inhiding

Thanks ...

Thanks everyone for your ideas.... Sorry got a but distracted by the Missus giving birth, I am being sent ou of the house twice next week and instructed to go to the lake and get out from under her feet so I will see if we have any more joy although I suspect I will be playing with a zig on at least one rod. Oh and the baby's fine

At the risk of being treated to the flaming torches and pitchfork routine, I do like Korda N-Trap .... Runs and hides behind the sofa ....

Lessthanphil : In fairness there are many bream in my water ( as I have moaned abut in the past a bit ) however as I tend to land most of them in the lake I am fairly confident that they can grab my hook as they do with frustrating regularity. Also the runs were full ones rather than the go stop go stop ones I tend to get with the bream

Unless you get lucky first time , vary the depth till you work out at what depth they are, I am told casting out of a cup helps to avoid dragging the bank out with you with longer zigs .... Try the search function on here there will be tons of posts around the subject

Ok thanks guys that's loads is ideas I will have a play ill let you know Ta to everyone, the bit about changing the hook pattern due to the softness of the mouth wouldn't have occurred to me in a thousand years so I'll give it a whirl

It's an interesting idea although I am not sure personally I would be happy idea of putting shot on the hook itself, as I would be worried that the shot would come loose in the fight and sucked in by the fish. I know that carp will eat also sorts of wierd and wonderful baits but I am not sure lumps of metal are the basis of a healthy diet I may be completely off the mark in my concern as I don't profess to be any sort of expert but I think I might stick to playing with hair length and rig length for now

And my mother said I was unique !!

Beanz : home made boilies of between 14-16mm I tend to catty a few others out and around after my first cast ( not fairbrass amounts usually 10-15 and then top up the area a couple of times during the session stick is mostly for smell ( powders and some very small pellets ). The above is obviously subject to change but this is my normal tactic if I am confident I have fish in front of me, as a rule I won't setup until I see tells and know I have fish there. Carpepecheur : that is a new one on me I have never heard of a breakaway boilie. It sounds very logical but wouldn't the removal of the weight of the bait make the hook easy to blow out ? Although I guess it wouldn't matter on a fixed lead as the lead would provide the weight ...... Or am I being daft ?

Stoogi, Ta for the quick reply, the one change at a time idea I learnt to my cost last year when I confused myself massively we live and learn.... I will have a play with my hair then ( as it were ).

Morning all, I had a very wet session on Monday, was an odd an ultimately successful day when I caught my new PB of 16lb 10 ( mirror ) on a chod rig. However, prior to this I had been " done " no less than 6 times during the course of the day on my more normal setup. I have been fishing my lake for a couple of years now and have found what seems to be the most effective rig ( for me at least ). However on Monday it let me down badly and ad a result I chucked the chod out, although this worked I am interested in fine tuning my more normal rig which usually works well. On each occasion my bait was picked up and I got a short run, I lifted into a fish briefly however it fell off after 1-4 seconds, it seems reasonable to assume that my hook hold could do with some improvement and I was hoping that someone may be able to give some pointers at what may help. My "normal" rig comprises :- Coated hook link approx 3-4 inches ( has shrunk over the last year as shorter seems to work better for me ). Last inch before hook striped away. Size 8 hook arma point barbless ( rule ) with a slightly beaked point tied normal knotless knot style with a short shrink tube over the eye to pull the hook round as an aligned ( about 5 mm in length ). My hair leaves about 5mm between the bend of the hook and the bait, I tend to use home made boilies of around 14-16mm. This then goes onto a running rig with a light inline pear lead. I am reasonably confident that there wasn't a tangle as I cast it out witha small pva stick on the hook link with the hook pulled into the bottom to keep it as god intended ( as it were ) I hope that's enough detail The lake is mostly clay bottomed wih a silty section, I was fishing on a raised section about 3 ft down a meter or so off an island..... Ideas on a post card and any help appreciated ... Ta for your attention... EDIT : PS before anyone says sharp hooks , I should have clarified this was not on the same rig ( I went through 4 as during the day but all basically the above design, but with new hooks etc ). Sorry this essay has been compile on a series of trains during the course of the day so forgot that bit

I'mguessing the stuff you are most likely to forget is the stuff you need that isn't fishing related, if you are like me you will prObablu have gone over the tackle/bivi list loads etc With that in mind do you have to stuff you need to be legal to drive in France ( his vis vest, first aid kit, spare bulbs etc ) which all cars must have at all times ? On occasions they do check ( and do fine ) Aside from that, take your rods and reels and some bait

Mine are quite the opposite almost too tight but I guess that's a good thing ... The packaging is not sealed as such so I would of thought most tackle shops would let you try your alarms on the units to see how tight the fit is and then if there is a bit of a variation you could find ones that fit snugly Hope that helps

My parents live for most of the year in the mid Pyrenees in France surrounded by mountains. My old man has been on a quest to be able to hear "this is London calling" coming out of some sort of radio. To this end he tried various radios, including DAB ones with no luck, this may be due to remoteness and ruddy great mountains. I expect that the radio itself would pick up something in French as I believe that DAB is an international thing but I doubt you would get any English stations due to, well being in France If you are somewhere flattish you should be able to get BBC world service on a SW/AMtravel radio Just to add there are 2 systems in place in Europe DAB and DRM ( think VHS v Betamax ) , you may want to check which covers your area as I THINK that a Dab radio will not receive drm and vica versa.

Just got back ... Me and mate had a great time, slightly put off when we got there and found a load of planks shouting and on one occasion jumping in the lake ... Although the owner promptly gave them marching orders when people complained. In total between us had over 50 fish !! In 26 hours, half of these were in the last 8 hours off the surface. The guy who runs the place seems friendly but I suspect doesn't tolerate fools. The fish sent huge but the lakes only been going for 8 years and fish top out at 20 ish Most of ours were 8-13 neck of the woods all very scrappy and in good nick ( aside from one with an old hook through his jaw jamed against the bone ( removed and treated ) All in all a good fun runs water and a nice change of pace from the normal syndy. Oh and the lions and tigers are cool.

Night under way ... 2 off the top earlier and one from the bottom just now so violent took my rod off the rest on the take ( and very muddy feet ( why do I never put my sandals on ??!! ) They do fight Am down Tommorow too if you are around Kieran

Fella , he means use a pva nugget wrapped ( or similar ) round the hook to prevent the point tangling ( lick and stick the nugget ) . The stick method he mentioned is a pva stick threaded through the hook link ( if you use quick links ) and the hook pushed ( carefully ) into the stick mix again preventing tangles if you don't use quick links and tie the mainline end of your hook link onto a swivel then you simply hook the stick onto the hook itself, or though I don't do this myself after having to go and eat humble pie with a mate on the other side of the lake after my stick came off mid cast and just missed him. Simples......

Well I have booked my night sesh down at Sam's at the end on the month, having tried to to find a midweek date both I and mate could do we have failed and have gone with the last week end in the month .... We shall see how it goes ... Looking forward to it already Now where's that bivvy gone ?

Spoke to the lake today, nice sounding guy, witha view to popping down for an overnighter in the next month or so ( work permitting ) was thinking of trying for a mid week as I expect a load of bait gets chucked in over the weekend, I like the fact that it's limited to 4 anglers per night and by booking only, the pricing is a little steep but if you get your timing right you can get bet part of 36 hours for 21 quid so with a but of careful sheduling it's not too bad. Just seen in another thread that there has been some recent thefts at mid kent ... Anything like that go on at sam's to anyone's knowledge ?

Ta fella

Good luck and yes diamond threader was what I meant .... I generally use plain old rig tubing so not sure if heating the tungsten will help ... I do know that if the bore of the tubing is wet you might as well forget it , As for the more general question about how to get freebies out I was thinking about this too it occurs that there is no reason that pva bagging wouldn't work aside from what I have previously mentioned , in order to combat this problem I guess you could deliberately poke a bit of pva foam into the swivel eye to stop anything else getting in there, once in the water this would dissolve theoretically leaving a blockage free eye ...... I think ;-/ Be a lot simpler to be accurate with your catapult though given the option I would have thought

I personally am not a big chod user , but , my understanding is that the bent section with the pop up on is free to swivel around the leader, as such putting it in a pva bag shouldn't affect the presentation as once it melts the pop ups bouyency should pull it up into the correct position, unless you pack the bag so tightly that you get boilie crumb or what ever gunning up the swivel eye.... I guess the best answer would be to try it in the margin first for the sake of your confidence, As for threading the tubing, cut the line at an angle and make sure it and everything else is dry and let gravity help you, failing that if the bore of the tubing is sufficient can you thread a needle in to give the line some end weight , failing that buy the stuff with the threading wire in it There is also a tool I think to help you , but I don't know it's name I'm afraid but I bet some one on here does

Kieran .. Sorry mate do you know if they do allow night fishing ? I am struggling to find anywhere near me that does apart from Twynesh .

I have never fished there but have just spent some hours searching on the web for new waters to try out and head corms not tooooo far from me ... Any chance you could do a review type thing on the water ... Particularly if it's a night fishing venue Anyway that's my selfish post for the day I think I shall go to bed now Ta

I have a pair of txi's never had any problem with rain apart from day one when I had the sensitivity up waaaay too high and rain drops were causing the rod to vibrate and setting off the sensor .. Since then I have learnt to turn them down and they still work great, only problem I have with them is my own stupidity , that is to say buying 2 the same colour which upsets my OCD as I have to set one to the "wrong " colour on the receiver. In reply to Frazerking I agree wholeheartedly, my solution for simplicity is too always use the reciever have the vol turned down to zero on the head units and then can silence both by flicking the receiver off prior to a little line arrangement.