thedddjjj

Good quality bait... I can knock together a quality bait for very little money using a blender and basic ingredients. Catch a shedload of fish as well. The idea that a good catching boilie needs to cost much is incorrect and irritates me to be honest. The carp are not fussy and eat most things, so stop trying to second guess them and give 'em a bit of what they like. It's not that hard - and there is very little proof about many components sold as carp attractors/stimulators etc... other than someone has sat by a lake and caught a few on it. I done that with a can of sweetcorn, it is still not a great bait imho. Or they have stuck carp in a tank and gone, ooo look, it likes that. Fieldtesting - wot a joke. Like fieldtesting a pig on a farm. If only ppl knew Good quality carp food - well, no idea what that costs. Often people confuse bait with food. I don't. This statement is the sort of thing bait companies punch out (no offence mate) : Kelp powder - pure dried seaweed, rich in vitamins and minerals and trace elements that carp require for optimum digestion. I mean really? As it would never ever be able to eat seaweed normally what a strange and random claim to make... Anyway, just start rolling simple bait and see how you get on, then you can see if your 'wonder' ingredients add anything later on. I doubt they will as location is 90% of it and the other 9% is called luck.

No secrets there, was on the news as had such low water levels back in 2003. Nothing hiding I am afraid, high 20's, maybe scraping 30's biggest possible. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/01/drought-risk-high-england-2012

Dont use it - it has absolutely no place in pleasure fishing whatsoever.

Or get on your bike and go and get the hooks that you know work better... Sorry, couldn't resist it

Mr 9 months experience

Well what do you suggest then? Unless you start forging your own hooks then your a bit stuck aren't you. You could order online or through a catalogue if you can get someone to pay on their card for you. Or get your local shop to order you some in. It is the hooks, the drennan barbel hooks are much better than the raptors as you have now found out for yourself so either get off your backside or lose fish. I am sure you will survive a cycle ride through a nature reserve in the middle of the day.

Most of the differences you can see and feel in your own hands so I wont insult your intelligence I hope! The fact braid is much softer means that the carp cannot always feel it in the same way as mono so thats why the ghost was suggested for you. You could use stiff mono to a 360 type rig? Have a look through the rigs on the forum and i am sure you will figure the rest out. You could also use fluorocarbon (but I hate it )...

Thanks pal, you make a fair point, have not tried it yet. Either that or I am spending another 2 hours attempting to tie a Trigger Rig

once you have tied it you will have the end of the line coming off the knot and running in the direction away from the eye of the hook. so you can either tie a loop in it or stick on a D ring and pop it back into the eye and use a lighter to blob it off. Its a very good knot and very easy to tie.

Only knot I ever use: For eyed hooks make sure you go through the eye first from underneath. Spade End Whip 1. Double end of line along shank. Loop free end around line and hook. 2. Perform six turns with free end and pass through doubled loop. 3. Lubricate and pull tight, trim. Be careful of the hook point when pulling tight!!! http://www.garysmithfishing.com/shoreinfop8.htm

I dont think i said anything about people panicking but I know what you mean. I am pretty sure the perch would have a great time eating maggots however. They attack luncheon meat (my first choice) and drive you bonkers so I have given up on that. yes I have tried prebaiting areas and found numerous clear spots round the edge - too many and chucked pellets on them to return and find them sometimes gone, sometimes not and no pattern to it that I can see as of yet. They only really switch on after 8.30pm as its getting dark and I have not invested enough time to establish any kind of route. Trouble is, if you bait an area they seem to naff off and feed elsewhere, it seems to put them off - its very frustrating and a bit odd. You would think being a small place it would be easy to work out but as it runs round a long bushy island in the middle, you cant see very far at one time. Also there are not many carp and they dont need that much food, not being that big anyway, so kilos of bait would just go mouldy on the bottom as there is nothing else to eat it I dont think. I will nail them in the end, it will probably take an overnight session which i haven't done yet as there are a few characters that come around with airguns shooting things, I am sure you get the drift I can tell you, its harder than it looks and after about 7pm the carp completely vanish, no bubbles, no signs of feeding - they must be in the margins somewhere but they could be anywhere really as it is all the same. I will keep prebaiting the same few spots as I have been and try red corn and stalking at first light which I have not yet done either. I need some worms for that I think. I will let you know how it goes. One carp is a small one but he is jet black on top with deeply imbedded scales that you can see are just edged with gold when it turns, has a two inch band of bright golden scales right down each side down to the lateral line and under that he is jet black again. Never seen a carp like it, looks like another species, so pretty!

I guess the conclusion to the title of the thread is a freelined worm

I know you are tryin to help mate but 9 months of carp fishin is not really enough experience to draw on and you are slightly confusing things. The fish are very clued up, i have been around long enough to know it when i see it They are also quite old, when you have been staring at the things for years you can tell. They have certainly been fished for in the past and probably had a fairly horrendous experience on the bank because it has gone into their long term memory (Carp have a short and long term memory, just like people). They are not thriving that well, there is not a huge amount of food in there, there is no weed (except as mentioned which is not a nice sort), no lilies, a few dead trees they do like to hang around and sunbathe. They are actually quite twitchy as they have little cover from herons and cormorants, meaning they rarely sit still for long unless tucked into the bank. I am actually going to go down the shop, buy some lilies and chuck them in because the carp have nowhere to sit under at the moment but that is not the point right now. The place is not rich in food in contrast with many other places I have fished and this is likely to be why the carp have not grown that large and why they must visit the margins to feed. If you try and fish with naturals you will find that the perch will be more interested than the carp, so you cannot sit on your backside ledgering a worm or maggots - as a stalking bait however, it may work. The snail shell idea is very good and I will try that too. It is, however, a very pretty place to fish and is an small, old gravel pit. The biggest fish me and a mate watched jump three consecutive times like a salmon, right out of the water. Jump, jump, jump. We got a good view, I put it around 20lb, a common. It was the sort of carp you want to catch

No I think they already have, the perch are going nuts chasing fry around. To be honest, this was meant to be a bit of light relief. The carp are not really very big, nor is the lake - which I am not embarrassed to say. It is not worth the time and effort unless you have the sort of personality that doesn't like to be outwitted by a fish. I have dangled bread on their nose today to be flatly ignored and they swim casually out the way, tried all sorts of things over the past few weeks and it is rapidly becoming one of the hardest lakes I have ever fished. I have absolutely no idea why which makes it all the more frustrating. Nobody bothers with it, clearly the fish are older than they look and have not got the room to grow that enormous, there is only 8 of them in about 2 acres, nothing else except perch, it goes to about 10 foot deep, thats all. But they just wont have it, nothing interests them at all. I can honestly say i have never seen fish, basically that small (under 20lb bar maybe 1 of them) that are so unbelievably clued up. They are also terribly terribly shy, the water is crystal clear, they know what a rod is...its harder than the flamin pit I was originally looking for a bit of light relief from. The bottom is also covered in some kind of blackish stringy blanket chod that clings to everything which is why I am on pop-ups - which from todays experiment they wont have either. They are nice and black though thats why I always say size is not the be all and end all.