yonny

In summer i.e. post spawning they'll eat almost anything but I find boilies are at their most effective at that point. In my experience boilie and pellet will out-fish particle at the height of summer. The carp go mental trying to replace the weight/energy/condition they lose during spawning and boilies are pretty much the best bait for doing that imo.

Yes mate. Great line. They are not snag lines buddy. The CM90 is a great line apparently, very supple I'm told, does everything Pretty well. I believe it's semi stretched however which compromises abrasion resistance.

Good answer Elmo. If I have a couple of fish in the margins to go at in the middle of summer I'll pop a few pellets in by hand. If I see most of the stock going crazy out in the middle in January (rare but I have seen it) I'll fill it in. All depends on the fishing situation.

I bait according to the level of activity in front of me rather then the time of year. If I'm on fish in summer that normally means filling it in with the spomb.

The lightest one they do (the BaseCamp) is actually the Wychwood Tactical with a different label. Decent bedchair - I use the Wychwood version.

I agree. It could be some time before they're really grubbing around mate.

You can spot where the carp are prepared to feed a mile off on silty lakes mate. Just look for the areas of coloured water and for fizzing. Silt is imo the most forgiving substrate to fish, you can chuck almost anything at it, but I'd go with a heli set up and a balanced hookbait bait. My first port of call would be to focus on observation. Your eyes and the fish should tell you what you need to know. Good luck.

Not copies lads, they're the same product from the same factory with a different label attached. They even come in the Trakker/Aqua boxes.

When I had my Delks I carried around a 20 year old Fox Micron as a spare for when they went wrong. The Micron never let me down. Ever.

If I hear no reports of failure due to water ingress for a year post-release I'll be taking a closer look myself. Imo Delks give the best indication, but I suffered constant problems with water ingress, 4 times I needed to send them in for repair. If they fix that, I'm defo interested.

I've had most of the top end alarms over the years. In terms of performance Delks are the best. In terms of the reliability they're the worst (from my personal experience). Fox perform well and are reliable. I keep going back to Fox. The ATT's are decent too.

They're little village ponds by the looks of it mate. Can you you not just ask someone down there?

If there's decent 20s in there I'd go with a 12 ft carp rod in 2.5 TC. Copes with every eventuality.

Yeah, if they can capture that magic that we all felt when we went fishing as kids it could be truly brilliant. The brits have always had that cutting edge when it comes to drama so I'm hoping it's a good'n.

News to me. V interesting.

I honestly couldn't believe what I was hearing when I was told this. They'll learn the hard (and expensive) way.

In other news, I've heard today that a trout water in the Nene Valley has just stocked £20,000 worth of VS Fisheries stockies with the aim of turning it into a carp fishery with no plans to fence! This is in one of the hottest areas of the UK for otters, just a few miles away from one of the old illegal otter release sites. You couldn't make it up. It has held carp over the years and they were all ottered. All the unprotected waters around it have been ottered. It is literally otter central... and they think they can just fill it full of carp, charge 25 quid a day, and sit back. It wont last 5 minutes imo.

There's a hush, hush water near me which holds approx 50 fish, a handful of which are big old originals (the biggest goes 50 lb), very special fish. It's not fenced and it's parts of a canal system. I know for a fact that otters are present on the canal (I've seen one) and that they hit this water last year, which obviously means this year too. I'll barely get to fish this next couple of years due to the little'n but when I do get the odd morning/evening free it'll be spent on this water. It's basically a race against time (which is less than ideal considering I have no time lol)..... if it's not too late already. I now the biggun was still there last year but who knows what's happened this winter eh? Nightmare situation. Fishing for a fish that might not be there. Normally it hurts me when one of my targets is caught but in this case every capture will be music to my ears.

HSR was my go-to rig for 20 years but last year it was shelved for the ronnie/spinner with size 2's - that's how good I think the ronnie can be. There's no questioning how good the hinge is, it's a proven rig. I'd have no qualms at all using it again in the right situation, caught me loads of big fish that rig has. Bait screws are great but you need to make sure your pop ups are very good i.e. buoyant. Most off-the-shelf pop ups are no good imho.

Linch Hill? They have a cafe and awesome stock of kippers. Unfortunately big fish waters don't tend to do loads of bites unless you go to an overstocked commercial mate.

Spot on. Imo any method, when mastered and done well, is deadly. Nowt more dangerous than an angler that's confident in what they're doing.

I would probs have agreed with you 18-24 months ago. I did have a play when the rig first hit the headlines but ditched it pretty quickly after some dodgy hook holds. Last year I had another play with bigger hooks (2's and 4's) to suit a particular spot I found and I'm now sold. Imo, if it's set up well, the Ronnie is right up there with the hinge for mechanics and consistency in hook holds. A very, very good rig in the right situation. I don't use chods a lot, but they should always have a place in anyone's angling imo. There is nothing else as effective for when you see a fish show in an area you're not familiar with. Fact.

You need to bear in mind that cold water is denser than warmer water so the coldest water is on the deck. Therefore carp, being cold blooded, will only drop to the deck for one reason at this time of year and that is to feed. However, since we're approaching the end of winter, their metabolism is as slow as it gets, and they need less food, hence bite times on the deck can be very, very short (less than an hour a day). For the remaining 23 hours, zigs give you a genuine chance of a bite. It's the main reason most angers blank all winter - their hookbaits, being on the deck, are nowhere near the carp. Zigs should not be ignored, particularly in winter. Of course the info above is a generalisation. This winter has been the warmest in years and some waters are kicking off, even over bait.

Pukka stuff that is, I use it for hinges and chods.

Not tempted to buy some readymades to keep in the freezer for emergencies bud? There's some top quality baits around nowadays. So good that I haven't made any myself in quire some years, not worth the hassle imo and when I price my time into the equation I can't see it's any cheaper tbh. Defo a labour of love is bait making.