kevtaylor

You could get the Freespirit Creeper for half the price - no brainer surely?

lol - many times I've swerved on the road when I'm driving past water, its impossible/rude not to look.

Yes mate very lucky indeed, looking back he cannot believe he fell for it. Swerve of the year!

My mate nearly paid 8k for a session on Lake Sumbar, he only dropped out because this fella added an additional 2k to his invoice, above the agreed price without warning. An amazing piece of luck on his part to swerve this fraud. By the sound of it this guy will be a dead man, had the kicking of a lifetime and now fled to China or wherever, his family have already had nasty visitors so he better come home and face the music.

Well done Nick - best wishes to your friend Dave, wishing him a speedy recovery.

From what I've been told a few of the features are very useful, but I've not looked it up for myself, but check this out, you can take the sensitivity down to like -1 as you would in a storm, however if you were snag fishing you'd still want plenty if beeps to get your attention so you'd turn the beeps up, you can't achieve that with the older ones. Also adjustments by remote instead of having to go outside when it's [censored]ing down 👍

New Delks look good and some interesting features, wish I could upgrade to them tbh

Thought this place had been filled in for property development or is going to be filled in soon?

Not caught one but did fish a lake with them in last year and had them in my water. From what I've heard you want to be on veg food i,.e. tigers and/or maize/corn. I avoided them with boilie hookbaits The other advise I was given was to draw them over the sling instead of netting them, they will destroy your net otherwise. Good luck

Yes if you get considerably higher temps after a period of sustained cold that's good. What you really want is for low pressure storms and milder temps to go with that - bingo! Good luck

I'm no boat expert but I'd be thinking whats the biggest boat I can use and get from venue to venue, safety first! Good luck

Here's my final entry - caught in Oct during a pretty tough week in Italy. I love the look of this fish and it came 30 mins after the most gut wrenching loss ever, so I went from devastated to elated on the next cast. Happy days! 😎

Ditto all of that - well said mate.

I like your way of thinking and if these otters were not illegally hand reared then maybe inner city areas would be safer for the fish, however these damn creatures are not scared of humans and have been known to take koi from gardens in housing estates. They are on busy day ticket lakes in daylight, they have no fear of us. IMO nowhere is safe for long, they have done lakes near me that are nowhere near a water course, on paper I would have said no way will they have otters!!!

14 hours is a typical session, preferred would be 36 hours, although I do like one night it is usually enough for me.

I was snag fishing locked up in Italy with these butt rests - no issue whatsoever, although I expected the rods to be pulled in they never moved.

This is another favourite of mine that changed my overnighter from nightmare to dreamland. I pulled up at my syndicate lake on the Saturday afternoon a bit early around 3pm but was gutted to find the fullest car park ever! No real surprise as it was May bank holiday if I remember right. Rather than look for one of the two remaining swims I decided to drive on to Bluebell for a look round before giving up for home. 30 mins later I'm in the shop asking for the numbers on Kingy and Swan, to my amazement I hear Kingy is fairly quiet by usual standards. I take the gamble - pay up and go for a walk bucket in hand. Approaching the first corner I can't see anyone on the far bank - central. I speed up not daring to believe the situation, glance up again and I'm right - my 2 favourite swims are free - result! 😊 The right of the 2 swims looks bang on for the conditions - right on the back of the wind - on the line where the chop starts. Down goes the bucket and I'm off for the barrow - semi running, yet trying to look carpy as you do. I had a lead about and found what I was looking for - clean and smooth as glass - just off the end of one of the bars. So little resistence that I stumbled backwards - that's the one! I put half a bucket of 3ml pellets and boilie crumb out and a few whole baits - tight with the spomb. 2 rods on that and a 3rd 2 rods lengths off the spot. I settle down cook dinner and chill - feeling strangely confident. At around 11pm I have the first take - a massive drop back, I'm on it fast and after a lot of fast reeling connect with a chunk that plays hardball. After a good battle out in the waders I net what is a monumental fish for me personally, a very rarely caught kingy 40+ common from the venue that had seemed impossible and awe inspiring when I had first visited some years before. At that time I felt so far away from the guys on there - so a real milestone. I had 2 more drop backs after that and missed both - those fish are so cute it's a brilliant water.

Very difficult this coz there are a few that come close for various reasons. This is a fish later named Arnie by friends that came from a Notts day only club water, it turned out to be the biggest and one I had only seen once in 3-4 years. I love this capture soley due to the effort involved and the small amount of time available due to family commitments, but a 2am start until 11am one Saturday morning and several moves eventually put me onto the big fish group after spotting the most elusive ghosty, again only my second sighting. 30 mins fishing with 2 rods in the margin saw 2 takes - the first being a gut wrenching loss - then to my amazement a 2nd take, plodding battle and unknown to me Italian blood line whacker! Get in 😊

Huge congrats!

Personally I think you miss out on a massive amount of knowledge, skills, experience and more importantly enjoyment if you go straight into carping without progressing towards it in some way. I loved my time match and pleasure fishing, pike fishing etc Every species and situation meant learning and practising skills that in some cases I still use to this day.

Always carry the catty, stick and spomb and more bait than I imagine I will use just coz you never know. My best sessions ever have all come to mass baiting tactics, here and abroad although its not always the one, sometimes however it is absolutely the way forward.

Well worth getting the bulk sacks, they all love the pellet and to me it's very good value and they keep for absolutely ages.

Good call Sir Skrettings and Coppens both do good pellets for similar cost: course, carp, trout and hallibut etc all good 👍

I use wafters, hardened bottom baits and pop-ups cork ball and normal. White features heavily for me but I also match the hatch and use dull yellow and bright pink on occasion.

I love plastic baits, zig bugs the lot, but our syndicate banned plastics for the reasons I've said. The reasoning is sound so I just have to accept it. My fish safety thing is to use 18 or 20lb line that way you very rarely get snapped or cut off, but owners decide the rules. You can get sweet corn shaped boilies for use as toppers so that s the alternative and I have to admit that's better. However I've just been abroad and used plastic toppers on every rod, they are banging! 👍