newmarket

Ironically a few weeks after my last post on this thread I had a fall and broke my hip and femur . Was off work for 3 & 1/2 months and to this day I still walk with a pronounced limp . Having a metal rod running from my hip’s ball joint down to my knee (with my knee occasionally giving way) probably means I’ll always have it and I’m guessing that the days of me lugging around Bivvies , Carp rods and buckets of bait around are almost certainly gone now but I hope to still be able to take Tj on a few coarse trips when the weather warms up a bit . He certainly bangs on about it enough but it’ll be difficult as all my fishing gear is in storage but that’s another story .

How did you get on matey ?

Used to love fishing the Lea when I was a kid , both the proper river and the canal . Id jump on a bus to either Angel Road Edmonton or to Waltham Abbey & Broxbourne . Never managed to snare any whiskers though . Plenty of nice Chub and the usual suspects . Would walk for miles sometimes looking for likely spots though. The good old days for sure.

That’s a lovely fish Kev . Hope you’re well.

Thanks Nick . i keep meaning to pop in on a regular basis but i guess the fact that i have very little , if anything , to report on the fishing front has probably had a lot to do with that . i do miss the site and its regulars to be honest . Do Ian and Nigel , Phil etc still frequent the site ?

Still around mate , just thought I’d pop in and say hello 👋

Did somebody mention Pensioners ? 😉

Bit late to the party with this but the simple answer is no . It’s never been stocked in my lifetime to my knowledge. Rumour had it years ago that a few Pike had been added illegally, probably having ‘disappeared’ from other local ponds of which there are/were plenty but I could never understand the logic as apart from the bird life what would they eat ?

This is uncannily similar to my Saber rucksack . I keep my banksticks in one of the side sections , all my electronics in the opposite one , power banks , leads etc , att’s & receiver , sunblesa Bivvy light (amazing bit of kit) and my JuiceCat head torch , spare batteries and my DAB in case the ‘ammers are playing . Plus all my NON fishing gear , gloves hat bacca etc . My terminal tackle , I usually keep in my generic olive coloured hold-all I’ve had for Donkeys , is currently in a Chub smart-box . But due to the fact I’m now unable to tie my own rigs I’ve scaled down to a medium Wychwood tackle box , bought primarily for my boy to use , but as I now no longer appear to need my vast collection of hooklink materials and Hooks etc it is lovely and compact and I’ll definitely be using it from now on . Jrc lead pouch (which is way too heavy so I’ll be scaling that down as well) and a similar though slimmer of the same for my PVA. Saber cool bag for me grub etc . still feels like a lot for the amount of use they get though . Just can’t get over how similar the rucksack/bag is to yours Elmo 🤦🏼‍♂️

Yeah I think that’ll be the plan Cruc . I’ve got a little 6ft spinning rod that I used to use for stalking under willow trees etc . I’m going to get a little reel to go with it and continue down the float fishing route once he shows interest again . The tackle shop has a few Shimano reels in the £25-£30 range that’ll be ideal for him to learn on . I think swimfeeding is a step too far at this stage . I’ll let him tangle the reel a few times first 🤣

oh and edit to say , avoid the pre-tied NGT pole rigs . I bought 2 job lots of em on Amazon (£20 for 10 rigs x 2) and every single one of them was overshotted so now I realise why they were dirt cheap. My lad was doing his nut …. And , trust me , when an Autistic does his nut he absolutely does it 🙄

My (proper) Carp fishing has taken a back seat so far this year , just the one weekend session so far , as my young ‘un seemed to be getting more and more into his fishing and I’ve been taking him to our local commie most weekends/bank holidays since the weather started warming up . He seemed really happy with the bite a Chuck stuff on his whip , roach , Rudd the odd better stamp of Carp ( 3-4lb) to go with the tons of tiny ones . He started asking about how to go about catching the slightly larger fish . Id invested in a whip myself for when I was accompanying him . He uses maggots but I’m always on the sweetcorn. Lot less bites but usually bigger fish . So he wanted to try the Corn but when he didn’t get a bite within 5 minutes he was back on the maggots lol . It didn’t help that once or twice I was using my pellet feeder set up which was prodaucing fish I actually had to use a net to land . Anyway, after last weekend , my Mrs told him she would take him midweek ( school holidays) but he wanted to come home after about 3 hours and didn’t even want to go fishing at all this weekend which peed me off a little bit as I could’ve gone to my Syndicate and lost myself for a couple of days . I thought it may have been the venue so I offered to take him elsewhere but he wasn’t interested at all . He’s always been one to throw himself 100% into whatever he does (the Autism) . Im just wondering whether it’s time for a change within fishing and maybe a small rod & reel approach . Then again the less interest he has the more chance of getting out myself . Such a quandary 😂

I reckon they look fine on a pod mate but if you’re going down the tackle tart route then the rubber O rings are better looking imo . I only ever use banksticks myself , with rubber O rings and I don’t care what they look like as long as I know when I have a bite 🤣

Which ones do you have Elmo ? I think the underlit ones are triffic .

There’s quite a few well known anglers that have posted on here over the years . Jim Shelley , Keith Moors and Richard Gardner to name just 3 . You could also add Nige Woodcock and , er , Carpmachine to that list as well 🤣