crusian

Dark moody and damp February session 

Good morning to you all, so as I defrost in front of the fire i shall regale you with a tale of carp, rain and mud! (I’m like a cut price Terry Hearn!)
This tale has its foundation in last week, when I found myself once again ensconced in a stuffy hotel room for a “preparation course” ahead of my final exams next week. Chatting to wifey on the phone, she asked why I didn’t take any fishing gear with me, I explained how there wasn’t any time to disappear to a lake for a few hours, so wifey suggested that I get an overnight trip in as she is working and daughter is at nursery and I probably won’t be missed!
Still, as the wifey and I have another baby on the way, due in the summer, opportunities to get the rods out are going to become few and far between, so I prepped the gear, my daughter and I rolled some bait and on yesterdays dawn I was gone, heading for zombie sheep lake.
In arriving, I found the lake looking grey, sullen and foreboding. The water level was up by a good 2ft, meaning one of the islands had disappeared completely, and the other, only a few sorry looking branches poked above the water!
As I was alone, and the wind was piling in, with this being a rather barren landscape, with little to stop the howling wind between the Russian Steppes and my bivvy, I chose to set up on the back of the wind, tucked in behind a sorry line of bushes that did at least act as a wind break. It wasn’t raining, so I took the time to have a lead about to find my usual spot albeit from a different angle.
Happy with my spots, HMS Jenny (my bait boat) was launched into the chop, where she gamely battled the waves to deposit two pva bags of boilie crumb, pellet and maggots onto the spots. With that, I was fishing. 
Both rods being Fox Horizon X3S’s to Fox EOS 12000 reels, to lead core leaders, 3 1/2 oz leads fished as helicopter rigs to fox cortex braid, ESP Clawhammer hooks barbless size 6 fished slip D style.
Bait was my usual Premier Superaminos with belachan, shellfish and salmon oil with added robin red, I tend to just keep feeding the same bait all year through here and still keep having bites, plus it helps keep it established for next year. A good quality bait gets better with application in my eyes. 
With the rods out, it was time to set up house and have a cup of tea. As I was crouching down by the rods, watching the water for any subtle show that there may be fish about, my right hand rod tightened up, so the tea was flung to one side and I snatched up the offending rod, on hitting it, the rod took on its battle curve as the battle was joined.
After a spirited 20min scrap, where it bored remorselessly around the flooded margins, it finally rolled over and hit the net. I checked all the fins were flat, popped the hook out and rolled it up in the mesh for the short walk up the bank.
As it is rather steep on this side, with all the rain, it was like an ice rink, and I managed to slip over, landing on my bum with a carp in my lap! Still, the fish was undamaged so I laid it on the unhooking mat and unfurled the net.
I was faced with another rig in its mouth! Hanging from the scissors was a pink boilie, attached to a rig, safezone leader and a 4oz lead that had no chance of discharging from the lead clip as the tail rubber was jammed on tight! So I unhooked it for the second time and held it up for the happy snaps 


at 28lb exactly, he was in rude health, I don’t think the other rig had been there long as the mouth was not torn, but I treated both hook holds and let him go, a 4oz lead lighter!
I felt that he could be the start of a few, to get a bite so quickly, but alas, it wasn’t to be. HMS Jenny continued to battle the waves to deposit my baits back out there, the rain closed in and started hammering it down, I discovered a few leaks in my bivvy that will now need attention, the bank became a quagmire and it soon became a challenge to stand upright without slipping, let alone walk anywhere! So diving into the stand of trees, I picked up a carrier bag full of pine needles, pine cones and twigs, which I made a path from my brolly to my rods, now I had a grippy surface again, I got my head down and had a peaceful nights rest!
This morning, I awoke and redid the rods, or at least tried to! HMS Jenny, my indefatigable little Amazon special bait boat, finally gave in. Her props still spin, she splashed bravely through the waves, but when it came to drop the baits, the hoppers refused to release, the motor working the release mechanism had given up the ghost. HMS Jenny was like a WW2 Escort Corvette who’s used its last depth charge, it can sail gamely on, but not a lot else!
I chose to stick on a stringer on each rod and cast them out for the last hour or two, whilst I slowly packed up.
Sat on my bedchair, looking at the bags that needed packing away, whilst trying to drum up the enthusiasm to make a start, my left hand rod registered a rapid drop back! I leapt off my backside and promptly landed back on it again as my feet shot out from under me in the slimy muddy bank, and I landed flat on my back, picking my self up I watched the embryonic take fizzle out, I’d missed it! 
 
This proved to be the motivation I needed to pack away and go home. With the barrow loaded, I slip and slide my way back to the car park, load the car and head for home.
This proved to be a more mentally challenging session due to the conditions, and it did cross my mind to pack up and go home, but I gave my head a wobble and stuck it out.
Besides, a 28lb common in February isn’t a bad reward!
Now time for a hot bath, get HMS Jenny in dry dock and see if I can get her back to her little bobbing best!

That's a can of worms Kev, I'm sure someone will be able to assist but I used Co pilot to try and understand bio active ingredients a bit better. Still don't properly but this is something I learned which may help 😱 😂 

 

And my biggest common came on a white shrimp cork ball......
....... so it's settled..... yellow, pink, orange, white, and match the hatch are good for big commons. And mirrors. 🤣

" On a side note, I read in this thread about yellows for commons. Well, I nearly always fished yellows as my hi viz hookbait and nearly always caught mirrors. "
Well that's blown that theory then , emmcee , Just don't tell Kev. as he's after a big Common ! .
😁

" On a side note, I read in this thread about yellows for commons. Well, I nearly always fished yellows as my hi viz hookbait and nearly always caught mirrors. "
Well that's blown that theory then , emmcee , Just don't tell Kev. as he's after a big Common ! .
😁

" On a side note, I read in this thread about yellows for commons. Well, I nearly always fished yellows as my hi viz hookbait and nearly always caught mirrors. "
Well that's blown that theory then , emmcee , Just don't tell Kev. as he's after a big Common ! .
😁

When i first started out carp fishing i met a bloke on a lake i fished in the Colne valley. If I recall, it was before the hi viz hookbaits were all the rage was about but they were starting to appear more and more in the shops. Anyway,  this bloke was a margin fisher, made his own bait but all in pellet shape. His hookbait though was always a hi viz pellet so he could see it better in the margin. He'd catch a few fish but he saw that the hi viz hookbait would be ignored mostly when one or two carp were on his spot but readily taken when 3 or more were feeding. I think most would agree that carp are easier to catch when they are competing with each other. He wanted to catch though when they weren't competing.  One day i watched him bait a spot with his homemade pellet and slip in a hi viz one as well, the difference being the hi viz one was a freebie and his hookbait was a match the hatch (clever angling I thought to myself). His catch rate more or less  trebled by making that change.  When he couldn't get a margin swim he'd fish pva bags in open water and fill the bag with his pellet and one "decoy " hi viz pellet and he caught plenty. 
On a side note, I read in this thread about yellows for commons. Well, I nearly always fished yellows as my hi viz hookbait and nearly always caught mirrors. 

Now that takes me back..... I fished there probably 30 years ago as a spotty teenager. I remember turning up with all my kit on my back and there's these proper carp anglers with barrows everywhere. I loved it. I recall on my first session I hair rigged a cube of luncheon meat and hoyed it as far as I could (which wasn't far with the absolutely rubbish rods I had back then) and had one within 2 minutes. I got some right dirty looks from the proper anglers 😅

There are still some true leney carp around today. My old syndicate had 5 or 6 different known Leney's still in there from a stocking done in the 60's I believe.  I was fortunate enough to catch one on my second trip to the lake, the others eluded me. It was 50 plus yrs old when I caught it and that was over 10yrs ago. It was caught last year along with 2 others. So still definitely 3 in the lake and it makes them 60 plus years old. I'm pretty sure the committee of the lake have the receipt in a picture frame. 
This is the one i had, probably one of my most memorable captures if I think about it.   Weight was irrelevant but it was 28lb 02oz. Sorry about the quality, had to take a picture of my camera screen. 

 

I fished in much worse! 🙄

Mad!! 😂

another go for 2hrs today, another blank! My little girl had a fair few roach and rudd though. 

Interesting session today, I had a premonition that I needed  to be in a certain swim, and got up early, abandoned wife and children to their prospective fates and shot down the lake. No cars parked anywhere, so the swim was mine! 
 
only it wasn’t, as when I parked my car on the grass verge, I could see there were a couple of guys fishing it! 
 
I went to drive off and park up and discovered to my horror that I was now stuck comprehensively in the mud! My father rescued the day with a 5 metre length of astroturf, wedged under the front wheels soon had the jalopy free again. Still, try again! A quick glance around the lake and I saw a couple of very subtle shows, reeds knocking etc. then one fish put its head out at around 100yrds in the far margin. An orange northern special pop up soon landed on its head followed by a krill bottom bait against the knocking reeds in my near margin. (Not a usual go to winter bait, but my son has done well this winter on them here, so worth a shout.) 
 
2hrs later and a recast (with a small pva mesh bag of tutti fruitti crumb) and the orange NS pop up was properly ripping off! at a single ounce over the 20lb barrier, the first 20 of 2026 has hit the net. 

Nothing exciting, but the boy and I managed a few commons this morning to start this years captures. 
 
now have to find a tip eye for a fox warrior 2.75lb rod (any ideas?) 

If its been touched by Donald I'm out. 

Hi Elmo .
I would offer to be a field tester for you , but that would mean I have to get off my bum and actually go fishing 😁 .
Your pink boilies look very tempting .
😃

Just fork out £20 for a tub of magic beans mate..... all your worries will be over! 😂

Just joined, more a browser than anything else,  interested in bait, less in tackle or methods so will watch and listen.
Hello everyone. 

Hi Kev. 
A tackle shop on their facebook post has pointed out that Weds. - Friday the air pressure is dropping , but not a super low ?, so I'll probably stay home in the warm safe from the rain , and the mud .
😁

Condition are looking really good for Friday down here, shame the cars off the road 😂

Hi Kev. 
A tackle shop on their facebook post has pointed out that Weds. - Friday the air pressure is dropping , but not a super low ?, so I'll probably stay home in the warm safe from the rain , and the mud .
😁

Agree that investment has lacked but can’t say they don’t invest at all. 
I’m part of a £5billion portfolio…which does need an extra 2b to deliver fully. 
that’s over 5yrs. Most of that is to just keep up with either tightening regulations or demand from development. 
 
The underinvestment in the 80s/90s isn’t rectifiable now. Not quickly anyway. Even if the money was there, the workforce isn’t. It’s catch up and plasters to the tune of enormous sums of money. 
 
whatever’s happening with your water company is shocking. Be interesting to know exactly what the issue is. Must be major to be offline for so long! 

Would hanging cds like the farmers do help especially if at different heights?
 

Good try mate, but you're facing milder temps, winds from the South and by Friday it will be 988 pressure, DEFFO should give it a go if you can, seems bang on TBH
I should be on a work party Saturday, may do the night after.