salokcinnodrog

Welcome to Carp.com. I prefer to use my local tackle shops, very rarely do I use online. Particles I can dive into Gladwell's. I can always find an excuse to go via the tackle shop. The exception is my field test stuff, bait and tackle, which I get direct from the manufacturer.

Seen carp, hooked a few while fishing for other species.

Well I finally have a long session arranged on my large Suffolk reservoir, from Sunday until Thursday. Got plenty of bait to take, I think it will be a case of bait and bring the fish in, bream onwards to the carp. I can seriously see 40kilos of Chicken corn and a bag of Vitalin going in with a few kilos of boilies to get them to feed. 375 acres of water, of which in the past 2 weeks I have walked around a few times. I've found some hidden swims where carp have shown with good features that I can hide Sky and myself in. The weather I think is due to break, some rain forecast in East Anglia from Saturday, should see the fish get their heads down at last. What are you plans onwards for this weekend?

You can get loop tyer to get your loops all the same length, think its Preston and Gardner who make one suitable for hair rigs.

Must admit as Danny says, pre-tied rigs made by tackle companies do make me wince, but if the need is there... My reasons for disliking them are multiple. Biggest worry is what if I lose a fish on them due to a bad knot or hook? Who do I blame? If I have tied the rig it is my own fault, whereas if it is tackle manufacturer it may not be my fault. Next thing, what happens if the rig is not quite right? I can shorten rigs, cut them at the swivel end, and reknot it to the mainline swivel. However I can't lengthen them. I can add an extension to the hair for the bait, an additional loop for a snowman, adding a pop-up, but often can't shorten it I do have around 25 ready made rigs, that I have tied myself, in rig bins. I tend to design my rigs for the water I am fishing, so one rig bin contains Bromeswell rigs, one contains Nazeing rigs, and one will be Alton rigs. The fact that I use a revolving ring on the shank means I can change hair length, lengthen or shorten it. I do have rig tying nights at home; every hook is checked, every knot is tested. I found tying at home means I can do things at my leisure. I found tying on the bank means I may make short cuts, not check something properly.

Use silicon tubing instead of shrink tubing. You could use a plain uncoated braid or even mono for rig tying. Easy enough to know exactly how much coating you need to strip on coated braid though.

The lightest possible that I can still cast the distance. Normally 1/2-3/4 of an ounce, maybe an ounce if the undertow and waves are quite strong.

Big Dave and I were at Alton Water today, he had the lions share of the skimmer bream while I was catching mostly roach. 30 fish between us 50/50 skimmers and roach. Best skimmer 2lb and some larger roach of about half pound. Most bream coming less than 10 feet out. Lots of good bites from the start but couldnt hook them. Changed tactics and left the bites to go until almost pull round and we were hooking skimmers, although the roach were still giving tip taps. 2 red maggots best bait fished over a vitalin mix groundbait.

It wasn't cast at showing fish, but one of my favourite fish from Brackens was a 2 tone heavily scaled linear. The lake rules are no free bait can be put in by catapult or throwing stick, the only way to put free bait in was with PVA. I put in a load of my 'BIG' stringers, there is a picture somewhere of one, but I think it was 30'ish casts of 30 bait stringers. Within 10 minutes I had the linear at 28lb. That is just after plenty of disturbance, those stringers with a 3oz lead made plenty of noise. To be honest, I was baiting up for the night, not expecting a take in the middle of the day. On the same lake, it was a small lake of 1 1/2-2 acres, if fish showed or rolled, it wasn't worth casting at them, they were very aware and would disappear. You could however land on them and get some pretty quick takes within minutes of casting.

As Elmo says, that is a whole lot better. One thing I will say: DO NOT fish a helicopter or rotary rig where the lead can detach. It is the lead being on the line that allows the rig to come off the other end. Just noticed something else about leaders; I don't usually fish braided leaders with a loop, I prefer to use a needle knot it makes a smaller tidier finish that anything and everything is more able to slide over, but the no swivels joining leader to mainline is very sensible.

Welcome to Carp.com. That is very ambiguous wording, covering everything and nothing. A rotary/helicopter or chod set-up, if you use a swivel to tie the rig to is NOT attached to the mainline, it is free running within its limit, able to rotate, so definitely not attached. As you have said, the normal attached swivel a join is from hooklink to the mainline. It is the swivel that is the connection between the two. The simple answer is to tie your mainline to a quicklink or a ring and attach or tie the hooklink to the other side. A run ring or lead clip will go on the mainline as usual, but if you use a run ring make sure you use a decent buffer bead to protect the quicklink. As for swivels on leads, you do know you can cut them off? They work better without them as well😉

Believe it or not I would only add 10ml of fish oil into a kilo of boilies. I don't think oils in baits are as effective as other liquids. They are beneficial on floaters, and in small amounts in your groundbait, but I don't think provide as much attraction as water soluble liquids.

What do you consider a showing fish? A full leap, rolling carp or even massive patches of bubbles sheeting up are all forms of shows. In fact you can add the carp sitting with their backs out of the water. Sometimes leaping, rolling fish shows or bubble patches are carp feeding heavily on a spot. Other times leaping or rolling is a carp just moving through an area. I've cast directly (with a 3oz lead) at swirls, convinced it was fish flattening the surface, and had takes. Other times those swirls are fish flicking their tale and moving away. If I arrive at a water and see any show, I try to analyse it. On some waters leaping fish will just swim straight past so I will try to get ahead of them. On others it is indication of fish stopping to feed. My best winter catch came to what I thought was a show. The water was chocolate colour, with meltwater pouring in the inflow so strongly that near the inflow you could not hold bottom with a 3oz lead. I walked round the lake, saw a flattening of the surface in the ripples, so set up on it. I've heard other anglers say cast past it, reel back onto the spot and let it drop, but by the time I've done that I've lost it. I tend to watch the spot as I'm casting, so naturally aim for it; whereas casting past I would be watching the lead and end tackle, then try to reel back to a spot I've not been looking at.

Yes Mate.

Boot was on the other foot today at Lemon's Hill on Alton. Dave had 2 roach, I ended up with 12 roach, 1 skimmer and 1 ruffe which took double red maggot and a dendrobena

My bait bill is different every year, dependant on where I fish. This year so far has been cheap, around 5kilos of Ballistic B, some sweetcorn and a fair bit of bread crumb for Method feeders. Earith was around £75 a month on base mix so around £1000 on bait for the year, although that was 15years ago now. Brackens was around £30 a month of field test boilies, which I paid around 50% off retail price. I would much rather spend money on bait than tackle. My biggest season outlays are usually tickets and bait, I only buy tackle if I do need an update or upgrade.

As Kev mentions, there can be a spot within a spot. I have had rods very close to each other, yet one rod produced all the action, again the left hand rod from 3. The left rod was cast to a showing fish, the middle around 2/3 metres away. It was only the left hand rod that produced 4 carp, nothing on the others. I've seen carp entering an area, always coming in from a particular direction. If you create a baited area it would be the first rod they come to that produced, take that away the next in the line would go as they worked along. Not every water, or even swim is the same. On Brackens, a swim named Suicide, the gravel bar threequarters across, fish came up the bar anywhere along from the weed and trough behind it. Yet the margins to the left, the fish always swam along the margin (when an angler was in the swim) from the left, never from the right. On the Central, if you were lucky enough to get multiple takes (a rarity), the fish tended to work their way along the main bars from the North or South. The first rod they found was what you got takes on. Even though the South was joined to the Central, there was no pattern as to where the fish approached from, and it was the same fish able to swim through both lakes.

Lemons Hill on Alton today, Big Dave managed to find a couple of large skimmer bream, I ended up with 7 small roach

Had a couple of 2lb roach a couple of years ago, but summer the average size goes down. Such a large water the fish can be difficult to find.

Alton Water today, and my biggest fish from a catch of 40 odd roach. Dave in the next swim had a total of 3. All fish came to an open ended groundbait feeder, with red maggots on the hook. I played around and went to a 16 with double red maggot, where Dave stuck with a 14. I stil had a number of sucked maggots, lost fish and missed bites, even on the smaller hook.

Sky enjoys it, she gets a walk along the river, we take one rod and net between us and take turns for fish, often one feeding and smuggling Sky the occasional floater, the other casting for the fish. The other can then do the netting if required. Dave's fish came on a new spot we'd not seen chub in before last trip, and was a positive take on his first cast, that fish was actively looking for biscuits. Mine came from over the gravel behind my shoulder, the largest of the shoal as well.

Couple of hours chub fishing with Dave, all on floating dog biscuits

As long as it is aged properly in the case of wine corks. 😉 Not that I could ever of thought of using a sliver of a used wine bottle cork with fake or real maggots superglued to it for pop-ups or zigs...😖😉

I would avoid fluorocarbon as a hooklink because it sinks more and faster than mono, most definitely heavier than water. I would actually use a surface or neutral fishing monofilament like Drennan Double Strength, Drennan Fly Leader.

Just under the tree to the left is where I had my first carp from Earith, and the same night my first 20. The first carp was an absolute wood carving double figure common, and the 20 was a beaut.