greekskii

XXX is the one to go with, although Live System catches its share, steer clear of the other two. Nowhere near as good. Most of the guys I know that work for them, as soon as the Pacific Tuna hype train was over, went straight back to XXX... says it all.

I have played with it last year and had similar. A 30lber gave me 3 bleeps on my delks (at 4+ setting) and that was all. Next I knew I had hooked a fish was when my other two rods ripped off as it ploughed through my lines. Long, stressful fight later I managed to land it in the pitch black and freezing conditions. Few other odd occurrences. Can't beat the running rig IMO unless you need to use the heli for deep silt or weed.

use an anti tangle sleeve? your much less likely to get tangles the closer your beads are to the lead, it just sits like a lead clip arrangement. In the situation you've explained, i'd just go with a running rig, inline lead, lead clip setup as the need for the helicopter arrangement isn't there.

You'll notice of course. It's .5mm thicker almost. I'd say off the bat there will be a difference in casting, knot tying, how much muck clings to it, visibility to the fish.

I think you're right cyborx. I saw a post on a local selling page where a guy wanted to have all nash stuff for some reason and was swapping out his kit for nash stuff with others. Not too sure why. Maybe he wants to pretend he is sponsored by them or something?

not surprised! Was tempted but have things of greater importance to spend £20 on... hooks mainly!

A bear in winter hibernation weighs more than an active bear. Basically what yonny said is the answer. They pile on weight before winter and then are very sedentary and don't burn it off. It is used slowly over winter to keep them going and then to produce eggs before winter is out. Yes. There is less growth in winter. This can be seen when reading scales for age data. There are tighter bands where there is less growth (winter) and more spaced out bands during growth period (summer). So you can work out an age based on how many winters the fish has been alive. The banding on the scales would likely be more prominent when the winters are harsh and the summers are very warm too. There would likely be rapid growth in the summer months and hardly any over winter, as is the case normally but this would be above average and below average.

New edges hooks are very poor. Very soft and blunt as they hit the water. I loved the arma points. Bought a few of the edges hooks and binned them. Steer clear.

Tench tend to bury themselves in silt over the winter too. Strange but they'll go deep under it. I was on a fish farm netting a drained pond, I was told to never step on the same footprint because the tench would hide in them. Every year it was fully drained and emptied of fish. Once refilled there would be the odd tench appear like some sort of miracle.

Doesn't help I've only fished for about 3hrs in February and that's it! Be doing nights again though from March and starting to bait. Might get lucky or at least close to the challenge!

No mate. Been ill all week after trying to sit it out last weekend. Got a stag do next weekend so don't want to risk the illness returning. Looks ideal today too

Not a chance mate. It won't happen naturally and it won't happen unnaturally. Not to the extent it has in these countries. Luckily carp like to eat their own eggs. Hence the lack of recruitment in the estate lake for instance. Because carp are mainly stocked in numbers there is control over what goes where and when. The rivers and canals aren't stocked. Just enclosed waterbodies. Youll never see hordes of carp destroying a river in this country.

More likely like any animal, when there is overpopulation they learn to accept others. This is due to their being a good food source. Less need to compete. Reduce their ranges or allow others to also claim it as territory. Already in the valley you have 6/7 otters in a 15-20 mile radius. And do gooders rehabbing them and releasing them back in to the wild does not help. These more tame animals learn to live side by side other otters. Disaster for the future.

Had a rat in my bivvy after the otter went through my swim just before new year... it also never returned after that kill

yep, we had one on the estate killed with little eaten. 2 weeks later just the teeth left. fox, rats, birds of prey.

The fish think they are, I reckon to a degree they are safer. all those underwater highways in the weedbeds. I'm talking 7-8ft of canadian. Proper dense. sure they can find routes and hideaways. Never totally safe but these fish dont have the instincts associated with this predator. Maybe in time fish will have learnt the evasion methods and less will be getting killed? who knows.

Sooner or later an unfenced lake will be victim to an otter and become barren. Example; a club pit, 28 acres, about 75 fish, if that. Otter was taking 1-2 fish a winter for 3 years...not nice but no impact on the fishing. Suddenly we were 6 fish down in Dec to Jan, including two 30s. And those were the ones we found. Following year the lake fished so poorly as the fish were in the weedbeds out in the middle and reluctant to venture out to feed for fear of being eaten. Another 8 went the following winter. I dropped my ticket. From what I gather similar numbers went winter 2016/17 and more this winter. It's also fished equally as poor as my last season. It'll soon be ultra low stock with 10-20 carp left which are super wary. The otter will move on to easier hunting grounds but those fish will still be spooky as. It becomes a different challenge, a different lake. Likely the tench population will explode and it'll be producing more big tincas than it has done in recent years. One mans loss, another mans gain as they say. No doubt some hardcore guys will enjoy the challenge of a handful of carp amongst hundreds, if not thousands of tench.

and that was before the dropping the lead fashion! Some likely lads will be doing this around the local commercials making mega bucks!

I seem to carry a fair few. But that's mainly due to the water I'm fishing at the minute. And my laziness to not bother organising my lead pouch. Probably around 20-30 leads from 1oz to 3oz. Also that extra weight in my rucksack helps burn some vital extra calories whilst I'm barrowing about. That's my justification anyway!

Tbh I was going to borrow one off one of my mates that buys them 😂! I only need one to put on the rig and see if I think it works or not. I might ask for a single hook sample from Gardner.

fair enough, I just saw a video with it being shown with a ronnie rig, assumed it was it's main aim for the market. Especially as its the 'in' rig at the minute. Just like when the chod rig was the 'in' rig all the stiff rigger hooks got renamed

Im pretty sure it's a hook with the intended purpose of being used for ronnie rigs, as well as applied elsewhere. From what I've heard it was developed with the ronnie in mind.

I might try the CVR hooks on the multi rig for snowman baits. Again, not too sure about how aggressive they are and if that would impact on the way the rig works. Only one way to find out.

One carp means different to everyone. Depends on venue. At this time of year any carp is a good carp.

I fish two on tight buzz bars and my third on singles wherever it needs to be. If you're fishing tight to snags do not fish with rods pointing at the lead. You'll have a problem with fish getting straight in to the snags. I prefer to have a slight angle from rod tip to lead to increase resistance on a take. It also makes the fish have to exert more energy to pull line off the clutch. To avoid tangles, just plan what you'll do in advance. If you're fishing tight lines you can go under/over to try and untangle lines. If fishing slack you shouldn't have a problem