ouchthathurt

Well I do occasionally… one or two of my swims are lined with ballast, which after a wet winter set to concrete, so no sticks will get in there! I used cygnet sticks in the past, now I’ve got some stainless but I forget which make, but they were around £12 a stick, they’ve lasted ages. I’ve had cheap sticks in the past, but it is a wasted expense. Buy cheap buy twice. If I want to make a pilot hole, I’ll use either a threaded bivvy peg or a storm stick, they seem to work out quite well.

I use a pod

I only use a 50” oval brolly, if it’s needed, I haven’t used my proper bivvy in years. I asked a few fisheries why they don’t allow tents etc, their reply was simple, it came down to insurance - they are not running a campsite their insurance apparently won’t allow tents. How true that it is and what the legal difference between a blue tent and a green bivvy is, I couldn’t say!

I do a lot of margin fishing, and dependant on substrate I will use either bottom baits (90%) of the time, or a really low lying pop up, usually on a spinner rig if it’s a bit choddy. My go to rig choice would be a bottom bait, with half a dozen boilies or broken baits around it, I want something that is discreet and only a mouthful for a carp. On my waters, everyone, (me included and I bet most carp anglers) take their old baits off the hair on the recast and chuck them in the edge, carp are aware of this and will ghost the margins looking for these. That’s what I’m trying to replicate, I’ll happily fish a single bottom bait in the margins, especially if I have seen carp visiting the same place. To my mind, a big pva bag with a blatant pop up would be too obvious, but every water is different!

all set up for another overnighter on zombie sheep lake

I’ve been a die hard premier baits user since 1997 and have so much confidence in them, to the point if I’m not fishing a home made premier bait on the end, my confidence levels drop. I can’t fault the service from premier, in all the years I’ve been ordering bait, I’ve never had a duff batch. The matrix is the base I’m on now, it’s awesome stuff.

matrix plus matrix (the one I got - not the matrix plus as previously stated) the RR mixes seem to have gone.

You may well be right mate, I had it in my head that it was called matrix RR, but I got the matrix plus anyway, now merrily feeding it into my target lake, only a few kg a trip, but a good bait pays dividends!

I’ve had sonik rods 12ft admittedly and I had the butt eye inserts drop out on 2, I’m using fox torque 12ft rods now and they are bulletproof, can’t fault the build quality at all. I did turn a 12ft into a 10ft by accident… I stood on the tip!

I just ordered my basemix from premier baits and the price remained the same. It was a month ago mind, I’m pretty sure I used to be able to get an Robin Red version of my base, but it wasn’t in the range this time round. (Unless I imagined it!)

Good luck mate

Woke up this morning on my new target for the year to find the carp fairy had visited in the night, I found a deeper and a spod bobbing about in the margins… the lad opposite had cast out both and snapped the braid! Both were returned to their rightful owner after his mate came round to collect them. 🙄

If using backleads, I tend to go for the lightest flying backleads I can get away with

here you go mate, for Felixstowe

Few to tempt you with nick 😉

The magical day is here once again, June 16th, two of my tickets kick off today, a small lake and the rivers are open, anyone out hitting the rivers? I’ve got one in mind with a good head of carp, but the tides look good for bass this weekend and the lake is newly open, but is likely to be rather busy so what to do…

Back in dear old Blighty, after sunning my buns with wifey in Malta, basking in 30c heat and snorkelling every day watching mullet, bream, moray eels et al… now packing the work bag, what a difference a day makes! The time away helped me realise that I’m in the wrong job!

I used Diawa cross cast 5000x reels, I’ve got 4 of them, 2 are on my boys rods, ones on a spod rod and one is a spare. They held up to my hamfisted efforts to knack them, I broke one when in a proper strop while snagged up, wrenching for a break, diawa replaced it no questions asked. My boy uses them with no issues at all. I’ve got the fox EOS 12000 reels and I absolutely love them.

Cracking read Newmarket, well done on getting a few!

I would probably start with, does spodding usually work on your water? On my waters, spodding can be the kiss of death yet many still come out and spod religiously, despite it rarely working. They chose the method before they even left home, not taking into account the prevailing conditions, etc. fishing the correct method on the day would be my advice, spodding and splitting swims can be both confusing and counter productive. Then again, it may work! You’ll won’t know unless you try, but don’t flog a dead horse mate.

Some of the mark pitchers fox the challenge vids on YouTube are filmed at east Delph lakes, they might give you an idea if nothing else

I’m all set up now, my first choice swim was taken, but after a walk about I noticed another productive swim was free, so I’m all set up in it now. Happy days! Good luck to all those out on the bank this weekend! 🤞🏼🤞🏼

Good luck on the overnighter mate, I’m off out on an overnighter tonight too. Straight from work

I prefer a soft through action rod for floater fishing, due to the light lines often used. I use an 11ft 2lb tc shimano aero specimen rod.

Looks good mate, hope you have a good session. I’m off out tonight for an overnighter with the boy.