greekskii

couldn't agree any less. It's £45 a year for 3 rods, people spend more on food and bait for a weekend. What the money gets spent on has massive value to the environment and to fisheries too. Rod licence monies only go to the Fisheries team, they dont go anywhere else so every penny of income gets spent on improvements, it doesnt pay anyone wages. I do agree however that all river users should have to pay something. In an ideal world all fisheries and clubs would check your licence before selling you a ticket, but a centralised infrastructure would be so complex and expensive.

We did a little tour as I said, looking on google maps now we went round Coke's pit which is lovely, and the two big pits on the opposite side of the road, theres all sorts of water sports going on there and as country park. These two were very low stock but some cracking fish. Featured on a sticky or thinking anglers video, the crayfish man. Neigh bridge was the other one, opposite South Cerney Dabchick lake. Again a low stock lake but stunning fish. Sadly I have no idea how to join any of the above mentioned.

I went down to visit a mate pre lockdown and stopped a night on whitefriars with him before having a tour of a few of the other waters in the area. All depends on what you're looking for. Obviously whitefriars is a large low stock pit which can get VERY busy. We dropped in on the other lakes but they were also very busy so didnt walk them fully and headed off to other larger waters in the area. Looks like a busy club and that means it's likely to be good fishing and well maintained.

As much as it pains me to say as I’m all for a bargain, just bite the bullet and buy the stuff you need. Yes prices are high but things last or at least come with a warranty! You could be waiting forever for them to come down. in the last few weeks we have gone from moaning about £1.50 a litre diesel to thinking it’d be great if it went back down to that from £1.79 a litre. Business isn’t stupid, people are buying it at these prices so it’ll not get reduced unless people stop buying en masse. Even the second hand market follows this trend. only place for cheap kit now is heading to your local car boot and seeing what’s about. You might get lucky, more often than not you’ll not find anything decent.

Floater fishing is always a viable method. Plenty documented in the carp world of winter floater captures. bit of freelined crust in a nash bread bomb is always worth a go

Defo worth sneaking on for a few hours one night

Delivery certainly will!

The good hemp oil is good. I’ve used it in the past. If my memory serves me correctly the sticky hemp oil has a green tinge to it and you get a bit of “gunk” in the bottom. Whereas the good hemp doesn’t have either. Hence they are two different qualities entirely. Not sure if the fish will ever know the difference but for me personally the one produced for humans is cheaper. There’s a few more out there, pain to find on Google as you get hits for CBD oil mostly and they mainly are more expensive than sticky hemp oil tbh.

You can use them now. Use them sparingly. Might be worth getting yourself some peanut granules or crushed peanuts so you can fish over mainly crushed and a few whole, but like most tend to do with tigers. the dynamite jars are fairly pricey so you don’t want to be using a handful around each rod every time. I’ve got a few handfuls and some crushed in my baiting mix at the moment. Prepared myself I may add to keep costs down.

Personally I’d rather buy food grade than a less refined oil. Buy the best quality, which isn’t always the most expensive. Sticky just buy hemp oil in bulk and bottle it. with the demand for hemp products skyrocketing over the last 6/7 years I doubt a fishing company are buying in food grade hemp oil to re-sell to anglers, they probably aren’t going to be sold it by suppliers. You can barely get decent dry hemp without paying a premium now as it all goes to the “superfood” industry.

if you're on about the Nash headtorches then they are utter ridiculous. I cant imagine the state of day ticket waters with these about. Wouldnt be the first time a tackle company contributed to a decline in etiquette though!

I’m planning to take my 5yr old out once it’s warmed up. Small whip the way I’m going too. Just find somewhere where there is plenty of silvers. I’m lucky to have such a place on my club ticket although the river might be a good shout once it reopens. Bleak love a maggot!

Always worth looking at buying second hand. Plenty of rods and reels about. Also plenty of sales about too. if you’re in to abbreviated handles, the freespirit CTX rods are raved about. £120 a rod I think rrp but deals to be had. Doesn’t leave much for reels though.

Wish I was doing more fishing tbh! Not been for a while now and itching to get back out. Feel out of touch a bit.

Yeah I think it’s the only one they have fenced due to it being a different landowner they lease it from. From what I gather it’s a lovely lake with some really nice fish in. Lookers at least. A few pics on their website now and some decent sized fish too

By top lake do you mean the new one they’ve just added officially to the complex. I do believe it is invite only still though! Grebe lake or something.

I Soak it in water for 24hrs, putting the spool fully submerged in a bucket of water with a couple 5oz leads on top. Just make sure it comes off the right way and on to the spool when you tie it. Put it back in the water and pinned down by the leads so it can’t move and then load under pressure. I hold a towel in my hand and hold the line through it. do 20/30 turns and then stop, open the bail arm and see if the line comes off coiled or relatively straight. If it’s coiled up then flip the spool over and start again. Check again and it should come off the spool properly now 👍🏼

I’m on the 18lb solely for the diameter for abrasion resistance. Means I can take it anywhere I plan on fishing without having to mess about changing spools or anything. Stupidly weedy pit, savage quarry or the river. But to be honest the 15lb is probably good enough for all of those places though!!

More excited about the 11th though 😂😂 yonny put me on to hydrotuff. I was using the GTHD from Gardner before. Hydrotuff is brilliant imo.

I used to this with the red pepperami as a kid. Caught loads on it. I mentioned thinning peanut butter before, I’ve done the same with Nutella. I was looking at a jar of biscoff spread in my cupboard just now and wondered if they’d like that! 😂 I think the best supermarket liquid though, is baileys or any Irish cream liquor. I wouldn’t fish any birdfood or nut bait without using this as a glug for it. Especially through winter.

This. maggi liquid seasoning is good too. if you want a nutty liquid then buy organic peanut butter (myprotein is good for bulk) and thin with hot water before use.

Fish the margins is my advice. Bait up regularly and get them confident on feeding on your bait and a spot. also remember these fish live in the lake. They are used to the depth. They will feed on the bottom in 25ft. I’ve had relatively unpressured fish on boilies, hi viz pop-ups, etc. just prebait consistently with the same bait. I don’t know where abouts you’re based but normally the deeper lakes work on a different time cycle, they’ll be a month or so behind everywhere else. The fish will wake up later, spawn later and the water temps will stay higher late in to the year.

I don’t know. Rabbits and foxes can get through the fence. There was a video circulating a few years ago of a fox sliding through the gaps. Deers and badgers won’t but then that isn’t a bad thing for a fishery. Badgers can turn over swims if you’re unlucky where they make a set.

Locally the birders are cutting the otter fences to get in to watch the rare birds. Otter fenced lakes become wildlife havens where everything is safe. The other wildlife doesnt take long to figure it out!

Falling in to the trap then saving yourself there. Worst thing we do as anglers is say “I changed to this bait and caught more” because we never really know. You could go hours without a carp in the swim, change and they turn up and feed. Who’s to say you wouldn’t have caught on what you had on before. as you said right place, right time, right everything to get that bite.