yonny

i read an aritcle on these, ill be giving them a go.

Looks a similar point profile I try to achieve when sharpening my hooks ...when I get it right! .
Probably worth a closer look in my mind yonny.

Good question. 
It depends on the lake and it's an educated guess to a certain extent. First thing obviously is chuck a lead out there, see what kind of drop you get and how badly it's plugging. If it's a generally silty lake I might then have a lead about in the margins to compare, I normally find the silt in the edge is a little deeper than in the middle. A landing net handle can help here too.
If it's just a silty spot in a relatively none silty lake the drop will normally tell you all you need to know.
I used to play about with white string tied up the leader - cast out and the silt discolours the string giving you a good idea of the silt depth - I no longer do that however as it's a bit of a faff and tbh I don't think you need to be that accurate unless you're using stiff rigs (I moved to 15 lb from 25 lb fluoro for this reason).
Tbh nowadays I'll normally just have a chuck about with the lead, I've been doing this a while so can get a pretty good idea doing just that.
On the odd occasion when you find silt that's literally feet deep, you can limit plugging to say 10 inches or so by feathering the cast.

Silt is a very forgiving substrate IMO. You can chuck almost anything in it if it's set to depth correctly.
My favoured presentation is a nice bright 15 mm wafter fished on a clone rig (basically a dead simple D rig in 15 lb fluoro) approximately 8 inches in length, fished heli style with the top bead set to the depth of the silt, or just up from that. The lead plugs and pulls the leader (if you're using one...) down into the silt so the rig lays flat on top against the top bead. The plugged lead gives an awesome bolt effect and the runs you get are usually proper melters. A few 15 mm baits saturated in a glug/water mix (to prevent the on-take of silt) peppered around the area and you're good to go. Really simple, really effective.
 
I actually go with a big lead to plug it into the silt as far as possible.

Silt is a very forgiving substrate IMO. You can chuck almost anything in it if it's set to depth correctly.
My favoured presentation is a nice bright 15 mm wafter fished on a clone rig (basically a dead simple D rig in 15 lb fluoro) approximately 8 inches in length, fished heli style with the top bead set to the depth of the silt, or just up from that. The lead plugs and pulls the leader (if you're using one...) down into the silt so the rig lays flat on top against the top bead. The plugged lead gives an awesome bolt effect and the runs you get are usually proper melters. A few 15 mm baits saturated in a glug/water mix (to prevent the on-take of silt) peppered around the area and you're good to go. Really simple, really effective.
 
I actually go with a big lead to plug it into the silt as far as possible.

Had an hour down the lake tonight. One rod, on a spot I've been priming resulted in another proper Shropshire common.
 

Rig Marole for the hook links fella. Not tried their hooks.
 
Korda hooks are, IMO, the least durable hook on the market. You can sharpen them by having a kitten lick them. Far too soft.
If you want strong hooks then go with Atomic fella. They're absolutely solid, strongest out there by far IMO. if you can find a comment from anyone, anywhere, saying they've been let down by Atomic hooks, I'll give you a tenner.

Home to some of the best syndicates in the country.
 
Again, lots and lots of the highest quality syndis round that way.
 
A couple of hours on google and you'll have a list of syndis as long as my arm from those two areas alone fella. Some really special, historic waters down there.

Which day ticket have you been fishing?You're that close to me we should arrange a social.  
If you're Kingston way, try looking at silver mere golf club. They have a lake of a few acres which is syndicated, but is next to a road. There's also Walton angling society. They have rights to painshill park in Cobham and one other water.
 
Both of those have decent fish in from what I've heard. As for Barwell lake, from what I've heard, even if you get your name down, unless you know a member and get an invite to try out, you'll never get on there. Andy in Surbiton angling might be able to get you the contact for there if you want to try.
 
Have you looked at the Colne valley?

You got me worried there

Seems there are a lot of good carp waters along the Nene, would be good if the locals (CM & co) listed some of the better day ticket waters, i like it around there, there is always some wildlife about that i don't normally see,  there was another Adder sitting on the back road, couple of wood peckers and either a Stoat or a Weasel type thing running in front of my bivey last night, the gaffer must think i don't get out of the city much, i keep on texting him to let him know there are Adders and maybe a Mink or Stoat/Weasel on the lake, his reply was; yeah, i know they live there.

You got me worried there

Actually. It me that gets the tenner.....  
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Nah bud, just need a £10 lol 
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Rig Marole for the hook links fella. Not tried their hooks.
 
Korda hooks are, IMO, the least durable hook on the market. You can sharpen them by having a kitten lick them. Far too soft.
If you want strong hooks then go with Atomic fella. They're absolutely solid, strongest out there by far IMO. if you can find a comment from anyone, anywhere, saying they've been let down by Atomic hooks, I'll give you a tenner.

Rig Marole for the hook links fella. Not tried their hooks.
 
Korda hooks are, IMO, the least durable hook on the market. You can sharpen them by having a kitten lick them. Far too soft.
If you want strong hooks then go with Atomic fella. They're absolutely solid, strongest out there by far IMO. if you can find a comment from anyone, anywhere, saying they've been let down by Atomic hooks, I'll give you a tenner.

I think I'm going to give Rig marole a bash. Myself and a friend have had korda hooks straighten up on us the past month or so. So just a case of losing a little confidence really
 
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Rig Marole is the most consistent tackle brand I know. Every single thing they release is brilliant. It's normally a little different to the competition too, and different is GOOOOOD.

The advice above is spot on but there will be a limit to the quality of your shots.
Basically when it comes to photography the more you spend the better the shots you will get. If you look around you can pick up an older Canon G series compact for relatively cheap, these will give you much better shots. My advice would be to buy an intervalometer as well - this is basically an add-on self-timer that provides an external actuation of the shutter meaning the camera can auto-focus between shots (absolutely critical to decent self takes).
You can get very good pics on a budget if you know what to look for.

I don't sharpen them, but to be honest they are sharp straight out of the packet i have drawn blood several times when tying simple rigs, I love the pattern perfect for the rig i use them with and the hook holds have all been nailed so far, the only thing I am not certain of is the coating it seems to taint quite quickly but i need to use them more to give a proper verdict, another nice thing is the price point 50p a pack cheaper than my previous choice

I'm down to just 1 at the minute which serves both presentation's I favour, 7-8 inches of ESP Tungsten Loaded, strong wide gape hook (at the minute this ESP Croygen Grippa not used them long enough to make a proper evaluation), piece of tubing over the eye, hook ring swivel and hook bead, I just adjust the hook bead and putty to weather i am using a pop up or wafter.
 
Looks like most of the good reliable rigs are already covered in other posts 

Clone rig and HSR - because they can be modified to fish effectively over pretty much any substrate.
Rig Marole CAMH2O - because the different breaking strains can be used to construct the above rigs perfectly.
Atomic Chodda/Sabre - because they're the best (read: most reliable) hooks in the world IMO.
 
My +1 hooklink would be ESP Tungsten Loaded coated braid, simply because it's the best coated braid I've come across and it's always handy to have some in the box.

It's a small triangular shaped lake, just over an acre, with 6 swims, according to an article I found on Google.
I believe it can be booked so it might be ideal for the holiday type trip you're after.

It's a little pond stuffed with huge foreign imports. It has at least 2 x 50 lb commons, one of which has done well over 60.
Very, very pressured water so not easy. Very busy.
Not my bag at all but if you just want to catch massive fish it's worth a look.

Spot on. Breaking strain is meaningless. It's a number made up by the manufacturer.
The key is diameter and stretch.
- Diameter will tell you all you need to know about linear strength and, to an extent, knot strength.
- Stretch characteristics tell you about abrasion resistance - pre-stretched = poor, low stretch (semi pre-stretched) = OK, no pre-stretching = good.