emmcee

Just start a composting area. You'll have red worms and denroabaena worms in no time. You won't get so many if any at all of the earth worm (lobworm).

A mate of mine told me to use the curve shank with the multi rig years ago and in my opinion it's a game changer. Had a few hook pulls with chod style hooks on the multi but changing to curve shanks I've had no problems. A few of my other mates now use this hook pattern and don't suffer hook pulls either with this rig.

Same here. I Just need a kick up the $%#@ 😂

The thing I struggle with is what to eat at work. I'll take salad to help with a diet but get bored of the same thing after a week of it. I just need the discipline. I know that some things I eat are not good. One of my worse traits is having a snack late evening, it just sits on your stomach so can't be good.

I know where you're coming from regarding weight gain. I was always 15st 8lbs, that was until the first lockdown. I put on 3 stone and having been back to work since September I've not lost a pound and yet I'm a landscape gardener so I do a physical job. It's not helped by the fact that I drive past a certain fast food outlet every work day morning that has a drive thru, combine that with me being weak when it comes to food, I am in there most days. Not good. It's quite simple I guess, calories consumed far out weigh the calories I burn. I need to change something.

As with any additive/ingredient you need to know what affect the boiling process has on it. Might be a very good addition but it also might be a complete waste if the heat/boiling process runs it.

Well since my venture into sea fishing over the last 3 years I've stumbled across various hooks and patterns from makes I'd not heard of. One particular brand do a chod style hook and it's the sharpest hook I've ever got straight of a packet and at £2-45 for 10 they are cheap as chips. No carp tax on these. I've just got to use them carp fishing now 😂

I used to sharpen them but I hadn't noticed that I had any more or less fish on the bank than before. There was no difference in hook pulls, you always get one for one reason or the other so now I just them straight out the packet. Before it was fashionable to sharpen hooks I'd use the same one/rig for a whole weekend and often had multiple catches with the same hook so who knows

I used to use these many years ago. I used to pull a 1.5 inch piece of shrink tube down the rig that I'd pull over the eye and then steam. Can't for the life of me recall what the make of shrink tube was but it was very stiff. I basically made the bent hook rig, which was banned pretty much everywhere by then. I smashed the lake up I was on at the time for a short while until a bailiff clocked my rig when I was unhooking a fish. Told me the bent hook rig was banned to which I argued that it was shrink tube and not a bent hook. I was told to stop using it or I'd be banned. I wouldn't have minded if the carp had mouth damage etc but it was nailed bang centre. So I then went onto the long shank nailer hook 😂

Same as and many more did the same no doubt.

Sorry if it seemed like I was aiming it at you, I was trying to generalize it. At the end of the day if the individual is happy in what they are doing then that is the main thing. I know I've gone fishing just to get away from the rat race for a day or 2. I just pitched up, went to a swim that I knew I'd get piece and quiet in and it was great. No fish, good food and a few drinks and i loved it. I did this another time on a lake I fish in the colne valley. I jumped in a swim on the shallows, I saw no fish and thought perfect. I'd just finished 15 days straight doing 16hr days and was absolutely shattered. I just wanted peace and quiet. What unfolded you couldn't make up. During the night the fish moved in to the shallows in huge numbers ready to spawn it turned out. I had 7 fish from 1am til 5am. I packed up after the 7th fish to go home and sleep 😂

For me watercraft comes with time learning on the bank. You can't learn watercraft at home so any time you spend at the lake , no matter how short amount of time you are learning or at least you should be. Its seeing the small things that improve you as an angler. A showing fish, a fish sheeting up are the 2 big signs. Without these 2 signs a lot of anglers are stumped. Of course some are naturally better at watercraft than others but you have that in all walks of life, kids who are naturally intelligent, one is better at football than others etc etc.

Time is only any good if you use it wisely, so making the most of your time is essential. The saying "1hr in the right place is better than 24hrs in the wrong place ", rings very true. How long do you spend walking your lake on arrival for a 24hr session say? Do you or rather would you walk it for 23hrs to guarantee you had 1hr in the right place? Let's be honest ,most people would like to say yes but in reality 90% wouldn't do it. A lot of it boils down to how much effort you're willing to put in. I know and admit that my last few seasons on dinton I caught next to nothing and that was because I couldn't be bothered to do the work, I needed a new challenge. I join a new lake and I'm there the first day I'm allowed plumbing swims, baiting up, watching the water as much as possible. I learned the fishes habits very quickly. Winds and air pressures in my opinion are massive influences on fish, well they certainly have been on the lakes I've fished but they were different from lake to lake. Do you keep notes, a diary from each session? The weather conditions, fish caught and from where on the lake, the date, moon phase, air pressure etc. I had loads of info written down from all the lakes I've fished. It helps so much. All this is done whilst I'm at the lake so it's not extra time needed to do it. Luckily I've got a good memory but if I didn't it was all there in black and white. As for needing time to learn watercraft, yes I get that. For me though the signs you look for to find fish are the same for every lake. The difference being on each lake is the fish routes , where they are in what conditions etc. That takes time obviously.

Totally agree.

The only thing money would give you that you don't have is more time to fish. That still doesn't guarantee fish on the bank. Even with all the top gear, tons of bait and all the time in the world people would still blank. The primary thing you need above anything is watercraft, and that costs nothing and the top anglers have it in abundance.

It's not money that catches the fish though. You can have all the money in the world, all the time in the world and fish that lake, doesn't mean you'll catch it.

I was sat with a bloke on dinton black swan once. A dog strolled into his swim , stuck its head in mateys bait bag with his boilies in, sniffed and ran off with out taking a single one. I told him his bait was rubbish as my dog, most dogs scoff bait down. He laughed it off thinking I was winding him up. This happened a couple of months into the season and he hadn't caught by then. A week later he came up to me and asked if I was pulling his leg, I said absolutely not and he needed to change bait. He finally changed bait a while later and started catching. He then started to leave the odd bait on the floor of his swim everytime he fished to see if a dog would eat it, solely for his confidence 😂.

I've used the daiwa floorit. It's still on the spools on my 3lb Tc rods. I found it a good line. Sinks and casts ok for a fluro. I had it on all my spools, only changing to gardener gt/hd when I got on my current lake as I wanted a line that would cast but also sink in time. On a side note, I've never had so much line frap or line twist since going over to the gt/hd. Definitely be changing that before I go again. Oh, I've got a couple of spools with the fox flurocarbon on them, it's pretty good. Sinks like a stone but not good for casting (if you want to hit 100yds I mean).

I was the same to start with on dinton. I fished it how you should fish it. I soon learnt though that during my time on there the fish didnt like being chased around. You flicked a lead at them and they were off. If you could be one step ahead of them then all well and good but these fish at the time had no pattern. So falling in to the bait and wait trap happened to many. Don't get me wrong, some anglers would chase them around but only a couple of them were successful and they were both exceptional anglers, probably the best I've fished with.

So certain anglers fish the same swim week in , week out? This was the case when I first got on dinton white swan. It was handy in a way because you knew where the anglers would be and you had what was left. Sometimes this was good but obviously on occasions it left you away from the fish. But everyone left each other alone so I soon got sucked into the same routine. I picked a swim that no one fished and thought to myself I just need to out bait those around me, which I did and caught my fair share. This is what the blokes on there at the time called "bait and wait". Certainly a good way if everyone respects what you're doing and vice versa. But also a quick fire way to lose your angling skills and you become lazy (I know I did). It was like this for my first 3 or 4 seasons until a lot of the original members moved on and having "your swim" soon became a thing of the past. Those that couldn't move on from that time were left struggling but the ones who adapted back to find the fish first etc caught.

I did put my name down to go back on white which could well crop up for me this spring. Been Chatting to a few on there and I'm more than likely to refuse it, sounds like it's full of idiots. Can't be doing with aggro when I'm fishing.

You can only go if its essential travel 😂 You'll have to let me know when you are down there, be good to meet you. 👍

100%. You can have the best bait, best gear etc but if you're not on them then it's all wasted.

Then I'd crack on with it. Just keep it to yourself 🤫

Well if people are putting it in catch reports then they can't be checking people. Or are these anglers posting in the catch reports bailiffs or in with the bailiffs? Or are they trying to pull a fast one, tell people nuts work, people try nuts and tell them they are on them and then get them banned. There are some very devious people about, I'm one of them 😂