop in some (shelf life) KMG boilies that go in when I arrive onto my spots. My hookbaits, stringer or mesh boilies go in straight out of the bait bag, although I often mesh my hookbaits in tights or vegetable wrap, (what onions and other vegetables are sold in from supermarkets). Signs I look for; that is always a difficult question, but showing fish; rolling, splashes and big bubble or silty cloudy patches of water are a start. Even flat water in ripples can be a fish. I have also seen 'shapes' under the water when looking down at the water from above.

We have come a bit off topic of just rigs, but just as an example this is the rig, the exact rig, hook etc that caught me four fish from the reservoir. I have made the comment in the past about hook sharpness; if they aren't sharp enough out of the pack, then don't use them. Get a brand that is. You can see how much abuse that has taken as the coating on the braid has been well rubbed and the point no longer looks sharp. The hair was the stripped hooklink braid long enough for 2x 20mm boilies, straight out of the bait bucket fished hard on the bottom around bridge supports.

Don't necessarily think of a rig as just a pop-up or bottom bait rig, although the Ronnie rig is pretty much pop-up only. I have used both the D-rig and Multi rig with bottom baits. My standard 'bottom' bait rig can be used as a pop-up rig, just by using a shorter hair, tying the bait tight to the rig ring, and adding a pop-up weight. I can use the same D-rig, Multi rig or bottom bait rig for snowman baits. On heavily stocked lakes it may be that there are not enough freebies around your hookbait, that could be pellets or particles, or groundbait. With a pop-up it could be that fish are wary of picking a bait that is 2inches off the lakebed. A single or double may recognise its not nailed down. A 20 or 30 may not. The kicker may or may not be the problem, there can be a difference from water to water, area to area on hooking fish. On one water I fished a standard knotless knotted rig failed to hook fish. I had to add a proper line aligner to hook them. Just lengthening the tubing on a straight shank can create better hookholds, a bent or curved kicker is not always necessary.

I use the plain Fabsil, either spray or tin. In my case it is always done on the bank when fishing. The spray is two cans per bivvy, or a tin is enough for brolly and overwrap. I use a brush, but have heard a sponge is better.

I can get 2/3 boilies at a time around 80metres in anything other than a headwind. A stick does have an advantage in that you can put in around 5 boilies in at a time rather than just one, so it can be faster than a catapult! Straight or curved, you have to find what works best for you. I can use straight and slightly curved, but get some of the more severe curves and I am baiting the margins or my feet...