kevtaylor

Welcome to the forum 👍

I've ruined quite a few sessions with exactly this ☝️

Watching Scott Lloyd adjusting his clips through the session to allow for changes to the cross winds, that's something I'll be taking into account more, even with hitting the clip harder or bigger leads you could well still be a little short.

Tues - Fri last week, arrived at dawn and lapped but saw nothing, only one angler on. I settled on the usual swim, so many rafts of surface weed everywhere that in truth theres not many swims you can viably fish at the mo, needs some big winds on there. The spot was still clear but the line lay needed attention so 2 hours of dragging weed beds in with the spod rod which eventually snapped the swivel off the lead, emabled me to get 2 rods out nicely. 3k of chops, wholes and crumb, hemp, maize and tigers went out and I was fishing. I left the 3rd ready hoping for a show on the marginal plateau but ended up leading about and found a clearing at the end of the marginal plateau in about 6ft 40 yards out. Baited that with about 6 spombs, was happy with everything, thought I was fishing well but nothing for 2 nights, none seen or heard. Now despite forgetting the barrow handles and having to make do with the legs for short arms and 3 trips to the swim that I said to my mate I wouldn't be moving, but you know me with 1 night remaining had to at least try to find them to know whats going on. I moved to the oposite end with a good view over the section but after finding no spots whatsoever I thought I might have messed up. Something splashed though to the right of the swim so I waded for line angle to make the cast and the first one banged down with a smooth glide after for maybe 3 feet. After a few more checks I was happy, diary done I got 2 rods on it and 6 spombs. I gave up on the 3rd rod as pointless cramming in another. Despite the graft no joy come dawn and I was back home for midday, none seen or heard, couldnt say the splash was a carp but it lead to me finding a good spot where there are very few so small win, the spot diary is filling up for sure. I heard my target did come out in May so thats after I seen it from up the tree. With me catching the first fish in March and one of his mates to boot I cant help but feel excited for spring next year - hopefully fish through winter if access allows. Got the dog waterproofs and fleece onesie lol so he's ready.

I'm thinking back to one of my first trips with a boat down to Bluebell in mid Dec, I knew the right area and spotted a small patch of tiny bubbles, took the boat out and what at first looked like a branch turned into a pile of carp. I fished half a handful of low oil pellet a few grains of corn and about 5 squashed washed out boilies and had quite a few out, repeated it the following week. If I'd have spombed on their heads prob too much bait and disturbance for the time of year. I kept to the exact same amount of bait every drop.

I spoke to a guy on Kingfisher he had the RT4 with winch camera, was finding tiny spots in the weed and dropping, checking the drop and bait left over the next day, sounded mega tbh Then the fact that he'd had no takes in about 50-60 nights doing this! Makes me think that instincts and observation had given way to pure technology and he probably wouldn't improve his results if carrying on like this. I love having my boat for the right situation but only taken it once this year. The thing that stands out to me is how small a trap you can make, accurately fishing over half a handful isn't easily achievable. For every spod that doesn't land bang on I put another 2 in lol 1 becomes 6 or a bucket 🤣

I've always known about spombs having 2 settings since the very beginning and do adjust to open easier, my problems with spombs not opening are since swapping to braid, same is happening with the Wolf, but not as often. I'm hitting the clip too hard - simple as that, landing on it's side not nose first. Doesn't matter with mono it just stretches and lands nose first regardless. I'm more concerned about not dropping short then over gun it. Not sure where you got the premature release bit from - I've never confessed that 🤣

Sold - I'm getting it now lol Got 10k of maize cooked last night and could re-do half the small tigers 👍 They should take you on as sales manager! 😂👍

Yeah I'm agreeing on the particle plate, I don't want dust. I did put the tigers through twice each batch and it did enough. Maybe the particle plate if I wanted tiger slush. Can't believe I've not bought the cutter sooner, doing a few at a time using the Korda jobby isn't the one and their little herb grinder just makes annoying crumb that doesn't want to come out the damn thing, unless your boilies are bone dry, and you just try grinding tigers - that is not fun!

Just bought the Ridgemonkey boilie crusher and cutter, used the crusher to chop some small tigers last night- lots fell straight through but enough were chopped for what I wanted, might get the particle plate in future but not overly sure about that. Gonna start taking whole, chopped and halved boilies.

Can never have enough mate 😂👍

Cheers mate, eyes on the prize 👀

Back on the rods, feels like an absolute age since I've been out (July on the syndi), and how I've missed it. The france trip doesn't count obvs 🤣 forgot that already! Was doing a garden re-design through summer after the lakes closed for spawning and that took right up until just before france late Sept. Got tonight to get back in the swing of things, in a swim I know, the spots still there just a bit smaller with more weed growth. The lake is back up to overflowing due to the recent floods, Got 3 rods close together, fed about 1k of boilie and crumb. Heard 2 crash out since I've been here in the swim next door up against the island snags. Here for 3 nights next week and gonna push myself to carry on into winter, targets not been out so fingers crossed 🤞

Tough day on Pitsford 2 pike and one perch, sadly none for Ben this time. Had the perch on a ned worm crawling it along the bottom in prob 40ft drifting away drom the dam, missed another take and lost one the way up, tried lots more passes but lost them. Had a small jack on a 3-4 metre diving crank bait from the causeway and a better pike last knockings in a bay by the big dam on a chatterbait with a 5inch shad attached. Lovely weather for the time of year, great day out!

I should really have gone Grafham, that place owes me a good perch but Pitsford seems safer as I'm taking my son, he's not the strongest swimmer and Pitsford is far smaller, yet still massive obvs. Hopefully a few more trips after this one Rutland and Grafham once we've got our sea legs sorted, frightening depths. 👍

Back on Pitsford sunday with my son, perch and pike fishing on the boat - buzzing for it seems like an absolute age since we've been. Seems to have been good numbers of perch caught early in the year so hopefully we stand a chance now they're back 🙏 Oh or a mid 40 pike on the perch gear would be interesting 👀

Not that I'm aware of, licences are for the anglers themselves. You may need some sort of registration with the environment agency but that's a pure guess, because it's them who'd support you if you had disease outbreaks.

Re-booked for Sept 2026 👍

I use the ESP Tungsten loaded semi stiff in brown - the best I've come across 👍

I've got some Gardner Tricklink probably in 15lb that's quite supple, had a play with that - seems good. Gonna try the Trilene Fluoro I've bought for leaders next was better value and bigger spool around 100 metres, feels supple and pulls straight just like the specific leader spools where get less of it. With the clarity of the water I'm on I do think should I be using less visible booms, moved onto the fluoro leaders a couple of years back due to the clarity. Might have a play around this winter/spring, but want to keep the leadclips if poss so it will have to be a supple material.

Because I don't use stiff mono or fluoro booms I don't have to deal with the knot or crimp issue, if I did I'd prefer the crimped look but have concerns over damage or try to master some sort of perfect loop knot. I can't see me not using a braided boom section despite the visibility of it over fluoros and monos, simply because I don't like the idea of it sitting funny. I'm not finding clear gravel areas on the pits I'm fishing. If I went down the stiff boom route I'd have to use heli's as standard and I much prefer clips for convenience/lazy and imo better hooking. What are you fishing over with the booms and what set-up?

Lol - thats what they said to my mate, seems off, it's snapping below the stated breaking strain surely. Then if you get it a bit wrong well below.

My mate used the crimps as described and pulled hard on the finished rigs - every one snapped at the crimp. Thinking he was doing something wrong he explained the issue to a guy on the Korda stand at a show - he made a rig and passed it to my mate who pulled it and it snapped at the crimp exactly the same, the guy didn't know what to say and hurried away to a different customer. I won't use them full stop after this, not that I was considering anyway. I'd recommend really testing the finished rigs, are they as strong as you imagined?

You're talking about buying a flash to stick on top? Or is the inbuilt enough? Cheers dude 👍