kevtaylor

You go off places - sometimes unexpectedly it happens, I do agree with Yonny though in that you've got the ticket and there are whackers, it's a great time of year now right into Dec. You've paid the money why not commit to having a good bash if you're not renewing, nothing more rewarding/inspiring than seeing the broad back of a monster in your net! All it takes is seeing one patch of bubbles at dawn and you might have unlocked the autumn feed-up area and a hit could be on!

Week in Belgium for the first time, trip was everything I'd hoped for and more - lake to ourselves 2 anglers 6 acres, paid more but wouldn't add another angler tbh Epic week, tough fishing but so interesting, acting on sightings as usual, spreading the rods far and wide obvs to the point where I was quiver tipping from the pod in both directions at one point lol. This kicked me hard after a bleep in the early hours suddenly turned into a rod flying through the air into the pond as the clutches were too tight. 3 boats trips later after much panicking I picked up the line, got the rod and landed the fish unbelievably. Several boat battles each, quality fish averaging mid 30s, great company, many laughs, team work - learning on the job in boats it was mega in truth, didn't want it to end. By the end of the week we had a well established pattern of only ever catching on a spot on the first night/dawn, no spot did another bite after a fish came off it, so if you weren't moving spots you weren't catching end of. On the last night we predicted that we could both reel in 2 rods and only leave the new one out and obvs it was true - one take each that night on the new spots - pretty mad really. We caught by far the most on the complex and laughed the loudest I reckon. My 'GET IN' when the rod was back in my hand must have woke the complex lol 8 fish for me from 26.8 to 42, my mate 6 from 29 to 44.12 I had all mirrors which is perfect - he had mostly commons again, interestingly he caught mostly commons last trip I didnt and same on a syndi water. Only difference I've noticed he uses a yellow topper, I don't. My second biggest fish's pic wasn't focussed unfortunately, I didnt show him half pressing - usually give him the remote- cant go wrong with that but thankfully re-mastering it made it semi useable so sorry about that. Ian again, thanks for the camera tips etc, got my best night takes ever of mateys big commons and enjoying using my remote - should always do it tbh my self takes are always my favourite pics of the trip. 🤦 I've had worse tbh another mate chops your head off lol Carp Arena, Lilly Pool - drive and survive, small supplies shop, bbq area with fridges, freezers, drinks, chocs and water. Flushing toilets near clean warm showers, bio toilets elsewhere, saw dust is amazing no smells and emptied every 3 days. We didn't get bothered once which we loved, others who blanked on other pits moaned about just about everything so it's not a complex for everyone I guess. Looking to re-book the lake and possibly have a go on Clover Lake 😎🇧🇪

Like Ian I've tried making snail baits from real shell and canned snail meat, looked mega but a waste of time in the end. The fake one's again look great but try reeling them in and you have a spinning propellor so your rig whether zig or bottom fished will be ruined every time it is brought back in. My next approach to this will be the black NS1 pop-ups that I've bought, looks snail enough in my mind 🤷‍♂️

A LOT of very good kit sells second hand I'm told, I wouldn't exclude that route for some bulky items, some guys don't even use it then sell half price it's a bit mad really!

I would always go for a system whether brolley or bivvy style, the front always has mozzy mesh for summer nights and full front cover for wet and cold trips. I dont want the trip ruined because my shelter is limited I guess - and obviously you can remove it completely if you want it open.

I couldn't do this I need a proper bed, the SP Tech is so good for my back I use it at home if I'm struggling. When I did single nights on Welly the bed was so bad I wouldn't have been able to do the second night anyway.

I did a couple of hours on the local river, so overgrown so few swims but had 3 perch on small crayfish lures ned rig style. Thought it was gonna be a bit too warm to fish slow but it worked anyway From what I'm hearing the new Rapala soft baits are a bit special, apparently the fish like the salt content and hang on. 👍 Mates just had a 30 and 29 out of Rutland on them.

Final tally of photograph worthy fish 110 roughly inc 5 x 60's, lots of 50's and 40s - think he's done there now. Several will have blanked, it's become very swimmy, he slowed down second week didn't fish for 24 hours after someone took the mick and wound him up.

This is the one that comes straight to mind, it was proof beyond doubt - he showed them alright!

Agreed although I only really use 3inch pop-ups in spring and catch all sizes because it's spring, it's been proven over and over and on film that the whackers cannot tell it's off the deck so it singles them out. I should fish them more tbh 👍

Glad I re-read this coz the answer is use my pen to break up the flouro a bit, always had the pen in the tackle box but not the brain power to remember to do it - now on a post-it note in the living room 🤦😆

Whilst this is mainly true some of the trickiest carp to catch can be those that have seen it all on a daily basis on a busy commercial, I reeled in a bent hookpoint after one bleep last trip so deffo been done. 95% of bites are dropbacks and you rarely connect, that is NOT normal - this is my finding on Bluebell's Kingfisher anyway - cute as anything. On my big, low stock lake I think they are scared of baited patches which again seems pretty rare, they usually say find them and you'll catch, here it's find them - cast out and they're gone lol This lake is so clear I've been looking at my flouro leaders thinking well they're easy to see - should I go back to leadcore. Minefield!

No I didnt say anything, probably just threw my arms about at the time lol You see some stuff there my word, swim boundaries are seemingly optional if you're catching, and every swim has a max distance but little notice is taken once they get desperate to catch. I watched 2 guys arrive taking the windward corner to my left, fair play I tought they're on them. Well both must have leaded about on their heads whilst they were showing for an hour or more - I wanted to scream at them but just thought well they've pushed them back out onto me. Honestly clueless - all that casting then they put the rod out with a boat - unreal stupidity on their overnighter 😆🤦

Got lucky on my Bluebell trip, arrived Sunday morning as swims became free from the weekend - lots of swims available on Swan but onto my favourite Kingfisher for a lap. Fairly busy but suprisingly the 1st and 2nd points had become free and had the wind smashing in for the duration of my trip. Within minutes I'd seen several shows in each so I bucketed the 2nd point and went to pay and get my kit. With my kit in the 2nd point I noticed more activity in the 1st point so quickly moved and got set up. I gave it a couple of hours watching to identify the main areas they were showing in then checked with a light lead - all presentable with just tiny bits of black silk weed coming back on the swivel. I decided to go in with pva mesh bags with mixed pellets and crumb and 10ml pellet wafter hookbaits. Conditions at this point were banging 50 mph gusting winds, low pressure and rain. Sunday evening as the rain became biblical the right rod signaled a take, I frantically fumbled around for my coat and got out there. Waders on out in the pond playing a fish in the monsoon - head torch shining through the spray it was mega and I netted a lovely 26lb common. 10am Monday the activity restarts and a guy round the corner leaves who was taking the mick in my water so I get the left rod repositioned where I actually wanted it. Late morning and early afternoon I had 2 doubles from the 2 rods straight out so 3 in the bag and I'm praying for a big un. Then at about 4pm i hook what feels a better fish and it kites right this time then I feel grating as it finds weed. No drama it's still coming and I get ot free, but after 2 heavy head lunges it slips off - gutted. Early evening after seeing a bigger fish roll on the left side - the left rod is away, this time it's in weed straight away but I manged to keep it coming bit by bit weedbed after weedbed and then after a great tussle close in I slip the net under a long common. It wasnt until I plonked it down on the mat that I realised how wide this fish was and that I had made a mistake not going for the bigger scales. The Ruben Flyweights bottomed out at 43lb so unfortunately I'll never know how big it was exactly but who cares when they are knarly as anything - best fish I ve caught for a long time - absolutely buzzing. The rest of the trip got slower and slower by the day but who could be disappinted, I'd made the most of my weather opportunity - right time right place and no bait boat, spodding and distance sticks 😎👌

I know mate obviously good and bad trips and area specific but when it's on it's on! Can see me doing another trip or two at some point. He was freelining from up a tree pulling the bait away from what he thought were 40s and 50s because there was one giant lurking at the back. 4 days later he finally allowed the biggest fish on the spot at the time to take it and it went 66lb and he thought that was a 50 at the most at the time, so what he'd been pulling the bait away from all week who knows, but the lure of that possible 80 at the back kind of forced him to refuse the others. Was up a tree all day like 10 hours in the rain, wasn't pretty but exciting he wouldn't come down, I did find the spot as well it was mega! Over a day a fairly small group would get through a full bucket 1ft from the edge, wish we had a go-pro.

No boats allowed lol and yes it's 2 buckets a day, we found that if you weren't spodding you weren't catching. He will probably come back ill from it all again, missing meals, missing rest, up all night if it's night bites. We were lucky first trip it was day bites and we reeled in at 7pm for dinner and didn't put them back out till morning, think I only had the rods out on 2 nights. Some trips he's had it rocking to the point he's flipping 30s, 40s and mistakenly some 50s without doing pics simply because you can't keep up.

Probably not checking mate but again I've not seen otters on it yet and they are blatant as anything - cannot be missed IMO, when they were on the medium lake I saw them straight away. I did see it stated that my lake has 250 fish in it when they were selling tickets in spring, that figure's gone straight back down to the 80-100 usually stated lol Prob lower than those figures too in actual fact

XXX Wafters, hard hookers, 2ltr Hemp Oil, 2ltr Bait booster and 25k hallibut pellets mixed sizes. Think the pellets were cheaper than going to the big boys as free delivery and the bulk suppliers are not. Was gonna buy 50k earlier in the year but the price with delivery put me right off tbh but can't be avoided forever as only got about 5k pellet left. 🤷‍♂️ This fishing lark doesn't half cost some money it seems never ending tbh

No it's a big van and that's a lot of weight, the guy who's van it is will take a 10th of that amount and catch barely anything but he's not serious at all whereas my mate will spod night and day and smash it if conditions are good, he's a machine when need is must. Travelling to Belgium this year in my car and taking 20k of boilies each that's it anything more is banned by me - buy pellets etc there if needed. The only place I would want to take 150k plus a week is for Parco, very few places are like that, although it's not what it was a few years ago.

Indeed mate lots of prep time and fairly costly granted - final tally 340k including liquids, but this is Parco and as he's been about 10 times prob knows it better than anyone tbh I'd love a 2 week trip somewhere - proper chilled with the security of a 2nd week should the first be rubbish.

Wishful thinking then, some of ours have obviously managed to avoid them for decades but show the signs (eaten faces the lot, other old ones are mint still), they've open access to the site but I've only seen them on one lake so far but the swan deaths were on my lake every spring. Is it then partly down to having big numbers of swans and geese also on the menu? The lakes have always been there and otters have never wiped the fish out- something about the lakes makes it difficult some how - no idea really they obviously get some. Up at Bluebell they swim past without a care in the world, packed out lake - lots of dogs, no worries until my man turns up to move them on! 👍

No tigers - whole, chopped and powdered, 10 x crates of corn, maples and boilies.

Mates going Parco again this week, taking 330k of bait for 2 weeks, something like that might last someone years, there it's nothing special.

Forgot to add my flavours so just eggs, basemix (Aminos) and Salmon oil - worked so well, probably better than with flavours TBH

knew I'd heard the word, damn Mr O Do think the fish and birds are getting used to their threat and are managing to avoid to a degree, low stock and much weed seems to put them on the back foot a bit?