salokcinnodrog

It was, the red sweatshirt pic, thats a Fitness First sweatshirt, so I had gone straight from work to fishing. Hard life, playing American Football, and working in a gym. I lost around 2stone when I retired from playing! Bruce drove down to photograph the 13.8 and I had that fish while he was there, had to wade up to my knees to net it.

Ardleigh is known as a water with potential for carp, and numbers were moved from the Wick lane 'pond', which was a carp fishery years ago, before the main ressie became available to coarse angling. Alton has long been a mixed coarse fishery, good and bad spells, but now with a good head ranger who is very pro-angling, some excellent fishing at times; its not easy fishing by any means for any species, simply because its so large and it doesn't receive that much bait. A match last year was won with 5lb, although every angler caught, the next day the same stretch produced weights to individual anglers over 50lb. The fish had moved onto the bait introduced the day before. Carp fishing is in its infancy on Alton, helped by the allowing of night fishing. Those carp will also move onto bait, its easier than finding natural food I guess. I have had roach sessions 'spoilt' by carp and pike getting into the swim. The few carp anglers who have caught have been lucky enough to drop onto fish, or seen them, and set up for them, as the surface caught fish proves. I don't think however its easy, the roach and bream can disappear from day to day, be at Lemons Hill today, then the same area can be blank tomorrow. The pike are unknown, usually following the roach around, and hanging midwater in the deeper areas. Not every area has swims along the bank. From The Wonder you have 10-15 pegs, then no swims until you get past the bird hide towards the main entrance. Lemons Hill, a few swims, then a blank bank towards The Wonder area. Thats just the areas I know, so trying to find carp in that... That top fish came on the same overnighter as the other fully scaled, remember it for strange reasons. My mate who always came out to do pictures wasn't answering his phone, and I found out he was on a tube train in London when the bombs went off. I got another mate to come down, but my mind was more concerned and worried for Bruce, then first light the second fish came, as a bream angler set up just down the bank, he was amazed at it and did the photos for me.

Most of my fish came on overnight sessions, only a couple on longer trips. 8 fish in 19 trips, most being over 20lb, 3 being 24.12 The other fish were 13lb8oz mirror, (i weighed it because it was the first fish I caught from there,) a couple of 18lb commons and another mid double mirror. If you found them, multiple catches were the norm.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/665904963483018/permalink/1796330657107104/

I've been very lucky then, I have never purchased a bad Spomb, never had one open on the cast, unless I have overfilled it, (blocking the fin end from closing), or gotten mix in the closure pin. I have however had a few casts where it stays shut, usually when the cast flattens as it hits the clip hard. I do turn the front closure round as well, and when its in the rucksack, or not in use set up on the bank, make sure I put the rubber band around the outside to keep it shut. When I was in the tackle shop, all those moons ago, we did have a number of Fox Impact spods come back with front closure problems, where they would not stay shut.

It wasn't just hinge pin faults with the Impact spods, it was also the front closure on them, they had a tendency to open in flight, or even not to close properly in the first place. With all due respect to Fox, I would avoid the spods, and stick to the Spomb. I have bought a few Spombs, (and lost a few) and would not consider the Fox Impact spod at all. The only reason I have lost Spombs, is my own incompetance, I have never had an issue with the opening in flight, unless I have overfilled it into the mechanism, or the fins.

I love them. I use the short arms myself, not just for carp, but for feeder fishing for big roach as well. From super slack, from swingers to quiver arms, locked up mega tight, long or short range they seriously do do it all.

Not sure Layer was KHV or SVC, think it was actually oxygen crash from algae. There are problems with drip baths. The first is that UV light and a dry net is the best way to kill any disease transmission, not dip tanks. You have to be sure that your dip will kill any virus or parasite. Next problem is the solvent strength, as it gets used solvent may get into the lake, which may be harmful to fish, so dip and rinse. The tank as it gets used may actually decrease in strength of the solvent, weakening the solution. The real answer is to use a different net for each fishery, so a fishery providing their own net and mats may be the answer. I found the FB post I mentioned above, I linked it into the quote.

I've seen waters closed down, drained, cleared, and left fallow with no water in for two years before being refilled and restocked. A private syndicate water at that! Sadly I think that there are too many irresponsible owners around now. I had it on my Facebook page about how Tim Paisley restocked Birch Grove and The Mangrove swamp, but the base was this: he bought the fish from Ben Gratwicke of I think Priory Fishery Farm, put them in a stock pond of his own, mixed with a few of the fish from those waters, and kept them in there for a year, before putting them into those two waters. If anyone wants it, i'll try to find a link, on my Fb, but he has also written it into More From The Bivvy, which is in itself an excellent read, written during sessions on the bank, covering waters like Ashmead, Rainbow, Mangrove and Birch Grove.

You lie If it meant not being able to get to work...

Not known if it was an illegal import and dumped dead on the banks. . Don't know what the bream one will be under, Ardleigh or bream, but he did a couple of bream episodes. I can remember one at Melton as well as Ardleigh, and there was one with a number of big double figure bream from a Norfolk lake.

Interesting indeed. Ardleigh had a mid 50 found dead on its banks years ago, although at the time it was not known if the fish was a dumped dead'un, or a fish that had lived in the reservoir.

The order they were caught was 26, 20, 26, 16, all caught in January a couple of years ago on a 4 night session. I was just about to photograph the second 26 when the best looking fish of the lot took, that beautiful double. Picture order is the third fish was the 20lb, the top was the second 26.

I use the Gardner Pro lines for most of my fishing, although admittedly this year I have been using P-line Floroclear. Never had any problem with the Pro light or dark

Its only been the past couple of years since they allowed it. Get your season ticket and parking is included, although I would be wary of leaving my car overnight in The Wonder car park after I got back there one late evening after a few big roach, to discover a load of weed smokers hanging around my car. I know the head ranger moves them on, but he can't visit every car park all the time. I know a few of the weights of carp caught from Ardleigh, its not just this years stock fish that have shown up, a couple were caught on floaters after being seen near the surface from a bridge... Abberton bream found there way into the River Stour, and held the bream record for a few years, and I know that it was fished for pike for a while, I think Eddie Turner, Mr. ET tackle himself had gained permission to fish there. Its rumoured KN caught some pike himself, but I'm not sure on that one, although they were supposed to be very big fish. There are supposed to be plans to reopen sections for fishing that again. Mind you, even with the new roadway, I came back from 5 Lakes and the wash was splashing over the road, bit scary that, even worse than heading over to Mersea Island!

No problems with dogs, but must be on a lead (although dog walkers tend not to follow that rule) Personally I have had a couple of roach over 2lb out of there, along with numbers well over 1lb and had roach sessions disturbed by carp... Its fun trying to play a bigger carp on 8lb braid to 4lb hooklink! Sweetcorn or maggot over groundbait has been my standard bait. Only a few pike over 20 have been caught, but you consider its potential is not yet known, as it has not been heavily fished for pike. I think its quoted as over 350 acres, roughly double the size of Ardleigh, which is in itself not a small water at 167. I can't remember the price of a season ticket, think its around £100, day tickets from tackle shops are £7.50, £15 on the bank.

Other than the stocked fish, not many other carp, and their descendants, which came in originally from a pond on the estate when the vally was dammed and flooded.

Maybe... Only season ticket holders are allowed to night fish it, carp are there, but in the main, its the stockies that have been the ones coming out. Deep water from a rod length out.

3.25lb TC rods are a real casting tool, although I don't know much about the quality of Sonik rods. Putting the emblems on them should match exactly for big casting. Get your lead size right, it may need to be 3.5 or 4oz to get the best out of the rods. Check your mainline, a 0.40mm line won't be as good a casting line as 0.35mm line, or even 0.32mm, and many 15lb lines are over rated, but many 15's are now available in 0.35 or 0.32. Do you need a shockleader? Are your rigs short and tidy? Look at your leads, while pear leads are not the best casting leads, they should hit 100 easily, but tournament distance leads are the most stable for casting. Inline leads wobble and reduce distance, unless inside a carefully constructed PVA bag, lead clips and run rings will not go quite as far as a helicopter set up. If you do need to change rods, you are looking at a lot of money for top range casting tools.

With a small Gardner Bait Pocket rocket you can put bait out with your standard fishing rods. In fact, at times I cast out a load of stringers on my normal fishing rods, and my 'last cast' gets left out there. I know then that my bait is right on the spot.

Not as far as I can see. I've used braided rigs for hundreds of years, plain braid, combi rigs and coated braid. It was Danny Fairbrass who said he never needed rig tubing on knotless knotted rigs, but I'm wondering if that was with stiffer materials. I watched fish in Chantry park lake pick up my carefully positioned braid knotless knotted rigs, from a distance of about 3metres. I saw the hookbait go back, in the mouth, saw the hook and bait come flying out again, on both semi fixed and running leads. I swapped straight back to a line aligner and put the rigs back in the same place, and hooked my next two pickups, from fish that I had watched eject the other rigs. On Thwaite, I used to use the water as my experiment lake, where I researched lead setups, running vs semi-fixed, helicopter, leadcore, and even baits. I got numerous single bleeps with the same knotless knotted rig, (water colour meant I couldn't watch them close up), no development of the take, even though we could see the water rocking. A switch back to line aligner there with running leads and I started hooking them again. Thwaite was not a particularly pressured carp water either, mostly fished by match anglers, so rigs should not have been a major issue. Longshank hooks tend to be more difficult to eject, but the length can supposedly lead to mouth damage, a line aligner replicates the difficulty to eject as the bent hook rig, but with tubing no mouth damage.

Make sure the spod rod is strong enough to cast the spod or Spomb you intend casting! A fully loaded large Spomb probably weighs about 8oz, not many rods are capable of casting that (Big Bertha and her DD's were able to). My marker rod is only 2.75lb test, again a Century, but that has put a float and 3oz lead over 100metres, and I can feel everything as I drag it back. On some items, buy cheap, buy twice. When I first fished Ardleigh, I bought a cheaper range spod rod, from a top manufacturer, it did not last more than a year before I had killed it, and had had braid wear through the tip and butt rings. I already owned the Century marker rod even then, and it is still going, over 10 years on.

For my big fish water, I have stopped using curved hooks, simply because I now always buy Solar 101's, in a size 6 or 4. Whichever is tied up in the rig bin is grabbed, no worry, winter or summer, no matter what bait size. You have a hair on your hook, that hair with any size hook means the hook will follow, and bigger hooks get better hookholds. It is only with pop-ups that I worry about matching hookbait size to the hook, my 20mm pop-ups will lift a size 4 101. After seeing fish eject even curved shank hooks tied with a knotless knot, I always use a line aligner, and in most cases, lengthening the hook shank length makes it harder to eject as well.