yonny

When I was 19 a v large water near me came up for sale at 40k. I pleaded with the bank to lend me the money and of course they just laughed at me. Ten years later it was sold again for more than a million. I still haven't forgiven the bank 🤣

Ages ago I decided to calculate my annual spend on carp fishing. I took into account tickets (of which I had a few back then), bait, tackle, petrol, France trip etc etc.... I had to stop counting the figure got so high. It was eye watering. I decided I didn't want to know! 100%😅

That sounds insane!!!

They'll go for the easiest target for maximum reward so the birdlife may well be doing you a favour mate. Interestingly, at Denton you'd tend to only get a couple of carp taken in winter as they're all sat in the middle 250 yards from the nearest bank - difficult for Mr Otter to take. Then, in spring when carp start to gather for spawning in the shallows the otters would be back and you'd see a flurry of kills. Easy pickings innit. The issue where you are is the island on the big lake..... the bailiffs used to go over there and find corpse after corpse after corpse 😔. Not sure if they still check?

Dunno mate. The Denton biggun finally got eaten last winter after years managing to deal with their annual onslaught. It was a tricky carp and I honestly thought it had learned to deal with them. Alas, no carp is safe.

Otters.

My thoughts exactly. Rather wait a few more months for a quality product that lasts, than buy a mk1 that needs replacing with a mk2 in the first year.

Sorry to hear that @salokcinnodrog. I hope he pulls through. Those waits @ A&E you refer to in your FB post are horrendous. A very close friend of mine had a stroke last week. He was taken to hospital and dumped in A&E for 12 hours before receiving any treatment. It's completely unacceptable.

Gardner said they'll be out in 2025 so they could still be a couple of months away.

Great session @ouchthathurt!

Conditions were next level by me last night.... had me standing by the window wishing I was on the bank!

Please tell me you're not trying to play Elmo's screenshot 😅 Speak English lad 😅

This is different to a mallet imo. Raking means so much more than clearing a spot. The naturals you release during raking serve as the ultimate attractant imo. They carp are bound to come back in. I've raked perfectly clear presentable silt spots and you see fish coming in no time at all. They absolutely love it.

Big spender!! I bought a set of titanium pegs from MPS a couple of years ago. Used them twice and decided it hurt my jim dandy's pushing them in. What a wuss I am 🤣. They're now sitting is my fishing room somewhere with all the other stuff I've spent a fortune on and not used 🤣.

Great shot. If you look closely at his eyes you can tell he thinks he's spotted one 😅

Fantastic result Elmo. Great fish!

I remember trying to weigh my first 40 on a set of Flyweights. You can imagine my elation as I realised it wasn't going to happen 😃. I was proud as punch on the trek to the car to pick up the big boy scales! Happy memories!😊

Decent video.. I enjoyed it.... but I cannot help but think it's not quite as good as all the Tel videos that Jack Reid of ESP produced. It looks like Steve Metcalfe produced this one, the marketing guy at Sticky/TA, which makes sense. With fish of that quality on film it's hard to go wrong and it was a decent watch. Fantastic for a first attempt at a Tel vid. They're Ruben Heaton Flyweights..... some of the best =/<40lb scales you can get. I used to carry a set for smaller kippers and still have them somewhere. It make sense to carry them with the big scales in the car. No-one catches a 40 on every trip... not even Tel. Agree. Proper gnarly.

I was in Kingston Ontario not long ago. The carp fishing over there looks like it could be amazing. I saw carp in several spots during my trip from right down in the marina to hidden away in secluded spots. At one point we went kayaking on Lake Ontario and I found carp milling about by an island. I found a dead carp which with a good size too - at least 20 lb+. I didn't spot one carp angler in all my trip!

Size of its head @kevtaylor..... that'll be a big'n at some point. Fantastic proportions too. Lovely carp.

It is sad... but tbf I've not rated their gear for many, many years. Long gone are the classics whiskey/sting/amber attract etc.

On my water they do the job for tufties, coots, moorhens and swans. The mallards aren't bothered but they tend not to cause a problem in anything over around 3 ft depth. I got rid of my laser pen several years ago after I saw how the carp react to it. I was perched in the lower branches of a tree watching the carp that were on my spot just up the margin. A couple of coots were diving on it so I got the pen out to scare them off. Big mistake. As the laser hits the water it refracts, and a bright green stripe akin to a light sabre trails through the water. The water is that much denser than air that it really accentuates the laser.... it looked awful. The carp were absolutely horrified - they immediately bolted right out of the bay I was in, and didn't come back until the same time the next day. It was that bad I literally binned the laser as soon as I got home.

Have you tried a Tufty Torch Kev? I've just got one and it works well.

I'd be after some used Daiwa Emblems for that money. If you want new, then the Okuma's are great value.

This 👆 I tend to split my baits into kilo bags before freezing. When I take them out I'll put in a healthy glug of this stuff, enough to coat them plus a bit extra, and let them soak it up during defrosting. The stuff is stacked so full of salt it actually acts as a preservative so the baits will last a little longer on the bank. It's also a good method of giving the baits that softer washed-out consistency without compromising on attraction.