salokcinnodrog

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.

For years my preferred set up was banksticks with a goalpost setup, but I carried a pod in case the swim could only be fished with pod (or stage stands). Then I went out and bought the Solar P1 pod, and it is set up in every swim now, simply as I have no need to be carrying extra banksticks and buzzer bars just so I can go back to my favoured goalpost setup. As BC has said, stainless will last a lifetime; I still own my original Solar banksticks that I bought in the 1990's, and despite abuse they are still straight as a die, even Sky has not managed to bend one, and rust free, although I have probably replaced thumbscrews where I occasionally mislay one, or it falls out in the holdall.

Can be a bit scary trying to put a bait next to the tree that sticks out of the island...

To be honest, you don't have to get Delkims with receiver to start as the ST versions will take the Gardner Attx system dongles and receiver at a later date, as I did. Otherwise if you want a set of alarms that come complete with receiver as standard, then look at TFG Magrunners which are around £70-80 for 3. I used to work in a tackle shop, and rarely had any come back faulty, unlike some other makes... https://www.totalfishinggear.co.uk/buy.cfm/tfg-bite-alarms/tf-gear-dave-lane-mag-runner-bite-alarm-set/39/no/64552 Delkim St's in 2003/4, the same set this or last year...

That wonderful Delkim sound! Mine have been warbling that since 2000 ish! I honestly don't want to change alarms as I have alarms I know work. The repairs I had done to my Delkims were down to my own stupidity, leaving flat batteries in, and tearing battery connector wires free I did remove a post on this thread as someone tried to turn it into a Fox vs Delkim thread.

I use the same hook size in summer and winter, usually size 4's, although a large 6 in another brand will also get used at times. I don't want to lose what I hook! I don't know if you remember my winter session a few years ago on Nazeing? 4 fish in January, 3 over 20lbs on a 4 day session. My rigs were exactly the same as in the summer. Think they were size 6 Gardner Muggas, even with them, I actually had a hookpull, as the fish came over the net cord, and it sunk into the net I honestly don't think a carp can differentiate between hook sizes, they feel resistance, from the hooklink pulling tight to the lead, and being 'pulled' out the mouth, or the hair being taken to full extension, and the bait being unable to go to the back of the mouth, so the hook not even entering the mouth. My usual answer to that is lengthen the hair and/or the rig, one at a time to try to confuse the fish. This theory of the hooklink laying flat and straight can work against you, especially with stiffer hooklink materials, including totally coated braid, even with a short length stripped near the hook. A braided hooklink that falls and coils rather than falls in a straight line could be a 'confuser'.

Starting with the lighter leads will actually get you to generate the tip speed for casting, although going to heavier leads will change the momentum slightly. Its Daiwa Sensor I used for a lot of years, in 15lb, and its not a bad casting line, supple, not wiry. The theory is that for each ounce of lead, you need 10lb breaking strain of line, although as said 15lb Daiwa Sensor takes the brunt of a 3oz lead, anymore and make sure you shock up. With shockleaders, I actually use a different knot to Gaz, that knot works with the overhand hitch on the thicker line, it works with braid to mono, mono to mono when there is quite a difference in diameters.

Accept a crack-off will go roughly 4 times as far as a cast

You may find that you can cast as far with 2.75lb TC rods as you can with 3.25lb; it is very much down to technique, and being able to generate the tip speed on the cast. For example, bank to bank at Wick lane dam is around 125metres, I could cast that with 2.75lb TC rods, 15lb line Aerlex 8000's and 3oz leads. To get the best out of my 3.25lb TC's I have to go up to 3.5oz leads. The rod itself, you are not going to cast as far with a cheap budget blank as a more expensive better built rod, with better materials, despite what the lovely manufacturers tell you. The technology and materials of my Century SP's is better than the materials of my Rod Hutchinson The Ones, and The Ones do not add much more distance, as much as I practise casting. When I get to cast out I physically go through my casting action, like a golfers practise swing. I check my feet, hand positions, even the swing. I also have a practise cast to wet the line and the rings. Long distance casting in snag free waters mean you can use a shock leader, and to be honest, fine your line down. If you don't need 15lb line, and can safely drop to 12 or 10lb then do so. Before anyone calls me irresponsible, bear in mind, in water basically your line will take 4 times its breaking strain, so 40lb on 10lb, and playing a fish safely, carefully, you can land bigger than that. Ballistics: Lead shapes, look at bullets, shells, for rifles, tapering down from a point, so go to tournament leads, they do get best distance with pears not far behind. The angle that you cast at is the angle the lead hits the water, and 45degrees is the angle at which you gain most distance, obviously wind and feathering down will have an effect on that. Keep your rigs tidy, as short as possible. I still prefer to use run rings, rather than helicopter leads, although I do know that sacrifices a few metres, but helicopter set-ups I have found give funny takes, and using that heli set-up, you will need a shockleader as the lead and rig do frag the line. (Incidentally it is that fragging the line that was the reason for leadcore, not its supposed sinking). Inline leads, because of the swivel or rig coming out the front wobble in flight. Give your cast everything you can, don't hold back, holding back will cost you distance.

You'll find most carp anglers who fish rivers will keep their areas to themselves, it is a very closed circle. Plenty of looking, plenty of walking on areas you can get to, and fish as much as possible. Then as Kev says, see what info you can get from tackle shops and local clubs.