salokcinnodrog

Bigger hooks give better hookholds, but I would not be using massive hooks for fish to only just going double figures. I tend to use size 4's myself, but, most of the fish I catch on my big fish waters are 20lb+. For fish only just maybe making 15-20lb tops I would be happy to use 8's or even 10's. My baits are also relevant: Double 20mm boilie on a size 4, an 18mm pop-up or a snowman of the two. The bigger hook also sits better on the Ronnie rig with a very buoyant pop-up.

Just ask a rabbit...😖😆😉

Not noticed any difference in times the leds stay lit for on my original Delkims. (Would be the ST version in current parlance I think). They are paired with Att Dongles and receiver and I use Solar Titanium indicators with them. Can fish them mega tight with the arm screwed right tight, or with slack lines if I loosen them off. Biggest problem with mine is they don't go off often enough...😖😁

Jobs going well, thanks. Finding fish is tough on Alton, can't be too obvious of where I'm fishing, so long walks and minimum of gear for trips, but it is still two carries to the swim as I need plenty of bait and dog food for Sky. Last trip I 'forgot' my spare unhooking mat and chair. Sky sometimes sleeps on the mat rather than the ground, and the chair is just a pain to carry, even inside the mat, so I have been sitting on bucket or across the bedchair.

Very few of the fisheries I am interested in have toilets nearby, well unless I am fishing near the cafe at Alton, which is rare, too obvious and open. Nazeing I did often walk up to the public toilets at Dobbs Weir. Even Sky tries to bury her own, in the undergrowth, she will not go on the path (or pavement) unless desperate. She has more decency than many Eastern Europeans! Talking of things forgotten, toilet roll or baby wipes is one I make sure I never forget. Baby wipes can also be used to help wash up after cooking, so are always in the rucksack. I also keep a bag with toilet roll in the car. Oh yes, I did manage to forget my rucksack once. Of course that houses clothes, cooking equipment, rig bins and scales.

Its normally a bucket hidden in an out of the way place, then buried. The baby wipes go in my bin bag, which is put into the bin at the venue. If I can't bury it is bagged and binned. It is a pet hate of mine seeing excrement and bog roll on the bank, and Eastern Europeans have been leaving that mess around. You can tell if you have been Eastern Europeaned! I have been contacting my local council about the mess left on a park lake, which consists of toilet roll. Not a nice place to walk round.

Yonny and I may disagree on some things in fishing, our fishing is different, however when it comes to hooks we agree. Test your knots, make sure that they are tight, but don't bend the hook. You can feel the 'flex', before they bend, that is to the maximum it will go. Some hook patterns will not bend, they snap first. If a hook has bent, replace it. That is from your testing or from as occasionally happens, hitting and catching a snag. As I said earlier, get a pattern you trust; test them before you even think of tying a rig you fish with. Check your hookpoint, make sure it is sharp. Again this is where Yonny and I have different views, I use hooks straight from the pack, he prefers to give them a rub up to sharpen them to extreme point. Whichever you prefer, check it every cast. Some waters blunt hooks overnight, the point just dulls and is not as sharp as when it was cast in. If you turn a point over, don't straighten it, change the hook. Keep things as simple as possible. Most rigs are fashion, catching more anglers than fish. On most waters you do not need to complicate the issue. Get the fish to feed comfortably around your hookbait and they are more likely (in most cases) to get hooked. If you drop fish, or don't get runs when you think you should check and change one thing at a time. Hair length, rig length, even how much you feed; Increasing the amount of food may be the answer instead of changing the rig. Instead of feeding just boilies, add particles, groundbait or both to see if the fish will stop picking individual items. Maybe if boilie fishing, instead of just a single bait or stringer put in a hundred boilies or so. One kilo of groundbait is the same as one kilo of boilies, around 250 boilies I guess, but is concentrated on one spot. The boilies spread out. A kilo of hemp or pigeon conditioner is more a carpet than a kilo of boilies. Lots of thoughts to think about, some running through my head in no fixed order, so this is slightly disjointed, sorry.

Years ago for me it was making needles and monkey climbers, an adaption on my original Gardner pod to take my monkey climber bar, and spods. The baiting pole or even permanent marker sticks shouldn't be a problem while there is such thing as plastic conduit.

Personally I think for most fishing a simple knotless knot with a line aligner of silicon or shrink tubing and a decent hair is the best presentation going. I rarely worry about Chod rigs, and I definitely DO NOT use them anywhere near weed; they can give delayed or even no indication, something I have personally experienced, leading to lost fish, which when fishing for fish over 30lb is not something I care to be doing. Bomb on the end of the line set-ups, commonly known as helicopter or chod rigs most definitely can lead to fish making it away to snags with just one or two bleeps, over 30metres away from where they picked the bait up when fishing at 100metres. A knotless knot is simple to tie, and I pull mine tight with they finger hole on my forceps, putting the hook on it and pulling the hooklink tight. I use that rig for bottom baits, and snowman baits. If I want to have a proper hair with a snowman bait, I put a bottom bait on the hair, and tie a pop-up to the end of the loop. It sounds more complicated than it is. I do sometimes tie the hook on, and have a sliding ring on the shank, with movement limited by a hook stop. To this sliding ring I tie a hair with whatever bait I want, double bottom baits, snowman or even a pop-up. If I fish a pop-up specifically, I normally go to a D-rig with a ring on the D to tie my pop-up to. Hooklink material: in weed I normally use braid, fished inline with a 'zipp' shaped lead. I rarely get fish caught up in the weed, it slides over the lead. I do NOT use lead clips at all. I've fished for big fish, over 30lb, and all my 20's and 30's have come on fairly simple rigs. More anglers are caught by rig fashion than fish! My personal best fish (a river carp, over 28lb, NOT my largest fish), was caught on two 18mm boilies on the hair, on a braid line aligned knotless knot rig. My largest fish over 30lb (and other 30's) were caught on that sliding ring on the hookshank. I was tying the hair length to suit snowman baits. I am sure that there are pictures of my rigs around the forum, definitely in rig section😉 Rig fashion is dictated by tackle companies and media to convince you to spend money. As for hooks, I found Korda awful. They would not hold their point, were blunt from the pack, and the Kamakura (?) was an attempt to change this. I have pictures of me lifting a size 6 on the ball of my finger or thumb with a 3oz lead attached, lifted off the desk, it did not penetrate. A mate and I fish together, I borrowed one of his rigs, tied exactly the same as mine. I was getting bleeps, but no runs. I put my tied rig on the spot, within minutes a hooked fish.The hook he had tied with was a Korda Kurv, mine was a Gardner Mugga. I do not think it a coincidence that a rig cast to exactly the same spot with a brand I knew (and trust) caught me fish. I only trust a few brands as being sharp enough out the pack; Gamakatsu, Gardner, Solar 101's, Kamasan B175's or the ESP. ESP Cryogens are supposedly even better than the older T-4 and G4 patterns I used.

Get a decent brand of hook. I have landed 10 fish on ESP hooks when I used them years ago, although I check the hook before every cast. Also, a run and 'lost' take does not always signify a dropped fish. It could be a fish trailing line that gives you a run, which as you pick up is nowhere near hooked, just lead or line running over your line. It could be a hookpull; maybe the fish weren't feeding strong enough to be properly hooked. Possibly your rig (and/or hair) was too short. Change one thing at a time. From what you have said, fish were not feeding (or comfortably) where you were fishing.

Vitalin is a dog food, but this dog food is basically the perfect groundbait. In its own right it makes excellent groundbait to fish the Method. It is perfect to ball up and throw in. You can pour prepared particles into it, mix it together well, so the Vitalin only just takes on a bit of juice, leave for 30 minutes or so, then make particle/groundbait balls to throw or catapult in. You may have to play around until you get it right, but you will soon find out how much Vitalin to add to particles. It does cloud up, and breaks down on the bottom from a ball to form a carpet.

You really don't need to add anything to particles, they work after soaking and boiling au natural. Adding things in is a current fashion. I can honestly say chilli hemp has caught me no more than standard hemp, soaked and boiled pigeon conditioner catches no less than pigeon conditioner soaked with salt! If I add anything to particles, it is usually at the 'groundbaiting' stage, as I mix Vitalin in to ball it or spod it in. With the Vitalin I add molasses, maybe a bit of condensed milk. Particles work with ANY bait, be it birdfood or fishmeal or any other base mix type. They even work as a hookbait in their own right. Stick some particles in a wrap of stocking or tights, tie it off and attach to hair. One thing I will say, sometimes fish will get pre-occupied on particles, and avoid boilies, I have seen it happen.

It has limitations. You can only prepare small seeds in this manner, pigeon conditioner, chicken corn feed. If it contains any seeds larger than hemp it must be boiled as well. The other thing is that just soaking these small particles is not as attractive to the fish as soaking and boiling.

I suppose so, but even though I may be a field tester or sponsored angler, I still fish for me, not for my bait or tackle deal. The bait or tackle deal comes from being able to do what I do, so I carry on doing it. I don't 'have to' keep my name or pictures on the social media, and every fish is worth a smile.😉 It is the lack of smile that annoys me; be happy, show your emotion, get a record of it, because life comes and goes. Sometimes being able to see what happiness you had can save your life, makes you realise everything is worthwhile. Being a grumpy guts in pictures, why? The dedication to chase, pioneer on waters or catch a particular fish is hard, and when it comes to a particular fish I fail miserably. I prefer to be on bigger waters putting my time in alone or with a close mate who thinks like I do, who has the same motivation, where we can communicate our spotting of fish, share success or failure, but my fishing time I do really prefer alone, so for me it is the (genuine) new water, or pioneering where I do best. I think that although it was run by the owner as a syndicate previously, my catches on Earith Virginia Water were used to publish and show what was in there by Ian Jones. I was in the right place at the right time, with a good syndicate owner who happened to be writing Cambs Uncovered for Carp Talk. Not just his water, but a lot of the results from waters in the area were in that column, but my name regularly made it in there. That is what got me my bait deal, but continuing to catch from Ardleigh when it was still new, and then straight onto Nazeing with some big fish helps.

Not sure about the 'bulldog licking pee off a nettle' shots, 😖😆, they always strike me as doing it only for the numbers for their latest sponsor. If you are only chasing numbers, then I think you are in the wrong pursuit. I've been there, done it, as many 20's in a season, have to beat my largest fish etc, and realised that there was/is more to it than that. I go fishing to relax, enjoy my time off work or the pressures of life. Sometimes my fishing trip is almost all sleep for two and a half days, other times it is work hard looking, baiting and chasing. Some of my trips are with a Mate, but most of all I enjoy time on my own with my dog. I enjoy the being away from everyone. I struggle to deal with crowded waters. I prefer to be out in the boonies, away from everyone. That really does affect my choice of waters. I can't deal with local club waters, which are crowded almost every weekend, even if I do fish from Sunday to Tuesday or Wednesday. I like being able to hide out on a big open water, as much as I enjoy catching big fish. Beating my largest is no longer the priority it once was.

Do not put salt on hemp as you soak it or it will not split. Add it to the water after boiling.

Strangely enough you may well find one 'big name' angler prefers to fish the gravel bars, yet another prefers the silty areas. Both may well have caught 'that' special fish from their chosen area. I would never claim innocence, I have used various methods to get baits in place, swimming, bait boat or boat, (although not for over 20years), wading, or casting it. We all have different strongpoints, and probably a few weaknesses. The hard part is working out what works for you, within the rules (!)

Angling is never a level playing field; time, money available to spend on equipment, even transport and rules other constraints can mess things up. I can give you a simple that I use though, a 1oz lead sinks approximately 3feet (1metre) per second. On my local reservoir I use this quite frequently to get a rough depth when counting my feeder and lead down. I have 'double checked' my counted estimate with a marker float, and come up with the same reading. I have watched fish feeding, what happens when you can get up close can be very different from the same fish who don't know you are there. By that I have sat in cover watching carp, and I'm positive they knew there was a 'predator' about. Yet watching the same spot from high up a nearby tree, the carp fed comfortably, clearing the area rather than backwards, forwards, in and out. Now we all know the Korda team did the 'Under the Water' dvd's, yet they created a 'predator', an unlifelike situation, a blooming camera in the environment that is not normally there. Were the carp (and other fish) behaving normally or not? I have mapped various lakes, some physically put onto on paper, some physically recorded with marker and mentally remembered in my head. I have pictures from Google Earth with features showing, distances of casts to features of one lake. Some lakes can be googled and pics like that will appear! Strangely that comes to your next point of interest, weed. Weed is a brilliant one, it can grow over your lines in a day, it follows the sun, it is a food holding feature, it is cover, and weedbeds can be travel routes. I have seen weedbeds where the fish have 'tunnels' through it. The carp (and tench) will go through these tunnels under the weed.

I don't think one method of feature finding will find everything. Even gravel bars often have a layer of silt on them, which a Deeper may not identify as a bar, just as a shallower area. Strangely enough there are some lakebeds I really know well, some features that marker floats and leads are extremely unlikely to pick up, years of experience, getting out onto the lake with a boat or swimming. On Taverham, one of the island gravel bars has a trough that is around 150mm deeper than the rest of the bar. Fish use this slightly deeper line to swim up from the depths to the island margins, checking it for food as they come. Another swim has a massive great flat topped rock, standing proud of the lakedbed, with nothing around it except weed. A marker float or leading around is extremely unlikely to find these features; it would be quite difficult to land a marker, followed by fishing end tackle on the rock. The ONLY way to find these is by going out to them and seeing from above, boat or Deeper. Yet to identify a gravel bar or patch as (silt on) gravel may require personal eye visual or a marker float and lead.

At the same time, I do like the heavier pod as it increases stability. Going lighter on some equipment is not always the way forward.

Two of the people blocked are known fish thieves, stealing fish from waters to put in their syndicate lake. They even boasted about it on FB, and the EA, local club and council are involved investigating them. Don't forget I don't just carp fish, so while I don't mind helping bream and roach anglers, or other carp anglers (in private), it is the lazy carp anglers who are just going off other peoples efforts.

I have a standard P1 pod, I wouldn't change it for anything else. I can fit longer banksticks to raise the front or rear.

Phil, at the same time, look how effective the bent hook rig was. Elmo's rig is on those lines, difficult to eject.

Put it this way, a few people on Alton's Facebook page have been blocked from seeing my posts. Pictures have been from all around the ressie, not just where I was fishing.

Not always so healthy, bacon sandwiches on Tuesday lunchtime, although porridge for breakfast was a bit better. (Prepared and eaten in saucepan). For a session of a couple of days, I can keep a pint of milk in my coolbag, although I do have to have goats milk. Ages ago we had a Bankside recipes thread, I do still like decent cooking when I'm fishing. I can't live on Pot meals, and 2/3nights is roughly what meat keeps for in the bag. Onions, peppers even mushrooms will last that.