greekskii

just fill in the lake before they turn!!

Peanuts second to trout pellet. Makes you think doesn’t it.

It's a great tactic, especially where you only get challenged by the public. Bit different if landowners or staff turn up!! Not going to lie, I used it on a guy who I defo thought was an angler when I came ashore the other day. I mean the two big camo buckets didn't help my case though! But a saw, loppers, etc all fit with a "doing some vegetation clearance work" story, which is true, you're cutting a swim out!!

who owns it? Some official looking clothing, a boat and a few dip nets or something of the sort might be able to see you get away with at least one boat trip!! "just doing a weed and invert survey" being the get out of trouble card to passers-by. If you can do this then repeating the surveys every 3 months to build a base of data means you can sometimes make those trips out on a boat. I'd suggest finding the most difficult to access place you can, make it comfy for yourself, get kit in, leave it there.

Any islands? Boat out there

Do you think they were sensible enough to realise loads of anglers used to buy two? I.e. I always got two reminders in the post and two emails. So I was doubled registered. If every 3 rod angler was then angler numbers have actually been artificially higher anyway. Then again, there’s more than 130,000 carp anglers. I don’t see why they dropped the price anyway. I’d rather they increased it so they could find more enforcement officers as one per region is obviously not enough.

Only reason I mentioned it is because I accidently cut a groove in to the plastic connecting the bail arm to the line roller and I’ve got it leccy taped up to stop the line catching. Carpy yellow and green too!!

I feel like there’s been an increase in carpyness recently. I think we should take it back to the old school, dodgy banksticks, makeshift brollies, etc. That’ll get rid of the instant carper. I can see the next daiwa reel now, comes with taped on handle knobs and a cracked reel seat as standard.

The decline in license money is twofold: 1. They reduced the cost of it for us carp anglers. That’s £9 lost per 3 rod angler who since the change. 2. The lack of resource to actually check licenses means it’s easier than ever to get away with not having one. The impossible but best way to solve this is all fisheries are registered to an online system whereby to purchase a ticket (day, night, club book, syndicate) you have to use your license number. Fine the fisheries heavily if they don’t and they will bailiff it for you. But like I said, they can’t pay a 25k salary for a bailiff so how can they invest millions to create that system.

I’d not ignore putting out a good quality boilie. This is the time of year the fish go on the feed and put on weight. They’ll be searching for a good food source. Crumb it up and use halves to get it to settle on the silt. Don’t be afraid to fish in 3ft of silt. Just use a helicopter setup with a chod rig set 3ft up with a 1ft between the beads so it can settle nicely on top.

its because they have no nutritional value at all. Imagine every angler using gallons and no actual boilie or even particles going in, the fish will starve. It's why linear had to shut a lake down the other winter.

The lo pro is on my list. But I use the same shelter through the year, and I don’t think I’m hard enough to not have an overwrap during the winter months!! And this obviously doesn’t have a full overwrap options, just a front.

@yonny but hes currently in the middle of an incredible session so probably too busy playing fish to read this!

Until you catch on it! A carp will eat anything when it's in the right place!

You’re right. And each to their own. He wants 5 minutes of fame, let him have it. I’d be a bit unsure of having 5 minutes of bad fame though. But no one will remember his name in 6 months, same as the guy that caught big rig. Thry should abolish the carp record. Technically it’s classed as a non-native, the exact reason they abolished the weld catfish record. It would stop a lot of the bitterness in carp fishing.

Not a fan of this being a record fish. May have been in the lake almost a decade (sure I read that last time it was caught at a record weight) but it’s one of the Israeli super strains like big rig and the rest of them. In a lake that’s basically run for the ‘must catch huge fish’ brigade. I think most of the carp world doesn’t acknowledge these type of fish, or capture of them as being skilful at all.

I buy dry French maize from a local feed store. £9 something for 20kg. I soak it for 2 days, bring it to the boil, simmer for 10 minutes and then turn off and leave it with the lid on, or in a bucket with the water to steep. By morning it’s fairly soft but not too soft. I try to use it fresh as possible. Don’t rate fermenting it at all.

Anything from Responsive Baits, personal favourites being the Mighty Marine and Monster Crab and Plum. I've used many different boilies over the years and not found anything as effective in my angling. I also swear by my homemade pop ups, got me many a bite when nothing else would. Particle-wise, my current mix is maples, maize and tic beans. Maples are a must for me, they'll always be part of my particle mix, the other items change based on what I am trying to do with the mix. Groats normally get included when there aren't many small fish about.

I will happily bait up through the night if I need to, a bit of late night spombing really helps you get in tune with your casting! Recasting at first light is a nono, unless its a quiet flick down the margin/being dropped in off the rod tip. A few quartered baits to clear the fish off quickly and a quietly dropped rig is no real disturbance IMO. I'd only be doing that if I think I've been done though, or it's unsafe to fish the snag whilst asleep.

So I’ve just sat all night with a rod snagged up on a branch. I had no reason to recast it. It went down nicely, placed in the margins. Sometimes we just have to take the rough with the smooth.

Persobally for me I will recast if I think I should have had a bite or I get paranoid that my ‘perfect’ cast was not perfect after a while. I’m also equally happy to leave a rod out for as long as possible. As you say, less disturbance and all of that! I’ll happily cast out as many times as I need to in order to get it right (it took me 10 casts to get a rod over to the far margin yesterday. Few hours later it was away with one of 10-12 fish in 5 acres!) I think it makes the difference between catching or not. Plenty of times a recast on a rod I wasn’t quite happy with has resulted in a fish in the next few hours. I think our biggest challenge as anglers is overcoming your mind, just sitting and chilling out my brain always tends to end up back on the rigs and my casts. Were they perfect? Or did I I just think they were at the time? Could it have landed an inch to the left and be presented better? Etc, etc.

Not quite sure how that makes sense? Why it is harder to use a fishmeal than a bird food or nut based boilie? All round balls of boiled paste. If anything I’d be using a highly flavoured fishmeal that stinks enough to give you a headache, squid, monster crab, GLM, etc. That will combat the silt and silkweed and make sure the fish find it.

Personally I don’t bother with salt at all or fermentation. Tried both and neither have done me any better than plainly prepared maize used fresh (1-2 days after boiling). For me I found it works better, and all particles I’ve used to be honest, with 2-3 tablespoons of sugar during boiling. Just my way of doing it. Simple, easy and cheap!

I use running rigs most of the time. One question, what alarms do you use? and how sensitive are they set? Small bleeps are likely small fishing hitting the line, you may be getting done but you'd expect a fish to move somewhere if you did, thus tightening the line as it throws the hook. Equally it could just be liners. If you want to stop them, then fish less sensitive and go to lead clips or helicopter set ups. Running rigs are sensitive set ups, so the little bleeps are part of it. I fish them totally slack and have had 1 inch fry hit my line and give me a 2 or 3 bleeps, but I had my delks set super sensitive at the time. Unless you know for sure you're being done and the bleeps are a result of carp not being hooked, I'd look at the numerous other options first. Rule them out and you'll be able to tweak your set up to suit.

Well done him! good luck. never know, he might be buying your a fishery in a few years when he makes it big time!