yonny

I would always make cork ball pop ups over those made with a dedicated pop up mix. The buoyancy cannot be matched imo.

You'll be almost dead opposite the Evening Pitch there? See anything spooky?

I am loving these posts mate. That is ridiculous↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓. What a fish, and a fantastic shot too.

We've all been there at some point lol.

Very. Titanium brolly pegs and carbon storm poles are my latest weight saving conquests😂

Decent enough. What kind of bedchair was it buddy?

Confidence is everything in carp angling mate. If you believe in yourself you can make it happen. When it comes to approach i.e. tactics and strategy, just apply logic. It's too easy to mess your head up with weird and wonderful ideas when normally it's the very basics that catch the fish. A half decent bait on a half decent rig in the right place at the right time will do the job. It's my 2nd fave. My fave being "it only takes one bite", which also rings true time and time again.

It was just so weedy, these things happen. Three of those losses were hook pulls and one was an altercation with my other rods. Of course I was racking my brain after 4 on the trot but I was using hinge rigs which are difficult to beat in weedy situations imo. I ended up changing nothing and although I did lose one more fish later that year, what I landed more than made up for it as you will see in due course😀

This. The way I see it if you find fish and do everything as best you can, sooner or later you'll catch something. After all, every dog has his day 😂

For sure. I would go with the Daiwa simply as they are so well established as a manufacturer.

Realistically you're not upgrading mate. Assuming the Wychwood's still work you're not going to gain anything with the BW or the Soniks. I'd save up some cash and go for a genuine upgrade later.

So looking back at my catch reports it reminds me that it doesn't always go to plan. Over the course of that July I have an unforgivable 4 losses on the trot as the weed goes mental. I've not bothered pasting those reports here so we skip to the session where it starts to come good again. Only a small fish here but a very cool looking one imo. The report is short and reading it back, I should probs have had more this weekend. Fished the syndi this weekend. Found a few carp in a particularly weedy swim. Spent a while scaring them away with about a million casts trying to hit these tiny, tiny spots but some of them stayed as I had a couple of bites on Saturday morning. The first @ 06:00 I lost to a hook pull (4th loss on the trot 😣) but 09:30 saw a 24.08 lb mirror grace the net . Not the biggest but it was a proper minter, classically shaped with burnt auburn flanks, a black head and loads of tiny pin head scales dotted all over the place. Saturday night saw another 2 million casts getting the rods on these tiny spots but it was looking fantastic coming into bite time; liners galore from 03:00 onwards. Unfortunately with no cloud in the sky and the brightest of sunshine 06:00 saw all activity stop (where I was expecting the bites to start) and by 08:00 they were drifting about on the top in the shallow bays. So a tricky weekend tbh but I'm just happy to get a fish on the bank after a truly disastrous run of losses. I'm back next weekend so hopefully my new found luck will continue.

Same as I'd approach any water. Boilies/pellets until the carp tell me I need to change something.

You beat me to it, I was just about to type that lol.

Pretty much same here. I'll not bother with doubles but I think it's nice to track growth of the future bigguns.

So after the common I was limited to a couple of afternoons/overnighters due to a trip to Cuba with the Mrs, this took us into July. The fish I caught on this trip is an absolutely awesome looking kipper and was a bit dissapointed with the photos tbh (dodgy self-takes) but there you go. Enjoy: Since catching the big common last month I've only managed a couple of overnighters on the bank and while I've not caught anything I've put the time to good use through observation. It's become clear all this hot weather had changed the habits of the fish and while they've been easy to find in the day it's not been so easy to catch them in those areas. I had a pretty good idea of where they could be caught having watched their movements during my short sessions. On Saturday I was able to get out for another overnighter, only one car in the car park when I showed up, lovely...... As usual i found them straight away in a particular area but with the knowledge gained from previous sessions I knew that setting up on top of them was not the one. It really does take a leap of faith to walk away from a swim in which there's clearly loads of carp but that's exactly what I did, instead choosing to head towards the area I suspected they were feeding in. The swim I chose looked, for lack of a better word, completely dead, and I couldn't help but wonder about my sanity as I set up. I took advantage of the absence of carp by having a really good lead about, and after an hour or two I had the swim mapped and found what is probably the best spot I've ever found on this water; it was rock hard, clearly something had been digging around, a natural feeding area maybe? Confidence for the night ahead increased as did the amount of bait I planned to put in. Out comes the spod and 3 kg of boilie and pellet later I whack the hook baits out and sit down with a cold beer. I was a little restless during the day and evening I have to admit, normally I'd be up trees, on the move, looking, searching...... but on this occasion I suspected the hard work was done and I just had to sit tight until bite time.... around 5 - 7 am. As it got dark I saw a few fish moving which suggested that my thoughts on location might be correct. I stayed up quite late and at around 1 am I got my head down having seen the odd fish but not as much as I'd hoped. At 3:30 am the rod on the new spot signals a twitchy take and I'm on it in seconds only to be disappointed that it's a tench. The moon is almost full and the sun is threatening to breach the horizon already so it's light enough to recast immediately. Two attempts and it's bang on the spot. Back to bed. I'm struggling to sleep so by 4 am I'm back out of the bag just having a 'quick look' for carp (one of those quick looks that goes on for the rest of the day lol). I know I need more sleep but bite time is approaching and I want to see what develops. I see very little, a few tench, and I'm getting worried that my theory is completely wrong so doubts start creeping in.... wrong spot? too much bait? etc, etc.... until about 5 am when I see a carp pop its head out maybe 10 yards behind the new spot. And another.... And another.... The next couple of hours is brilliant, I see a bunch of carp head-and-shouldering behind my spot and they appear to be getting nearer. At about 6 am I see one of the real monsters nut out, defo a 40+, and I'm smoking like a chimney trying to stay calm. It gets later, and later and before I know it 7 am is approaching which tends to signal the end of bite time..... and the sightings are starting to slow down. It hits 7 am and I've not seen one for a while, I'm guessing my chance has gone, very disappointing, so I head back to the brolly to see if I can sleep. I lay down and.... BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE..... off it goes! Into the waders and I hit it - straight into the weed and it's locked up. I've just moved to drop off leads however (don't normally like to drop them but a lot of fish are being lost recently so it's mandated) which helps no end. I tease it out with relative ease and pump it back. I have to say it behaves well once hooked and the fight aint spectacular, which I'm not complaining about with all this weed around. Within 30 yards it's up near the surface and I tease it over the absolutely savage marginal weed beds and straight into the waiting net. Sigh of relief, job done, get in! Peering into the net I see it's a proper looker, a very dark double row linear, clearly a male fish, torpedo shaped, long and solid. Good size too, maybe a 30.... It turns out he's one of the oldest fish in the lake, one of the originals, been fished for since the first anglers hit this lake, a slow grower that's been steadily increasing in size over many years. He's a rare one, a once a year fish at most, so I'm feeling rather pleased as you can imagine. On the scales he goes 30 lb 6 oz, the first time it's done 30, which adds to my good mood. The fish looks awesome in the morning sun, black down it's back, rosewood down it's flanks, and an almost mustard shade to it's belly. It's top half is like a fully scaled, as is it's front end and tail, with just a broad area either side of it's belly clear of these big golden scales. They really do not come much nicer that this, I'm well happy, so I take one last look before sending him back. The view of him snaking his way back out through the marginal weed forest is pretty breathtaking. Lovely. I hang around hoping for a late morning bite which doesn't happen so I go home. Job done, happy days, I bloomin' love carp angling........

I also saw this article and it looks like the kind of thing I'd do to save a few grams, but like you, I just assumed it wouldn't save that much.

Valid point. It's not like rigs that get replaced after every bite or session. The leader might stay on all season.

As said above, you need to go for sleeves to fit the beads on. Beads that grip the leader without a sleeve will struggle to get over the splice/knot so you have a safety issue. The Korda ones recommended by framey and dayvid are the ones. Very good indeed.

Yeah everyone that uses short rods speaks of these swims but in 25 years I've never found a spot anywhere in which I haven't been able to fish with a 12 ft rod. I might need waders to land them, but I've literally never found a spot I can't put a bait on with the 12's.

For stalking I just use one of my 12 ft carp rods.

It's 'Nen' where I'm from. As you head East people become more posh and call it the Neen🤣

I've been there mate. Being on fish and getting mugged off is almost more frustrating than not being able to get on fish😂 That lin is like 😮😮😮 Awesome stuff.

Yeah, beat him up mate. That's the one 👍

Absolutely mate. My pal had here at 50 lb last year, looking amazing as usual. Lovely fish.