emmcee

I see maggots have been mentioned, I've found they can be devastating at this time of year. My personal preference is for reds. I take a gallon of them and have caught some right whackers on them at this time of year. They can certainly buy you a bite if things slow up.

I'd say it depends on the venue you chose to fish during winter and weather conditions that you are fishing in. High stocked venue then I'd fish lead clips to semi tight lines and fish for liners if I can't find them. 12mm - 16mm baits and I wouldn't be afraid to give them some bait. On my syndicate water I used to go the opposite regarding bait size, 18mm - 24mm baits. The bigger baits for pre-baiting to hopefully stop the tufties scoffing them. I would have also been baiting a swim or 2 for a good few months by now with particle and boilie. Plumbing the spots every now and then will tell you if the fish are visiting the spot.

Love him or loathe him take a look at how Shelley does his chod set up. It's how I've always tied mine and set mine up and never had a problem with this way and never dropped the lead. The lead staying on is what enables the hook link to come off the leadcore/leader. If the lead is dropped then its harder for the leader to snag up and therefore the hooklink can't pull off.

Firstly I'd lead about the area where you pulled the bloodworm in from and hope to find "a spot" or better still "the spot". And also lead about other swims/areas you might intend on fishing into late autumn/ winter. Failing that I'd happily put a chod anywhere. I know the way I set it up is safe so have no issues casting it anywhere.

That's the gear, ive snapped bait drills on hookbaits glugged in this stuff.

Where do you live?

Depends if you are someone who hits the clip hard, if you are then you could snap your line or the clip. If not then the emblem spod reel is what I go for. Brilliant reels in my opinion

Personally I'd change over from an inline lead setup to a helicopter set up. You can then set the top bead to the depth you feel is adequate. A critically balanced hookbait or pop up for the rig.

You don't fish weedy waters then I'm guessing?

Exactly mate. I've had that argument before. Though it didnt work when I said Brazil's weren't nuts 🤣🤣. Still there is always a way around things😉

Way over thinking this in my opinion. If as you say in a later post the lead leaves a crater in the silt then being inquisitive creatures the Carp would be more than likely to investigate it than be wary of it. Chod rig all the way for me on that kind of lake. 4 or 5 oz lead so it plugs in the silt deep to set the hook firm. I used to fish a lake that, at one end where the gravel workings used to be the sandy/silt (more like sludge) was upto 3feet deep in places (I know this as I was stuck in it once in my chest waders, quite frightening if I'm honest). Plenty of anglers fished the area for little reward. You would see the big plumes of coloured water when the fish were there. My first time in there and I used Chod rigs on 6foot of lead core, 4oz leads on and caught half a dozen. 4oz lead in silt becomes a pound of lead or more, sets the hook, job done.

Do the fish have hard or soft mouths? If you get burred over hook points I'd say hard mouths, maybe they've toughened up due to feeding over gravel. What hook size are you using? I fished a lake many years ago, suffered hook pulls, burred points. Switched from my size 4 straight point hooks to beaked point hooks. After trials I ended up with size 10 beak points and if I recall only had 2 more hook pulls from over 100 fish.

Sounds like you've got them rocking with 3 fish last night. I wouldn't be slowing it down. If you can't fish then fair enough but try and keep the bait going in. It's only going to get better at this time of year.

Were you a "nun on the run"?

Yes it is👍

As for tigers, look up "whitetigerfishing". Not the cheapest but by far the best tigers you will ever use. 😉

Loads of anglers doing well on it. Nigel will do well on any bait in all fairness.

I know a few people on this, they rate it very highly. In fact one of my older fishing mates has always made his own bait. He got to know the fella at Blake's and last year took some as an alternative bait to france. He was top rod for the week, all on Blake's and not a single one on his bait. He's always slated readymade bait but he now uses Blake's. That for me is high praise from this fella. If for whatever reason I stopped using prem it would be who I'd use.

I've simply screwed some screws into a 4oz lead before. That worked just fine as well. 50lb braid straight through and you're in business

Or I use a cable tie to stop the wires tripping out. They do the job perfectly, and without added carp tax.

I have 4 or 5 turns on the reel no more for my leader..

Oh right, day sessions are bit different. Its knowing when and how to adapt to situations. I'd certainly adapt if I was doing days. Good angling. 👍

That's fair enough mate. I've conditioned fish on a number of occasions. They visit when the bait is going in. My fear would be that the fish visit, clean me out and then only get the occasional visitor. Where as I feel they visit in numbers when the initial baiting up happens. On a lake years ago, Rodney Meadow to be exact. I was pre-baiting with just boilies. On the 5th prebaiting session there was a big group of fish in one of the areas I was baiting. My mate said not to bait there as it will spook them. I flicked in one bait, up came a carp and took it on the drop. I proceeded to feed 5kg of 18mm baits that evening, they didnt budge but scoffed the lot. Since witnessing that it doesn't bother me baiting heavy on fish, especially if they have been conditioned to finding bait there at that time.

One thing I would suggest if you can do it is to have one of your pre-baiting nights on a night you actually fish on. This way you can condition the fish to arrive on a given day, preferably on a day you're likely to be there.

Not so easy to throw a single daphne at a carp though is it if that's what they are munching on. Yes you can fill a boilie with daphne meal if you can get it but it's a round ball not a tiny plankton so nothing like what they are eating if it is daphne. Get a boilie that attracts the lakes naturals to it and you can certainly get yourself more bites.