ouchthathurt

My first test for my baits when making them is the “dog test” will she eat them? If she’s sat begging as I roll them out, then I know they are good! Funny that little things like that gives you confidence, my dog eats fox poo... what that says about my bait I don’t know!

Haven’t you been watching mark pitchers the challenge on YouTube Elmo? Perch are the new carp! He was lucky, jumping into a lake at any time of year in waders is dangerous, if they fill up with water, the weight of it will drag you under. I guess the margins weren’t too deep. Cold water shock is very real and very dangerous. We all do silly things as children though, swimming your baits out, lilos, tiny inflatable boats brought for a tenner from a beach kiosk to paddle around the ponds! You hope to live and learn! Too many anglers have drowned entering the water for any reason, tragic and avoidable deaths. My dad was a London firefighter on the Thames fire boat for many years, he saw too many avoidable drownings, that we always had to wear life jackets if we were out on the water in boats or swimming. We didn’t fish anywhere my dad didn’t scope out first and we were always within sight. I was always falling in, there would be a splash as I hit the water then another splash as my dad hit the water jumping in after me! There were five kids all over the shop, so he was always having to leap in... We always wore life jackets, so we just bobbed about like a pike bung! We used to jump in off the side of the boat in the end... wait for dad to jump in and scamper on out ourselves... I’ve always been confident in the water, but you have to respect the water, or it will bite you. I’ve been in emergency medicine for many years and have been to drownings in the past.

Exactly that mate, exactly that. She needs love, time, reassurance and positive reinforcement. Oh and a few treats along the way!

She’s 11 months old and far too intelligent for me! Lol! She had a bad start in life and has a fear of men, loud noises, cars, the list goes on! She loves children and has a pathological hatred of cats! She needs at least two good walks a day and she goes to doggy day care when my wife and I are both working so she isn’t left for hours on end. She’s not my first rescue, but she needs the most work and effort to train her. It’s going to be a long road as she has real deep seated anxieties from her past life which need gently correcting, but she improves steadily, she’s so loving and protective of us, (my wife especially) it’s worth the input! I would like her to become a carp dog, but we are a long way from that yet, she’s intelligent though, she learns quickly, which is both a blessing and a curse as if she has a bad experience, she doesn’t forget!

I’m in the process of training my collie/carpathian shepherd cross, we rescued her from Romania. She’s 10 months old and a little character! Just got off the phone with a dog trainer. She’s been on one carp fishing trip with me and she dug holes everywhere and barker at all the other dogs!

Have you considered trying to wash them out in lake water if you’re worried they’re over done?

I think I’ll stick with my nevilles... those alarms cost more than my car! With the delks/nevilles, the delks are more sensitive I found, with the ability to adjust the sensitivity. I just love my nevilles though!

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.