crusian

I remember a 'sort of quilted themal onesie' I had from Catchum, it actually did the job..... however that was in my younger days! 😁
 
Think that really sums it up for me too, unfortunatly can't turn the clock back, have to enjoy the time on the bank hopefully away from too many kn*b heads 👍

I've moved this into UK Carp fishing as I think it's worth more than NCB.
 
I can go back to carp fishing in the 1980's when 'the rise' was on it's way.
From Mitchell reels that were easy to clean and re-oil, to Daiwa Ab1350's which I won and used for float and tench fishing, and onto Abu Cardinal Ultracasts, the rear drag made fishing 'spool runner' possible, then the Shimano Baitrunners.
 
North Western rods, which I would prefer over many more modern available brands, Century Armalites, mk.l and ll.
As for brollies, making your own overwrap from a tarpaulin and then being able to get a proper branded overwrap to go over a 50inch umbrella.
 
Clothing, life was cold in winter, although most of my winter fishing was for roach and pike. A tanksuit, that if you were lucky was actually waterproof.
 
What irritates me is the lack of courtesy and etiquette in fishing now, and it has become a 'sit behind the rods' at all costs, often missing out on stalking and floater fishing.
A rise in commercialism, waters and media I think have killed the mystery.
 
As for tackle shops, as much as possible I prefer to go into the shop, although if I do have to order tackle online I prefer to use Tackle Box in Kent and Johnson Ross in Hoddesdon, both of which I have been in. I am lucky though, I do have 3 very good tackle shops within 5miles of my flat.
 
 
 

V easy to
I'm of the same generation mate, and while it's easy to reminisce, I can also remember the not-so-good stuff. Worst of all being the rubbish clothes we wore for winter fishing. I honestly believe I put myself at serious risk back in those days. Boys will be boys though.
Let's face it, most of the tackle was absolutely pants.
In modern angling you can choose your approach and I maintain many of the values I did when I started. But now I have decent gear. Ergo, it's the best of both worlds for me.
 

Thanks , Nick

Just back from my return visit to Brothers Lake, France.
Weather at the start was hot and the fishing was slow, but as the week progressed and temps cooled off the fishing got better and better and I finished off with 15 fish to 49lb inc 7 x 30s and another mid 40.
Tactics were scatterings of boilie only - put out with the stick to a marker float every afternoon and a small top-up at dusk.
The fish were feeding heavily on naturals, fizzing up most of the day everyday, just past where we were fishing or anywhere without lines between us in the middle.  Being a small lake they did exactly this last trip despite us being on the opposite bank this time.
I chose to go with my newish wafter rig, a slip-d, multi - tied using the Korda hook-clip, size 6 wide gapes, Esp Tungsten Loaded and Gardner XL tungsten aligners, Korda tungsten large anti tangle sleeve - with a total rig length of around 5 inches.  With a golf ball sized funnel-web bag of mixed pellet, boilie crumb and 10ml Odyssey XXX.  Feeding 15ml XXX and using 15ml wafters as hookbaits.
By the end of the week I just wanted a 50 to complete what had been a great session and at 1am on the final night I got my wish, well not quite but 49 will more than do.
Some of the fish:








 

Good morning all, 
so the last 3wks have flown by in a sleepy haze of sleepless nights, nappies, bottles and sterilising bottles, however yesterday wifey told me it was time to get the rods out! 
Trying to overcome my surprise, after all I hadn’t planned an overnight trip for many months into the future, why the free pass? My wife wanted a practice run of looking after the children alone for when I return to work next week, so I was banished to the lake! well you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth do you?? 
 
luckily, if you saw my “playing with bait” thread, you’ll see that I had a bag of bait tucked away in the freezer, so the gear was dragged from the shed, food and bait loaded and I was off to the Kent boarder to fish a lake I’ve christened “zombie sheep lake” 
I needed to pop into the tackle shop to pick up a few bits and while browsing the shelves, my eye wandered over the racks of bivvies all in a row… 
now my JRC STI 1 man bivvy has finally died a death after far too many years to count, indeed it had been coughing up blood for at least 10yrs and now I’m in my 40s, the thought of doing winter sessions under my trusty oval brolly and storm sides really didn’t appeal! 13yrs of Army service, sleeping under a poncho in a ditch had meant that I was pretty used to kipping in less than favourable conditions, but any fool can be uncomfortable can’t they? 
 
so I ended up going in for a few packs of hooks and pva bags and left with a JRC Defender bivvy… oops 
after a 20min detour to the bailiffs house to pick up a part of my carp porter barrow that I left behind on my last (blank) trip 6wks ago, I got to the lake about 1pm, happy to see that I had it all to myself. 
 
I barrowed my gear round to the point swim, as I can see and cast to a large portion of the lake, where there was a nice gentle breeze drifting in, and set up the gear. I rigged up a pair of Fox Horizon X4S TT 12ft rods with my Fox EOS 12000 Reels spooled with 12lb synchro XT mainline, to a length of Korda leadcore fished helicopter style, hook links being 10” fox cortex soft coated braid, fished to a size 6 ESP Clawhammer hook fished slip D style and a 1” length of shink tube, line-aligner style. Bait was my fishy boilie offering. 
 
breaking out the marker rod, I found a nice silty hump with 7.5ft of water over it, with the surrounding lakebed 9ft deep. It was plenty big enough for the 2 rods that I would be using, although what was obvious was the lack of water, it was at least 2ft down from its usual summer levels. As a result, the lake hadn’t been fishing well, but who cares! I’m out on the bank in the sun and a carp just came out up to the wrist of its tail only feet from my marker float bobbing about. 
 
i catapulted about 100-150 baits over the hump and cast both rods to their respective spots. One on a 7 bait stringer and one in a pva bag. Now obviously, a soft coated hooklinks 10 inches long aren’t ideal for for pva bag use, and I really couldn’t be bothered to faff about trying up soft coated braided links, so snipped off the corner of the large pva bag and threaded the hook link through the hole so the hook link dangled out the bottom. After filling it with 1 & 2mm pellets and crusher boilie, I sealed it all up, then nicked the hook into the bag opposite the lead. It looked a bit noddy, but it was worth a try! 
with the rods out, it was time to get the base camp set up! You can see how low the water it as that gravel shelf is usually under water! 
 
now it was time to break out the new bivvy!! 
I lovingly unpacked it from its bag, laid it all out, fanned out the poles and started clipping it all together, only to find that one of the poles was snapped! Nightmare! Despite all my bodging attempts, this bivvy was knacked, so in an absolute huff, I wrapped the bivvy back up, reeled in the rods and trudged back to the car to chuck the bivvy in and grab the oval brolly, no decadent abode for me tonight! 
returning to the swim, I redid the rods (again!)  and threw up the oval, still muttering to myself about the injustice of it all, a quick brew soon sorted me out though.  
 
the night soon drew in and the carp were getting more active and I retired to the carp cot around midnight confident on some action to christen the X4S rods that haven’t had a decent carp on as yet! 
 
at 1am, the left hand pva bag rod gave a flurry of bleeps, with the dinky esp bobbin tight to the Neville, so I struck and found myself into a plodding weight. After a pretty unspectacular fight, a carp was now nestled in the folds of my landing net. at 23lb, I was buzzing! The dodgy tied pva bag had done the job! 
 
with that working, another found it’s way back out there, and I got back to sleep. At 4am, the same rod absolutely flew, the Neville was screaming as I made my way to the rods, one shoe on one off. This one started beating me up from the get go, and after a spirited battle, a 21lb common hit the net, along with 20 tiny perch. with the pva bag working, I pressed repeat and got it back out there. As the sun was rising, I made another brew and watched the water as the sun came up (proper carpy that) once dawn had arrived, I climbed into the bag to get some kip, although it wasn’t to be, as the pva bag rod dropped slack. Winding down i soon felt the weight and soon had the carp boring down the margins, where it promptly beached itself! I couldn’t get it in the net, so gently guided it into deeper water where it rolled into the net first time. At 26lb, it was an immaculate common! (Check out the realtree MC Hammer pants!)  I redid the rod and had a celebratory cuppa, when 4 day anglers arrived, that was my sign to wrap up and head home, slightly earlier than planned, but I had my share, it was time to let the day guys enjoy this delightful little pool. 
swinging into the tackle shop on the way home, I exchanged the defective bivvy for another one, which is sound, so alls well that ends well. 

Just got back from a 2 day trip. Apparently a bait company hired the place for a few days and my swim was littered with beer bottle tops, Fag butts and other assorted rubbish. The crisp packet and brunch bar were mine to go into the old quality street tub I use as my rubbish bin.

Respect!
Here's another one for you:
I was sat watching the water from my bivvy, and Sky and me saw a van move slowly along the bank to what I call 'second car park'.
A few minutes later my Messenger bleeps, with the message asking if thats me on the far bank followed by: "Thanks pal ill been down in abit mite fish to the right of you if aviable".
JR is dyslexic so I wasn't worried about his spelling, but 'asking' if its ok to set up in the swim to the right. Not that he needed to ask, the nearest swim either side is around 100metres away, but just a little courtesy.
That is the attitude of majority of the anglers on the syndicate.

on the deck at the end of the sesh 

few quick hours while the girls at nursery 

Many thanks all! 3wks in and the sleepless nights are starting to catch up! 
 
well I took the new aforementioned banana baits to a local club water the other day for a quick few hours while my daughter was in nursery, I had 3 out to 21lb so that’s the biggest hurdle crossed when making your own bait, knowing it works! 

Six egg mix ready for the pan, I’ve dusted them with dry base mix to prevent them sticking togetherafter boiling for 1min 45secs, (timed once the waters actually boiling) they are left in the garden to air dry for half hour or so, giving them a shake every few mins baits bagged and ready for the freezer 

the “screw fix sausage” gun with nozzle cut to 12mm (ish - I’m not that accurate!) my eBay rolling table with sausage ready to go rolled 12mm baits 

The base attractors, 20ml salmon oil (free with the basemix) 2.5ml belachan and 2.5ml shellfish sense appeals. Couple of oz robin red and a heaped tablespoon of blood powder added to 6 eggs, then enough supermarinos basemix to mix into a slightly sticky, tacky ball. 
(just the basemix, oil and shellfish SA on their own would keep the cost down and still produce a decent bait, the basemix has robin red in it, so it’s not essential to add more) the flavour shelf in the shed! white basemix is the protein bird food, the reddish sacks are supermarinos 

I feel for you , Kev .
I've  lost my last 4 Carp in the lillies , and although probably only low to mid doubles it still anoys me , and I think " what could I have done different ? " .
One of the loses was when I rushed sideways to hustle the Carp away from the lillies only to kick the water bucket ( that I'd forgot was there ) ; so I look down to see why my sock  was wet , and that 1 second delay in playing the Carp was all it needed to shed the hook .
So next time out you'll just have to catch an absolute monster to help the painfull memory of your loss to fade away . 
😃
 
 

France on 5th so fingers crossed mate and rude not to give the syndi another go at the weekend - oh and just bought a Bluebell winter ticket.  Determined to turn this season around after a poor start through ill health.  👍

I feel for you , Kev .
I've  lost my last 4 Carp in the lillies , and although probably only low to mid doubles it still anoys me , and I think " what could I have done different ? " .
One of the loses was when I rushed sideways to hustle the Carp away from the lillies only to kick the water bucket ( that I'd forgot was there ) ; so I look down to see why my sock  was wet , and that 1 second delay in playing the Carp was all it needed to shed the hook .
So next time out you'll just have to catch an absolute monster to help the painfull memory of your loss to fade away . 
😃
 
 

Well Jack doesn't need to say anything for you to see he is not impressed with your decision to be in your bivvy at bite time ! .

The best line out there imo.

Moody one from the weekend..

WHAT?!?! now that's dedication right there 🙌

It is mate. I actually found the carp this time too... chilling out not 30y out in a weed bed. Unfortunately I only had 4oz leads on me and the carp weren't to fond of them crashing onto their heads. Schoolboy error. Got straight on the phone to order a bunch of 2 and 2.5oz for next time.
I was convinced they'd be back the next day but they didn't show up. To rub it in I found them all in the shallows on my trek back to the car to go home. 

An overnighter sat/sun felt that I was on for a big-un, 9pm a big fish rolled on the right tree line which got me going.  7am a take and I cant get out the bivvy quick enough coz of a dead arm and it manages to take line off a very tight clutch and makes the trees resulting in a cut off - absolutely gutted tbh, should have been up sat by the rod as I knew 7am was bite time!
Oh well next time I guess.

I use the ESP bait screw and haven't noticed damage, but that makes good sense, will keep an eye on that.
Also got the Korda ones which are plastic screws moulded onto a metal swivel - these are buoyant so no affect on the po-up itself 👍