emmcee

Not a fan of bluey if I'm honest, prefer anchovies or sprat.

Same here. Gone from the days of opening my chest freezer and seeing 100kg plus of boilies to now seeing no boilies but 50 peelers vac packed into 5's, 5 packs of English squid, 10 wraps of frozen blacks, 4 packs sandeel, 2 pack mackerel and 4 packs of anchovies.

The last thing I'd be doing is recasting at first light as that was a predominant bite time on the lakes I fished. I'd recast in the dark with no issues, as long as I hit the clip and felt that lead down with a thump I'd be happy. Be that wind, rain or what.

If I'm not mistaken the other two addits were, addit attract and addit digest. I used both of those in a milk protein in winter. The digest definitely worked as a fish was caught passing my bait before i added the digest as the pictures were being taken and It came out like it was paste coming out of a bait gun. After adding the digest the fish I caught were then passing the bait let's say more freely.

The 360 rig was my go to pop up rig for a long while, I used it with the long shank nailer hook pattern. Had stacks of fish on it and hand on heart I can honestly say I never had a fish with mouth damage and yet a couple of the lakes I fished at the time banned the rig.

That's what happens now on dinton pastures i think, they close for 4 weeks or so once the spawning starts. The other lakes I had tickets for had a similar policy. In fact I have kept one ticket for a lake in colne valley. Took me years to get the ticket after being proposed and seconded by a couple of mates who were members, so I may return to it one day.

I think the March 15th til June 16th was because you have different species spawning at different times. Correct me if I'm wrong but the pike and probably perch spawn first early spring so that their young then predate on the fry of the fish that spawn later so the time scale was to hopefully cover all the spawning of all the species. Always certain lakes that buck this trend . My old lake dinton pastures white Swan lake nearly always spawned a week or 2 after the season opened on June 16th and the anticipation was something I looked forward to. Used to spend the close season pre-baiting, sorting gear out, rigs etc. Maybe the odd day ticket session but everything geared towards the opening night. You had to do a work party if you wanted to fish opening night and the draw for your peg was a buzz. I obviously don't fish Freshwater now but if I did i certainly wouldn't bother me if the close season was to return. When dinton scrapped the close season the fishing that first spring was insane to the point that a fair few members literally only fished it for the 3 months of what was the close season each season after that because it was so hard the rest of the season.

I've only heard good things about this coolbox, albeit from youtube anglers. Be interesting to hear what you think instead some paid angler saying how good it is.

Oh yes they certainly move a lot. I was in 30/31 one night and had 3 fish by 9am. The wind turned towards "big no dogs" and the fish were rolling towards there within half hour. I packed up and moved to "big no dogs" and had 3 more that day. Knowing the weather and air pressure was a big thing for me and a few others in my time on there. I've only ever seen " petty's" twice, once in Lee's photos and the other was close up in some snags in "spooky bay". It was only a few weeks after Lee had caught the fish so roughly knew the weight and I saw a mirror roll up in the snags with it that absolutely dwarfed it. It's certainly a special lake/complex with special carp.

Is that "Petty's comon" or another one? Either way top angling fella. I'll have to pop down one day and meet you, I'm only a 20min cycle ride away. As for them being on the back of a SW, they always used to be on the back of a low pressure SW but would follow a high pressure SW. I used to love a big low pressure SW on there as most would be down the boat club/golf bank and leave winter bay well alone. Congrats once again on a magnificent carp.

I used braid on both marker and spod rod when carping and I use braid now for sea fishing. I only ever used whiplash whilst carping and did get occasional wind knots. Sea fishing I use a cheap braid off Ebay and never had a wind knot with it (spectra braid). Not as thin as whiplash mind but that's possibly the reason for no wind knots. I no doubt lose a bit of distance but I'd swap that for no wind knots and obviously I always wet the spool before any casting.

Also depends on how hard you hit the clip with stretch in mono you can end up feet off the spot. I had a similar thing with using 4oz leads on a session and caught a few fish and only had 3oz leads left. Could I find the spot again, could I heck.

The only Scopex I ever user was nashy's scopex no.1, only because mates of mine who'd been carping a lot longer than me told me that it was the better one in their opinion. The only hutchy stuff I used was his Nouville fizz, secret agent and his R.S.A. , both belters. As Elmoputney says, Johnson Ross do some of the flavours so I guess keep an eye on their stock. Might also be worth a check on a Facebook page called "biological bait". The bloke has untold amounts of flavours of every kind and I mean boxes upon boxes of the stuff and copies some if them so might have what you want.

I used a Coleman for years and it never stopped me catching.

Exactly, if you know where to look or think outside the box you can make your bait totally different to the norm and its a huge edge . The bait firms pretty much use Tiger nut , be that flour or meal and peanut meal, be that blanched or roasted and yet there are so many more nut varieties out there.