crusian

So, I joined a little syndicate recently. 
Well stocked to a few early 40's,
Initially thought there's a few odd rules, but whatever.
As times gone by (4 x 48's), I've had a low 30 on the first visit) I've sort of lost interest in the place.
A few mates are on the ticket, but we haven't been free at the same time for a social.
After fishing a reservoir and that feeling of having something no ones caught before, I've just not had the same buzz with this place.
The search for a decent venue continues i guess?? 

Week in Belgium for the first time, trip was everything I'd hoped for and more - lake to ourselves 2 anglers 6 acres, paid more but wouldn't add another angler tbh
Epic week, tough fishing but so interesting, acting on sightings as usual, spreading the rods far and wide obvs to the point where I was quiver tipping from the pod in both directions at one point lol. This kicked me hard after a bleep in the early hours suddenly turned into a rod flying through the air into the pond as the clutches were too tight.
3 boats trips later after much panicking I picked up the line, got the rod and landed the fish unbelievably.
Several boat battles each, quality fish averaging mid 30s, great company, many laughs, team work - learning on the job in boats it was mega in truth, didn't want it to end.
By the end of the week we had a well established pattern of only ever catching on a spot on the first night/dawn, no spot did another bite after a fish came off it, so if you weren't moving spots you weren't catching end of.  On the last night we predicted that we could both reel in 2 rods and only leave the new one out and obvs it was true - one take each that night on the new spots - pretty mad really.
We caught by far the most on the complex and laughed the loudest I reckon.  My 'GET IN' when the rod was back in my hand must have woke the complex lol
8 fish for me from 26.8 to 42, my mate 6 from 29 to 44.12
I had all mirrors which is perfect - he had mostly commons again, interestingly he caught mostly commons last trip I didnt and same on a syndi water.  Only difference I've noticed he uses a yellow topper, I don't.
My second biggest fish's pic wasn't focussed unfortunately, I didnt show him half pressing - usually give him the remote- cant go wrong with that but thankfully re-mastering it made it semi useable so sorry about that.
Ian again, thanks for the camera tips etc, got my best night takes ever of mateys big commons and enjoying using my remote - should always do it tbh my self takes are always my favourite pics of the trip.  🤦
I've had worse tbh another mate chops your head off lol
Carp Arena, Lilly Pool - drive and survive, small supplies shop, bbq area with fridges, freezers, drinks, chocs and water.  Flushing toilets near clean warm showers, bio toilets elsewhere, saw dust is amazing no smells and emptied every 3 days.  We didn't get bothered once which we loved,  others who blanked on other pits moaned about just about everything so it's not a complex for everyone I guess.
Looking to re-book the lake and possibly have a go on Clover Lake 😎🇧🇪

Note to self, don't use a bait boat on a weedy canal 🤣 man what a nightmare, so last night we thought we should send the baits/particle out with the boat. 3 rods went out sweet, dropped the 4th, turned the boat right when I should of went left and it into that scummy weed that sits on top the water. Wrapped around the propellers and stopped the boat in its tracks. 
We had no way of getting the boat back so had to do 4 mile trip to get to the other side, safe to say the travel was the easiest part, I then had to go through about 5ft of nettles in the dark to get to the waters edge and still couldn't reach the boat, so I tried with my net handle, which had nothing on the end so I couldn't even hook it out 🤦‍♂️🤣 in the end I just slid down the bank hanging onto brambles and managed to grab it with my other hand and launch in back up into the hedge 🤣 I got stung all up my hip, back and arm and hands lol and to make it even worse, the whole time I was over there trying to get it out all I could hear is my mate roaring like a child 🤣🤣

Booked quite a few trips well in advance this year based on previous good trips according to my diaries. I went 2 weeks ago and it was pretty grim, only 2 people caught out of the 18 pegs. It was just stale and the lake is still low from the lack of rain this year. Unfortunately didn't book last weekend and missed out on Storm Amy. Went on Friday this week for another 52 hour session but it was even worse. No wind, no rain and overcast. Barely saw a roach dimple but did have one possible sighting. I did have one bit of excitement when all 3 rods went within seconds of each other but there are some big cats in the lake and was probably a trailer. My bivvy was bone dry this morning which is unusual , ever drier than my landing net! I did have a one blip bite at 2:30 a.m. and that was about as good as it got. I knocked it on the head after 24 hours. I could have stayed but didn't think I had any realistic chance of catching as the weather forecast was for similar.

3rd time this year ffs 🤣 I've had 5 fish from this lake and 3 of them has been the same fish 🖕🤣 29lb 8oz lol

You should try would be fun getting dragged up the towpath for miles 😂

Okay so i ordered a used bivvy of ebay, an Avanta one night stand for sensible money, the good thing about this is it can be used as an open front shelter or bivvy so i will reluctantly sell my westlake bivvy shelter to help recoup some cost and less kit to store

After working a 2pm-2am shift, I popped down to a local park lake to await the morning when I would be able to park on my road (that was my excuse anyway) I managed a carp that probably wouldn’t look out of place in Yonny’s koi pond, but it kicks off October 

Thanks, well added them crushed to a mix made it smell decent, looked good on the deck too, but rigging the snails was an absolute nightmare and won't be doing it again lol.
I dunno, I don't think they are the one lol. Spent most of the day walking the canal and finally found them, fished amongst them for a couple hours until they disappeared. Not a bleep. 🤣
 
It's cool though, I'm pretty happy I gave it a go lol.

Well if you are right , Yonny , which you almost certainly are because you are Yonny , you've just saved me a few bob .
😃
 

Well if you are right , Yonny , which you almost certainly are because you are Yonny , you've just saved me a few bob .
😃
 

Yeah I did years ago. I used live ones, dead ones, dehydrated/dried ones.... and they were all rubbish. Imo the carp get on the (natural) snails simply because it's the easiest food source to harvest at the time. They're tuned into the food sources available in their watercourse and I don't think you can compete with that with any snails apart from those that are plucked out of the venue - so @jh92 has the right idea. Even then, there are other natural baits (maggots and worms) that will do a much better job of competing.
The snail discussion comes up every few years. Lots of guys try it. Hardly anyone has any real success. Imho, snails are just not a great bait.
 

That's some serious next level determination, hope your effort pays off. 

Well I've been out and got around 100 snails, got a special mix on the go in the bucket 😏 tedious picking in the waders 💪🤣
 
I'm off to the canal tomorrow morning for a night or two. Both rods are gonna go on snails. I will update how I get on 👍

Fake ones? 

 
Real ones for a spod mix 🤔
https://www.carpparticles.co.uk/product/micro-snails/
Also don't dynamite cook their hemp in the tins? Does that mean they are unaliving snails in the tin too? 😱
 

Cheers bud, trying to get away from boili3s at the moment, I'm after real snails 👍🤣
Yes mate I've already got myself a tin 👍 I want a couple from my canal that I can drill and rig 👍 I'm gonna get the waders on for next session and pick a couple from the banks and see what happens 👍🤣

https://www.baitworks.co.uk/
I've been on the Creamino for the last few years and I don't know if it's co-incidence but I've had my best 2 seasons since.

1. For the ultimate in being a tart, take a bivvy, brolly and gazebo. Don’t laugh, I saw it last weekend on a commercial where you can park your car behind the swim.
 
2. Have a splash mat under your reels, the ultimate in tartyness.
 
3. Carry 20 different types of pop-up but only use 1.
 
4. Take a 2 man bivvy but you only do over-nighters.
 
5. Take a powered fridge despite the fact you only keep your sandwiches and lager in it.
 
6. Own a 5-season sleeping bag despite the fact you hang your rods up in October.
 
7. Have a power bank that could keep a family home going for a couple of days in a power cut but you only charge your phone and torch.
 
8. Your rod-pod has so much stainless that you have to wear sunglasses to look at it.
 
9. You have a power barrow with so much grunt it could stop an average scrum but you only fish a 2 acre lake with manicured lawns.
 
10. Your phone is permanently on FaceBook so you can keep in contact with both of your friends.
 
11. A pair of 10x25 binoculars is more than ample and fits in your pocket when folded down. So why do you take a set of field glasses that can spot a mouse a mile away?
 
12. You wear bivvy slippers to keep your groundsheet clean.
 
13. A head torch is a necessity after dark but you need to keep it down to keep your night-sight when you turn it off. Your 8000 Lumen monstrosity resembles the Blackpool illuminations.
 
14. You bring your camper van to a commercial that allows rear of swim parking and stay in it all day and night watching TV or reading a book and only come outside once a day. Don’t laugh, I have seen it.
 
15. You own 2 sets of rods/reels/buzzers because you fish different waters and don’t want to handicap yourself.
 
16. Despite having a double burner and family sized returnable gas bottle and associated cookware, your meals are delivered to your swim from the local greasy spoon and pizza shop.
 
17. You have a bait boat with GPS and Sonar despite your lake being as pancake flat as the day the bulldozer created it. It also has a 4kg payload despite the fact you only use PVA bags.
 
18. Everyone loves a bivvy table. A small one just big enough for your tackle box, scales, phone and receiver is ample. A true tackle tart pushes it to the max and I saw 2 blokes in adjoining swims with a decorating table that you use for hanging wallpaper.
 
19. You have a top of the range DSLR with an impressive pixel count but the deal clincher was the 40 frames per second burst shooting rate it offered. Despite the fact you will never use it. You only shoot in Auto and use the photo’s unaltered on your FaceBook page.
 
20. You take 3 nets with you, “just in case.” The water you are fishing is rock hard and 2 fish a season is considered good going.

After a bit of googling yes it seems most fisheries wont allow tents, good job i have not bought one yet, so looks like a bivvy or just forget the idea glad jh92 pointed this out at this stage i can get a wrap skin for my westlake day shelter or get an NGT XPR brolly system

If I remember correctly, isn't there a rule for most fisheries that a tent can't be used? It has to be something that doesn't have a fixed groundsheet? Something to do with insurances I believe?
Or is it just to stop people turning up with blue tents etc? Lol
 
I've given up trying to beat the carp tax, end up buying something [censored]e then buying something decent afterwards anyway 🤣

Hi Jules .
I'm glad your pop up tent is green as my local lake has a green or camo only rule for bivvies .
😄

I have another pond down in the main garden with goldfish in.... the heron can have them!
Otters...... now there's a scary thought. We're 3 miles away from the Nene... but there's a small brook just 250m away. Fencing the pond, or the garden, isn't really possible. Maybe a steel mesh over the top of the pond when I'm not around?

I'd hate to see the size of the heron if it was to eat "whopper". That said the otter protection is a good shout if near to waterways.  

Hello Yonny .
Don't you mean you bought a Koi Pond , and a house came with it ?  😁 .
I hope you have Heron and Otter  protection  ? .