ouchthathurt

Quite right mate, blooming carp spoiled the shot!

shame it’s a no fishing lake!

what lovely ducks…

As Finchey said mate, over mud and stone you’re probably better off with a potato fork! I have used mine over mud before, but dependant on how stony the ground is, it can be a pit of a pain as one stone will jam the mouth of the pump making the sucking of the worm (oh err missus) very difficult. I find pumps work best over clean sand or clean mud, a garden fork or potato fork over shingly mud like estuaries

a few from this mornings beach session after bass

I usually dig all my own bait, but I was unable to get to the beach due to work and fancied a dangle, so brought some wraps. They were well past their best, the crabs enjoyed them though…

£12 for 3 wraps I usually get them by the score, but I was only planning a few hours and I felt 30 would cover it! As it was, I had 10 left over… blanked!

Newest purchase would be 30 lug and 4 new batteries for my Steve Neville buzzers

As you walk from lake car park to the lake, just before you get to the main lake, there’s a smaller pond that is separated by a huge bank of reeds. During times of heavy persistent rain or when it’s winter and the water level is high, the marshy ground in the reeds flood and both lakes fully join, when the water level drops, they can become 2 separate lakes. I never saw any carp in the smaller pond, although I did a few nights on it. I used to just concentrate on the large pit. If I remember correctly, there was a dog poo bin (the last one before you reach the main lake) next to this bin was a small path that led to the smaller pond, but it could all have changed now of course! It was a fair few years ago that I did any serious time on it

Hi mate, I fished there for several years but I can’t remember anyone targeting it for pike. Used to do some nice carp and tench, however there were only a small group of us targeting the place back then. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were not a good head of pike in there. I’d probably go for my favourite pike baits, trout, roach, smelt and mackerel. Fish one on the deck and one suspended. Or as the pit can get a good wind across it, maybe a more roving approach with a deadbait under a drift float to search out the water? When you first reach the lake from the lake car park, that bay (summer bay as we called it) was sandy and shallower. There was a bar running from the point across to the reeds on the other side at the narrowest point, there are supposed to be some proper depths (although I found that the depths were not as extreme as I heard quoted) I also heard of stories of a bus and a midget submarine in there somewhere that the Marines used to dive over. I never snagged them though! I saw a pic of a mid double cat out of there. On the “beach bank” which you reach following the paths down from the holiday camp, if you stand on the bank looking out over the lake, to your left will be a reed bed extending along that margin right round past the point and onto the smaller lake, to your right there is a tiny bay that was full of lilly's in the bay in the summer, that always looked pikey to me. As the lake is a bit of a forgotten entity, at least it always was, so the piking could be amazing, it could be patchy, but best thing is to speculate a season and give it a go! Good luck mate

Sent you a PM mate 👍

Hi mate, I make all my own pop ups using the same basemix as my bottom baits, wrapping it around a cork ball. I make mine up in one egg mixes, (minus the yolk) adding slightly more flavour than I would in my bottom baits. I also add a sachet of egg white powder from the supermarket baking isle - egg albumin. When rolling, I only make enough boilie paste to do a handful of cork balls at a time, to prevent the paste from drying out too much, which makes rolling a pain. I make sure that the paste fully wraps the cork ball with no gaps, cracks or visible joins, as when it boils and drys out, they will crack and break up. I also drop each one in a glass of water once I’ve rolled them to check their buoyancy. With the egg albumin, a 1:30 - 2min boil (you’ll have to see what works best for your basemix) makes them harden right up. I then air dry them somewhere warm for a few days (the airing cupboard!) so they dry out, then pop them in an air tight container, I’ve had pop ups like this last all season, in fact I’ve got a tub I made in 2021 and they still catch just as well as when they were first made. I have added a few mls of salmon oil into the tub and shook it about so the baits took on an oily sheen, when they absorbed the oil, they have still remained hard enough to sit out for 24hrs, I change mine every 10-12hrs though, just to ensure the bait is ok and not come off or anything, as they will take on water and the paste skin will swell, especially if the paste wasn’t tightly wrapped around the cork ball in the first place. I tie mine on to a spinner rig using dental floss, sticking a baiting needle is a no no for me as it often pushes a bit of cork through which leaves a large hole that water will get into and cause the paste to break down quicker. Dental floss doesn’t break the boiled paste skin so the bait lasts longer - that’s my take on it anyway.

The beach is about 2mins drive from my home, I count myself as extremely fortunate mate 👍