ouchthathurt

Yeah I watched that one, it’s a bit of a trek from me though! Cheers pal.

Must be nice to purge the soul every now and then... I got kicked off the altar boy rota of my church when I was 10 for putting spirits in the altar wine... I step into a church and I’ll probably burst into flames!!

I haven’t got my head around zigs either, I don’t have any confidence in the method, yet years ago, one of the best methods I used happened to be pop ups straight off the lead on 18”-36” mono hooklinks... as for single baits, I have a lot of confidence in this method, especially with a single bottom bait fished in isolation in the right spot. When I used to scrimp and save to go carp fishing, a days bait would be a one egg mix, equating to about 50 baits! So I would choose swims with fish attracting features, overhanging bushes, Reed beds etc where I knew the carp would visit. One single boilie fished under the right bush would do a bite. I would also fish them in open water if need be and had a fair few carp on it too... I think a solitary bottom bait didn’t pose too much of a threat to a carp that came across it. Having only very limited bait meant that I really had to work on location, which is free, as opposed to using lots of bait, which wasn’t as free! It taught me a lot being a skint school boy!

I think this is the point to some respect, it is easy to think after watching some of the tutorials that tipping up in a swim, mixing up a bucket of “munga” and spodding it out to the “dance floor” then sit back and wait for them to climb up the lines. Obviously this approach can and will work on certain venues, as the Korda boys have quite conclusively proven, but it won’t work everywhere. I could see how an angler could watch that action on YouTube or dvd or whatever and think that it was that simple. They may lack the experience of carp fishing and may think that’s all there is to it. I don’t think the vids are to blame as they are a show, they’ve picked the venue and the method to match.

Totally agree mate

Just gotta get out there and christen them now buddy!

How long did they have??

Divine intervention there nick?

I do enjoy a good park lake! It’s quite an experience all told, I find myself sitting in a swim, on a water in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sheep and i wonder what is going on back in the park! Lol! I feel right at home at the park lake, it can be frustrating at times, it’s a real moody place, one guy is on a run of 40+ Blank nights, my last fish out was august/September, yet with covid I’ve been busy with work so have only managed a handful of nights. The place beats you up, then when you think you’ll never catch another fish, you get a take and land a nice scaley mirror and all the blanks are forgotten and you’re raring to go again! As for being mental? Well I was diagnosed with PTSD after afghan, so there’s probably some truth in that mate! Lol!

This park lake can drive me to distraction, heroin addicts and glue sniffers at night, (not as bad now as it was though) dogs swimming through lines, winos, litter, even kids on motoX bikes tearing it up... rats, seagulls, tennis balls landing in your swim... I’ve seen anglers fight pitched battles over who got into a swim first, barrow races along the top path... blatant violation of rules... I don’t know why I love the place so much, but I’ve always had a ticket for the place since the mid 90s! It can be cliquey, but I just ignore it!

It looks like a bear trap! The water described above is a public park lake, wading etc is banned, (instant lifetime ban for wading, swimming, letting your dog in the water, bait boats and leadcore) I can imagine the complaints I’d get if I started raking out the weed, I once got reported to the chairman for climbing a tree, then again for hopping a fence, then again for parking behind my swim (on a public road - the house overlooking my car didn’t like carp anglers parking along their road and successfully lobbied to get us banned from parking along this stretch of road) finally I was reported for standing in the out of bounds nature reserve... which was a real feat as I was 100 miles away driving an ambulance car around an airport at the time - You gotta love a park lake!

That will be one large boot...

I suppose, getting back to spodding, that it’s always useful to know what it is you are intending to achieve through spodding tactics. Are you trying to stop a herd of carp roaming nomadically across a featureless swim? Making the bait the feature? Or are you spodding to a known feature that carp will usually visit to feed over, with the intention of holding them there for a period of time? Does that water have the stocking density for this? Do the carp move in large groups? Spodding may not work for carp that move about singly or in pairs. How much time can you devote to the swim? I think this can be my Achilles heel with spodding, I tend not to be able to devote enough time to a swim with a spodded carpet of bait. I have been guilty in the past of planning a spodding session whilst sat at home on the sofa, convincing myself that if I spod a carpet of particle out I’ll slay them, then turning up, carrying out a spodding session in a swim, going through with the home inspired master plan, then catching naff all from it... almost spodding for the sake of it! Spodding is a useful tool in the armoury, but if I fish to my strengths, boilie fishing, small baited patches, fishing for a bite at a time, margin fishing... I tend to stick with what I’m confident in. I’ll go to big beds of bait if the water responds to it, (shearwater bring my example) but at the moment, on my waters I fish, stringers or half a dozen baits around the hook bait does the most bites. If I put out 50 boilies, I’ve baited heavily! I’m a rubbish zig angler, I’ve never done any good with them, hence I’m not confident in them, so if I fish them, I tend to be beaten before I’ve started. Location and fishing to your strengths, that’s the key to my confidence.

Just looking for new waters in the East Sussex area, anyone got any ideas? There is a syndicate in Hooe, anyone know anything about it? Many thanks.

Perfect! 😂😂can’t see any carp though... although it’s good for a bite...

A new ticket... hmmmm... I would like to find a new water in East Sussex to get my teeth into, anyone got any suggestions?

I’ve got fox 12000 reels, (not bait runner admittedly) but they’ve been bullet proof mate, can’t fault them so far. I’m a fan of the brand as I’ve also got fox rods too.

I’m a bit envious! Good luck mate with the campaign, let’s hope we come out of lockdown in time for spring!

What’s worse is that right now, thinking about the waters I fish, I can’t think of a single scenario where a baiting pole would be of use to me... yet I still want one! 🙄 when I fished a small estate lake, the best spots were right under the overhanging bushes that ran along a dam wall. Problem was you couldn’t cast there. I got around this by taking the elasticated poles from an old tent I had, gaffa taped the joints so it Didn’t come apart then taped an old forked twig on one end with a block of polystyrene lashed on... I stood on the dam bank behind the bush I wanted to place a bait under and threaded this monstrosity out under the bush and out into the lake. Then I flicked the lead and old rig over this floating pole in the water, opened the bail arm, ran round to the dam wall and pulled the pole back in to me, which dragged the rig with it. Then by wriggling under the bush to the waters edge, I could unhook the old rig, attach a baited hook length and drop it into position by hand exactly where I wanted it. I could even donk the lead up and down a few times to feel the spot or clear it of debris. Once it’s in place, nip back to the swim, tighten everything up and jobs a good un. The bush was only about 15ft off the rod tip, but where the outer branches trailed the waters edge, you just couldn’t quite get a lead under there by casting. Such a faff!

I’m watching carp angle now! I’d like a pole like that but they’re rather pricey. Although I’ll use spod mixes and go down that route if I think it’s necessary, I tend to predominantly just fish straight boilies. I have been feeding the same baits for years, and in my experience, I’ve not noticed much improvement in catches using a “spod mix” (hemp, corn, pellet etc) over just fishing over a bed of boilies. Shearwater would do well over a spodded mix, so I went in with that, then one session (it’s about 3hr drive from my house) I left my spod mix at home by mistake so just spombed out a bed of boilies and had just as much action. Obviously, this will be dependent on the lake etc, my waters will fish differently to someone else’s. These days, the spod rod stays in the rod bag and I just pult out a bed of boilies. I’m confident that my baits are being eaten and at the end of every session, I put the remainder of my bait in so they can have a free feed, as I make my own bait and freeze it when it’s made, I don’t like taking it home and re-freezing it and it doesn’t keep too long. So it gets spread about the margins and nature reserve where they can feed safely and I make up a new batch fresh for the next session. I just like to keep things simple (I’m easily confused!) and a bag of boilies is easier to carry around than a big bucket of particle!

I like to chuck in one of those small tins of the golden grain complete with juice, the visual element plus it’s an instant fish puller.

Finely chopped and crushed nuts? I once used peanut flour and fine grade semolina 50/50 with an egg white powder sachet and rapeseed oil - all brought from a supermarket, mixed it all together with eggs and they made pretty nifty looking boilies, didn’t catch on them mind! I’m sure they would work, on the right water.

I couldn’t put a finger on why spodding won’t work on my particular lake, I can remember back to about 2000 when one angler took the place apart spodding 20k of gear out then sitting on it for a week. He emptied the place, after that we were all spodding the granny out of it, and it was all one big blank... roll forward to 2020s, the lake has a new stock, nice young healthy fish, about 90 in 5(ish) acres, yet I’ve not had a single take off a spodded area. Maybe this is more down to the fact I can’t do any more than one night at a time... perhaps those that follow me into the swim clean up! My other water used to produce bites from about 4-8hrs post spodding, shearwater used to respond really well to spodding too, yet a big bed of boilies fished at range used to be just as productive. Maybe with lockdown, when we can finally all angle normally, the carp will be gagging for a nice few Kg of boiled bait that spodding might work again, who knows?

For me wellies are a no no, they don’t keep your feet warm, if anything, I find they can cool your feet down. I tend to stick to the alt berg or magnum boots I wore in the army. Thin cotton socks with thick thermal socks over them. I avoid gortex or waterproof socks as although they stop water getting in, sweat can’t get out and your feet get damp anyway.

Using prebait to clear gravel spots is always worth exploring, I used this to good effect last spring as there was a small hard spot surrounded by Canadian that would do a bite if the wind and light conditions were right. I kept putting hemp and pellet on this spot to keep it clear. It worked for a time, then during summer the surrounding weed grew to an extent that meant this spot was no longer fishable. I could rake the spot clean, but the large beds of Canadian between the spot and the swim prevented line lay and landing fish safely. Most people ignore the swim when the weed comes up, yet the swim has a nice silty area that is fishable, yet no one fishes it.