emmcee

I'd say my first 3 or 4 years on there were my best, it then became a circus and at times unpleasant. Sad really , as Yonny rightly says, " it's just fishing".

They were savage. They were in fact brother's and had fished dinton for years . They hated the fact that it had become "known" about and that several "names" were joining the syndicate etc. Bearing in mind this was early 2000's and the likes of terry hearn, bernie Loftus and others had dabbled with the days in previous years. I'd heard about these two brother's prior to my arrival and I met one on my second trip there. He introduced himself in the car park and we pushed our barrows out of the car park to the lake and I thought to myself what a sound bloke for him then to say in no uncertain terms that a particular swim was his and God help me if I jumped in it 🤣. The brother's ultimately fell out and ended up weedkilling and soaping each other's swims. Proper nut jobs/green eyed monsters.

Fish the swim , cast to the spot, catch the fish you want and then "soap" the spot when you're done 🤫 🤣. I'm joking about the soaping obviously. I'd have had words if it was me and also told the bloke I'd see fish showing elsewhere before he turned up to see if I could get him to move. I'd find it very hard to move or not cast to a fish holding spot. Regarding the soaping, I'd never heard of it until I got on dinton. There were a couple of anglers who I found out were right nasty towards other anglers. I got told by one of their good "friends" that they would often soap swims that were fished week in , week out by particular anglers. If the certain swims held fish because of a weed bed then they would "napalm " the swim (drop aquatic weed killer bombs) into the swims. When I look back there were certain anglers that would fish the same swims week in , week out and catch fish for it to suddenly die a death.

He's certainly not my cup of tea either. As you say, to loud for me and in your face. Missing a parents birthday isn't good either. That said, when I was on on a mission, in total I've missed 3 of my mates weddings, the odd Christmas and new year celebrations and my niece's birthday most years as it's at the end of September when I always have the week off. She understands 🤣, though my sister doesn't.

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.