ouchthathurt

Cant beat Stilton cheese paste for chub!

Some of the best baits are based on the fruity/fish combo mate, aminos and peach, big fish mix and plum, tangerine and squid... your best bet is to find a reputable high quality nutritional bait, stick with it and build your confidence in it, the more you use it, the more the fish find it and eat it, the better it becomes.

I wouldn’t worry too much about getting 10ft spod/marker rods mate, having the extra leverage the extra 2ft with the spod will make casting easier and it’s always a good idea to be able to cast markers and spods at least to the same range as baited fishing rods, if not further.

With all this expertise and experimentation with the different goo’s, we will have to start calling you Elmo Hamidi...

I don’t zig fish, (I’m proper pants at it, something I need to remedy!) but I always use drennan super specialists in sizes 10-6 for all my floater fishing. Recently I’ve used the super specialist in the wide gape pattern when I can find them, but I’ve never had a problem with these patterns for floater fishing. Used the super specialists for as long as I can remember and the wide gape versions for the last 2 seasons, but I struggle to find them in my local tackle shops.

I know what you mean, my first carp rods were 1 3/4lb t/c and 11ft long, I moved onto 11ft 2lb test rods that bent through to the butt cap. Back then, a 3lb rod was a broomstick! Now, 3lb test is about normal! My rods are fox torque, 12ft 3lb test rods that have a lovely action. If this is a recent problem you’ve been having, (I’m guessing since you fined down for winter?) then that would suggest to me that you may need to adjust your end tackle to filter out the other species if carp are the intended target pal. I'm glad you’re finding the forum helpful mate, don’t be afraid to ask questions on here, there are a lot of very knowledgeable people that will help and we learn through asking questions! We all have areas of angling that we are perhaps “weaker” at, I am probably the worst zig rig angler going! Lol!

Well my leadcore leaders are 40-50lb breaking strain, but my mainline is 12lb, so that’s the overall breaking strain of my set up. I couldn’t apply 50lb of pressure as although the leadcore (correctly spliced) could take it, the mainline would part long before! I wouldn’t worry about the leader breaking strain too much mate, the over all strength of your set up is governed by the weakest component.

Don’t ask me! I don’t know! Lol!

A water not far from me has always had a boilie and floating bait ban, hence the banks aren’t very crowded and you have free reign to be able to move about. The owners wanted a pleasure water where anglers could come and not see swim after swim packed with little green domes. They are only small venues, quite intimate. Pellets or meat in the margins will produce some lovely carp. I actually don’t mind the fact boilies are banned, it gives me a chance to refine other baits and methods which in many cases, I’ve neglected for years. I mean, I have probably fished luncheon meat maybe 2 or 3 times in the last 15yrs? Yet it was my go to bait as a kid.

I don’t have a problem with someone coming to wake me if they have a carp need photographing, one lad woke me to take a pic of a low double then apologised afterwards as it was “only a little one” it happened to be the first carp he’s ever had from the lake, after a fair ole wait, so he was over the moon! That’s no drama as far as I’m concerned, I was happy to congratulate him and share the moment. I blanked... 🙄

Have you seen any evidence of the barbless hook moving during the fight? 15lb mainline and a size 10 seems a bit unbalanced, have you tried upping the hook size? The thicker wire may help spread the load as it were. Are you aiming solely for carp? Or are you just happy with whatever comes along? If that was the case, I’d probably go down the Avon/quivertip route or a float outfit with lighter line and smaller hooks. If I was aiming for solely carp, I’d increase hook size to an 8 or 6 and use baits that smaller species can’t easily take. do you use any form of clinic or carp antiseptic solution on your hook marks before returning them? This is important regardless of size as it can help heal marks like these and prevent infection. Some also harden on contact with water, so will help minimise bleeding.

I just merged the two and popped them in the right forum for you buddy! I’m afraid I can’t comment on the rods, I’ve never used the hutchie rods, but the man is/was a legend.

I literally used to just open the bag and pour it into a ground bait bowl, mix it with water (or condensed milk and water) mix it up so it was stodgy enough to mould around a lead or method feeder and turf it out into the pond. Couldn’t be simpler really. In the lake, it would continue to take on water and soften up and break down. Have a look at vitalin too for a cheap effective ground bait.

Thanks mate, you’re right about the first pic, I used a head torch pointed at the fish to help me see, which did overdo it light wise somewhat! Some comprehensive information on photography there mate, nice one!

I have to agree with Pete on this one, I’m not a fan of sacking, I don’t own any sacks, I’ve a retainer sling that I will place the carp in for a few minutes after the fight so it can get its breath back and I can sort the camera equipment out. I much rather prefer to master self takes rather than retain carp for an extended length of time. Even with smart phones these days, self takes are possible. I use a little phone holder to hold it steady, then take a few practice shots so I can get my markers sorted, I look at the background of the practice shot so I know what to use, if a branch is at the top of the practice shot, then I make sure my head is not above that branch, or it will cut off my head in the photo, if that makes sense!! You can always edit the pics on phones afterward to adjust it to your liking. All these pics below are smart phone self takes, the hardest thing I find is trying not to pull a stupid face!

Happy April fools day everyone! Lol!

Abu 6500 rocket multis, best casting reel ever! Closely followed by Penn 515s, how I miss my beach casting! similarly, I had a set of Ryobi big pit reels that I used for a while, until the roller in the bail arm jammed and I was too lazy to fix it... (lazy teenager!) it grooved and started to damage my mainline, that’ll learn me. don’t here much about Ryobi anymore, remember Silstar??

Porridge oats are banned on one of my waters, they were so effective as a method mix the club banned it. mind you, kilos of the stuff was being introduced every day and the club said it was effecting water quality!

So long as the rig comes apart 100% of the time then it should be ok, I’m wary of shrink tube on tubing as it can slip, another option for you mate would be the Nash heli kits, they are very simple to use and are designed for use with tubing.

I just have a normal pillow I nicked from home with a DPM camou pillow case swiped from an old cover set my son had... it’s thin enough to be left in the bed chair when folded up and just stays there to be honest!

I would like to think that we don’t get worse, but we can become complacent at times. After Monday, we can all dust off the bivvies and get nights in! Hopefully we can get back to normal and start getting some fish on the bank. besides, if I look back, I seem to remember catching a lot more fish than I do now, but there are various factors for this, with rose tinted specs on and the benefit of hindsight, you remember the good times and the blanks don’t seem so bad or numerous. I hark back to my first carp water where the sun was always shining, the reeds were thick and vibrant, the carp were dark mahogany commons and you caught every trip, I still fish this water occasionally, the reeds don’t look as vibrant as they do in my nostalgic minds eye, the carp are pale and it’s usually raining! The water has changed in 20yrs, it’s silted up, the stock is lower and the reeds have been cut back. I fish different waters then back then, my waters now are harder, lower stocked and this affects my catch rate, I may not catch the same numbers, but as the waters are a lot harder, I’m a better angler now then back then as I’ve had to learn and evolve as an angler to be be successful on difficult waters.

Whereas I haven’t used Abu reels since I replaced my (new version) cardinal 55 reels for baitrunners in 1999, I did have a set of 3 Abu 6500 open cage multipliers for beach casting. One bent the spindle trying to land a bass in the tide race in Poole harbour, it was its first outing so I wasn’t too impressed! I went to Afghan a few weeks later for 7 months then didn’t get to sorting it for over a year after getting home from Afghan. I sent it to Abu with a letter explaining the circumstances and asked for a repair, they sent me a brand new reel, free of charge, nearly 2yrs after I broke it! Excellent customer service, the reels were good as gold afterward. My first “proper” carp rods were Abu Delta carp rods, 11ft 2lb tc (loved them!) with Abu cardinal 55 reels, (my tackle dealer was an Abu dealer) but that was back in the mid 90s. They have a good reputation on the sea fishing scene, but for carp fishing, they seem to have slipped from view somewhat.

Totally agree mate, you’re better off getting the best quality bait you can afford and use less of it then fill it in with a bait that’s less expensive but with a lower nutritional profile. If it’s a high quality bait with a good nutritional value, the carp will recognise it as a decent food source with time and application and eat it over other less nutritional baits. It’s the old adage (I think it was Fred Wilton who said it) “carp will take advantage of the best available food source” and I’ve found it to be true, that a high quality nutritional bait will out fish a lesser quality bait over the course of a season. They can be slower to get going at times, but it pays off in the end. I’ve been using the same robin red/fish meal mix with oils, flavourings and additives now for well over a decade with few changes and it still does the job. Bait is so important and it’s essential that you have the upmost confidence in it or you’re beaten before you start!

I second that, I’ve been an avid premier baits user since the mid 90s. It’s brilliant stuff. The randoms as above is a good option, or if you wanted to go all out, buy a basemix off them and make your own bait!

If you want a decent, well priced tough line, then Berkeley big game or diawa sensor are both good ropes.