yonny

Just use the one you have dude. See B.C.'s post.

For sure Vik but I don't think a pit with 8 carp in it can be compared to a water stacked full of pasties!

Interesting that this weekend I saw nothing on each morning despite getting up at 4 am every day. There was no feeding activity at all until the hot conditions subsided. Then when the winds got up and rain started falling they started showing like clockwork. Just goes to show that no matter what we think of bite times sometimes it just won't happen if conditions aint right.

I'll let you persevere with that one bud!

I just use my carp rod with a bare lead to mark up. I carry a spod rod, needs must, but a marker is just one more thing to carry which offers no major benefit imo. Never use a float tbh. I can count the lead down to get a rough depth. Feeding carp probably serve as my most effective marker. If I can find a clear spot where they are or have been active I'm more than happy.

It looks like it has a stiff fluoro boom so it'd be good for cleaner gravel areas. Over the silt and weed I'd go for something less stiff buddy.

John Llewellyn? A very interesting piece. I don't buy it one bit if I'm honest B.C. I've caught plenty of bigguns over freshly baited areas. In addition to that, older fish are not necessarily bigger fish - plenty top out at 20's. Some even less than that. That makes sense to me fella.

How did you get on @B.C.?? It still looked banging around here when I left the lake yesterday morning. I would have killed for another night!

The moon does more than just affect the tides, it causes them buddy! Very interesting theory mate and something I've not really thought about.

The stiff hinge is a pop up rig bud. If you want to fish a snowman have a think about a simple fluoro D rig.

There's mo such thing as a cheap dull copy dude. It's a simple mix of chemicals, they're all the same thing. They only dull with age. Get the cheapest you can find.

Some anglers swear by this as a big fish tactic (fishing off the baited area). I'm not so sure but defo worth a try fella.

Imo if anyone thinks they can feed off a lake full of small carp they are wrong geezer. Not a realistic solution imo buddy.

Nah..... as you know carp don't have a stomach Nick, they can't become full up.

There lies a problem. Small baits are a great tactic for big carp. Imo upping the size too much will reduce the number of bites from big fish as well as little'n's.

I agree Vik. There'a not much you can do to put little'n's off. When I was a lad I spent too much time trying to single out bigger fish in waters full of smaller carp. It took me too long to realise that the best way to catch bigguns is to fish water with bigger fish in!

Premier Baits do baits up to 24 mm fella.

So tricky at the mo with this heat - bite times are short, very short. First morning is spent spotting where they're prepared to feed. Second morning you have an hour or two window to catch them. If they've moved there's no second chances - that's it for the day unless you can get something going on the top.

"HE CATCHES WHEN HE WANTS" lol

There's an app called Fishing Calendar that tracks moon phases and calculates bite time for you. It is very interesting that bites often come during periods that the app says they should. I stopped using it as I can't plan my fishing round moon phases and found it would just do my head in when the app told me the weekend ahead was no good for bites lol. Amen.

Agree. You don't have to spend a fortune to get really decent rods nowadays. Some of the cheaper options are an absolute steal - a lot of rod for the money!

Imo there's not really any rod that can do everything perfectly but you can get pretty close. I've used all sorts over the years, currently use 2 sets religiously: 1 - Nick Buss X-Lite 'S' customs - These are as close as you'll get to a 'do everything' rod. They have a 3.25 TC butt section but the outer carbon weave past the top 4 rings is removed giving it the tip action of a 2.5 TC. What this means is it's stiff enough in the butt to cast a long way yet you have the control in the tip to fish 1 oz leads under the tips. If I cold only ever use one set of rods again these would be the ones. They're at home casting 4 ox leads 130 yards as they are flicking surface controllers out 10 or 20 yards. They blanks are designed by Nick and built by Century so you know they'll last (mine are maybe 6 years old and perform as well as the day I had them built). They're pretty cheap too - I think mine cost 750 quid which although we're talking a while ago was still cheap for custom rods. 2 - Harrison Trebuchet Lights (standard build) - These were purchased as my beast rods for when I need real distance but I have to say they perform much better at close range than I expected. Once I bought them I switched over just to play and as of today I've not yet switched back. They can really chuck a lead but what surprised me is how forgiving they are when playing fish (I've fished zigs on these with light lines and although I wouldn't exactly call it a balanced set up I've not struggled at all). Don't get me wrong, they can't compare to playing carp on a softer rod, but they're nowhere near as bad as I expected. They also make fishing at longer mid-range very, very easy, which I like. The 70-100 yard range is so, so effortless and accurate. I like them a lot. These two sets pretty much cover everything I do. I have got an old mk1 Warrior I use for surface fishing although I'd be more than happy using the X-Lites for this. There's nothing on the market at the moment that makes me want to change anything so I'm more than happy. Maybe one day I'll look at getting a dedicated stalking rod (9/10ft jobby) but so far I've never needed to. I do like the look of the Dymag stalking rods I have to say but tbh I like a 12 ft rod to control fish even in tighter situations. I'm not sold on these shorter rods for general use. Talk about limiting yourself for no reason...... makes no sense imo.

Pretty sure the Shimmy Aero Carp marker is 3 lb tc which means yours is a carp rod. It'll be fine for fishing with buddy.

@Lumeymorris jeeeeeeeezzzz what a result!!! Well done to both of you. What a session!!!! Glad the advice helped in some way mate!

It's 2018! Go for titanium mate. All the performance without the weight!