greekskii

River here has been coloured for the best part of the close. Difficult to see much and the rain is due all week to make it worse. First year for a while I’ve not done the start of the season on the river as I’m too focused on blanking on my chosen water for the year! I did eye up a nice area yesterday evening which the lake backs on to. There are fish in the marina and this offers a good look at the entrance cut as well as a shallow bar, loads of overhangs and some lilies too. I’m sure I will end up giving it a bit of time at some point this summer!!

A PDAA club ticket is like £35 or something last I checked. You’ll be covered for miles then. there’s carp in that stretch for sure. And huge shoals of bream. Fishing near the barge is tricky as opposite is the railings and elevated path and you won’t get next to it at all. The rail world bank has been fenced off I believe due to drug addicts and other undesirables. personally wouldn’t want to be doing a night there without a few mates!! You can sometimes get them going on the top but I’m sure Pre baiting and early morning, late evening trips for and few hours will pay off.

This is key, watch the birdlife carefully, they will show you all sorts of things, spooking from carp, natural food larders, where the new weed is growing, where the hatches are, etc. Never getting wedded to swims because you are prebaiting is my other biggest tip. It can ruin your fishing big time, I've done it before and I see it a lot too. I will try and find out any info I can from people that know the venue, spring/summer/autumn areas to have a look at. I try to really explore a few swims on the end of a SW, it's hard to ignore them on larger waters so it's worth being able to drop in when the conditions suit.

This is correct.

Have used the fox submerge for years now. Easy to splice and works brilliantly. Supple and sinks like a brick and doesnt stand out at all on darker/weedier bottoms. Over gravel its good too. Wouldnt be using it over sand though.

What closed for the entire year? Not being funny but a maximum of £45 for a year, which was reduced by a few months maximum, is hardly anything to be moaning about. Angling has been allowed and opportunity has been there to fish for all for extensive periods, more than any other sport/activity. if you’ve chosen not to then it’s on you. How would you even claim anything back? You’d have no way of putting a figure on what you’d be owed for a start.

Echo the lads already, getting them going this time of year is almost pointless. Only time I know of it being done to any effect is a mate that absolutely filled in a fairly high stocked water with about 20/30kg a week of boilie and managed to get them going big time. Not exactly the best use of your time or money though unless you can really commit to it or the lake has a good stock of big fish. spend your time trying to nick a bite as said above, have a lead about and get to know your features for the year ahead. Personally I start baiting in mid feb in preparation for March/April time of year. Start with smaller amounts and increase weekly as the water temps warm up. You can put out half a kilo of small particles and crushed boilie and a few handfuls of whole boilies in order to keep them rooting and active on the spots once the bulky food items are eaten. if you can find a spot that you can keep quiet and isn’t an obvious one that everyone fishes then bait it without fishing for as long as possible and get on it when the conditions are right. You can reap serious rewards this way as the fish will be very confident feeding without danger from the moment they start waking up!

Large camping hob. eBay for like £20. Just check the dimensions, mine is about 30cm x 30cm.

Fishing slack lines you should have high tips to aid with the sinking of the line. Gravity obviously at work. In regards to the wind thing, if you set your bite alarms up correctly you don’t have that issue. Simple as that really. I’ve fished mega high tips with slack lines in windy conditions and not had a single bleep (yes I blanked)

Firstly the misshapen baits, you're likely boiling on too fast a boil. It only needs to be on a light simmer. I do 14mm baits for 3 mins on a light simmer and it never damages them. Secondly the smell, it will wash out on cooking, maybe more so if I am correct with the above issue. (Too high and it also knocks out the dye a bit too FYI). 10ml per 1 egg is all I use and I can get it coming through after 24hrs in the lake still. I air dry for a week, put them in a bag, coat them with flavour, air dry again for a week and repeat once more. I'll then pot them up and add a couple sprays of flavour (or mix of flavours) and give them a shake. A few days and it should be absorbed and you'll have very over flavoured and smelly baits. It soon washes out to a good level though. Also remember some flavours will linger more than others, and quality will vary. I have found catchitlabs, AA baits and some of the CCMoore flavours to be good quality. Sometimes it's a bit hit and miss but if you can get samples sent out then it saves on buying a big batch of dud flavour.

In all honesty I don’t think you’re missing out. Plenty of bloodworm additives and baits out there and they aren’t the most popular or effective. Says a lot as you’d think they should be all anyone used if they were that good. Live bloodworm I think you’d fair better than any sort of product of bloodworm. Even then it’s not the same still. if you’re keen to try it though, gloves as above and you’ll be alright just be careful taking them off.

I order 200 press seal bags on eBay for just over a fiver. Big enough to take 2/3kg depending on bait size. I split in to 2kg normally. Handy grab bag in the morning for baiting up or when I go. I add glug from frozen so they defrost and draw it in so I like to have excess room for air so I can shake them. just make sure you squeeze all the air out the bags so you can store them using less space.

As the resident greek here I can safely say I’ve never heard of them being used as a carp bait. No reason not to give them a try but there are plenty of better options for baits available

I think you’re better off shrink wrapping them yourself - it’s what I would do. Just remove the the existing Duplon and buy some shrink wrap for under £20 and shrink it on. as said cork is very expensive to retrofit.

free spirit ctx are meant to be incredible for the price. I know a few people that have a couple of sets and rave about them. Styling is something you have to like though with the X wrap and abbreviated handles.

Only thing I’d mention is the hook youre using on the chod. It isn’t suited to stiff material with its inturned eye. It will close the gape and potentially affect hooking potential and hook holds. You want to be using a hook suited to chods with an outturned eye. Putting a slight curve on the chod will help too instead of fishing it dead straight. Elmo’s rigs show that. id look at dropping the lead if fishing in dense weed or using as light a lead you can get away with. It will help when landing fish. other than that they look perfectly catchable on. It’s just a case of putting them in the right place. Sometimes it takes a while. I was on a social at the weekend. It took 42hrs of fish showing over my friends hookbait before he got a run on it. Between us no-one would have done anything different. Sometimes it’s just the way! don’t be too disheartened. Just make sure your fishing in the right places where the fish are willing to feed and the bites will come. Location is 90% of the puzzle.

I’ve had a run of over 32 nights blanking, all in the space of 3.5 months. I’ve also had runs of 20+ nights without a blank. what is the fishing like on your syndicate? Stock and size? 2.5 days isn’t much fishing at all really. @cromiee what sort of lake are you fishing? The best thing to do is fish somewhere easy and full of singles/doubles so you gain confidence in all aspects of carp fishing. Rigs, fish care, photography, baiting, etc. As Kev said, a photo of your rigs would be handy and we can see if there’s anything glaringly wrong.

Funnily enough there is two of them, one created by Greg Ellis and one created by Burghfield Main Lake. Both with very little information, both asking for different amounts. Like I said, playing on the heritage of the place to get a few quid out of people who will never even be considered to have their name on the waiting list, let alone fish it.

the issue with Burghfield is that it is somewhere the 1% have a chance of getting on, not the 99%. Mad really, asking people to pay for something they'll never be allowed to have access too. It's the general premise, like I said there is no indication if they are asking for crowd funding for the entire lot, with members and owners not inputting anything or much at all, or if it's for the remainder of the costs...however it seems like it's the former sadly. Doesn't offend me either, just think its ridiculous, as do plenty of others.

Personally don't agree, it's like me asking you to fund an extension to my house, that I'll never let you step foot in . I believe they are using the fact the BC is so well known and admired that people don't want to see it go prematurely by way of otter, because if it did how many of the ticket holders would drop them. No planning permissions, landowner consents, etc yet by the sounds of it, and I cant see any indication as to what the owners & members are investing and what proportion needs funding. Maybe I overlooked it but doesn't seem to be there. TBH it seems to have all but disappeared after the general consensus of "you cheeky gits, not a chance" Fair one, owners still stand to gain the most from it though regardless of who's asking.

The owners of the fishing at Burghfield are crowdfunding for an otter fence. Basically asking people that will never have a chance of fishing it to pay to they can fish it forevermore. Prizes on offer are session on blue & gold pools and a walk around the big lake with a 'celebrity' angler.

Don’t think it’s sheep knocking them, just loads of people with the same opinion that it’s completely out of order and ridiculous!

Persistence. River carp aren’t everywhere and move around a lot. Keep plugging away. Prebaiting will help but you need to follow them about. I’ve been on the Nene since the 16th, I found at least 6 carp sticking to a certain area. They’ve now moved upstream and stayed there for a few weeks. Find where they revisit regularly or the area they are staying close to for periods of time and then keep fishing. Start with small Hook baits and get bigger If the bream and chub are an issue.

EA are always identified in EA kit. They have to be. Stab vests as mentioned before. If he wasn’t then he wasn’t EA and was pulling one over on you. I’d report it to both fishery and your local EA office so they know someone is impersonating them. never known EA to act like that...they just ask for your license and not do it sneakily by false pretences. They’d also use a handheld device to check if you’d forgotten it.

Think the north bank has a seal or two on it at the moment doesn’t it?