Can you get worse

[framey]

I haven’t been this year so I haven’t caught one either lol

[...]

I've only done 3/4 full day sessions so far this year, Dawn to dusk,  no fish in 2021 yet, my last fish was November 2020.

Life gets in the way, but hopefully be out in next week or 2.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Highy

[Carpmaster]

5 hours ago, ukfrosty said:

Old thread I know but I'm just reading it now.

I know how the op felt. I joined a club after a 2 year break. My daughter was born.

Despite fishing probably 20 3 hour sessions since Jan 1st I still haven't caught a fish. I first joined this club in 2013. It took about 2 years before my first carp. It can be crazy difficult. I've once had 17 carp in a 3 hour session. When it's fishing well it fishes well. When it's hard it's solid. Two days ago the lake was 2/3 full with about 15 anglers. It's not a very big place. Not a single person including match fishermen had a bite.

One time I went down after work for a planned quick 2 hours. Have been trying worms as nothing was working. Left the worms at home.

I also fish a multiplier reel, which I know is very rare for carp fishing here. I might be the only one in the country doing it. I saw a carp show on the other side of the lake. Not a big lake. Well thumb slipped off the spool on a big cast. birds nest from hell. Spent 40 mins unpicking the line. Then it started pouring rain which wasn't forecast. So I packed up and went home. Doesn't get much worse. I still haven't caught a carp this year. Or any other fish for that matter but most days neither have all the others fishing the place as well.

It’s the same where I’m fishing only difference is I lost one Saturday to hookpull due to the weed devastation was an understatement but it just makes me more determined I’ve ordered a weed rake cutter and a castable rake now what I am going to do is put the rods out straight after raking give it 2 hrs and see what occurs

keep at it, if you feel defeated and no confidence then your on a lose from the start, it may be your just not on fish or they may even still be holed up it has been cold also they fisheries being closed and no food going in or leads keeping them moving I don’t think has helped matters.   DONT lose hope it will come

[Carpbell_ll]

7 hours ago, ukfrosty said:

Old thread I know but I'm just reading it now.

I know how the op felt. I joined a club after a 2 year break. My daughter was born.

Despite fishing probably 20 3 hour sessions since Jan 1st I still haven't caught a fish. I first joined this club in 2013. It took about 2 years before my first carp. It can be crazy difficult. I've once had 17 carp in a 3 hour session. When it's fishing well it fishes well. When it's hard it's solid. Two days ago the lake was 2/3 full with about 15 anglers. It's not a very big place. Not a single person including match fishermen had a bite.

One time I went down after work for a planned quick 2 hours. Have been trying worms as nothing was working. Left the worms at home.

I also fish a multiplier reel, which I know is very rare for carp fishing here. I might be the only one in the country doing it. I saw a carp show on the other side of the lake. Not a big lake. Well thumb slipped off the spool on a big cast. birds nest from hell. Spent 40 mins unpicking the line. Then it started pouring rain which wasn't forecast. So I packed up and went home. Doesn't get much worse. I still haven't caught a carp this year. Or any other fish for that matter but most days neither have all the others fishing the place as well.

Nothing unusual for this time if year winter angling is always going to be more of a miss than a hit i should be out on the 29th only because i have an itch not expecting much i normally wouldn't bother overnight angling till at least mid April. just be fishing a single, a pva bag of pellets with a pellet hook bait and if the funds will stretch a zig really wish i could of got a better bivvy by now or at least a winter skin for my contact, bet those bivvys with the inner tent make a difference this time of year. 

[salokcinnodrog]

On 16/10/2020 at 14:07, elmoputney said:

I see pre baiting now as an essential part of fishing really, I can safely say its added 10 fish to my account so far this season so its been well worth it,

I think I could say in all honesty on Virginia that prebaiting was responsible for almost every fish. 

On Alton I am not sure, but have a feeling it may have given a couple of fish on first night rather than day 2 or 3.

 

I wish I could say I had caught carp this year, but on the syndicate I joined in September I really had no idea where they were hiding over winter. Lockdown and no night fishing when we could get out again meant I honestly could not find them. For the past few weeks I have been trickling in a few boilies with Vitalin when I went up for a day's pike fishing. This week I did see carp, so at the moment I know where they are. 

[crusian]

20 hours ago, ukfrosty said:

Old thread I know but I'm just reading it now.

I know how the op felt. I joined a club after a 2 year break. My daughter was born.

Despite fishing probably 20 3 hour sessions since Jan 1st I still haven't caught a fish. I first joined this club in 2013. It took about 2 years before my first carp. It can be crazy difficult. I've once had 17 carp in a 3 hour session. When it's fishing well it fishes well. When it's hard it's solid. Two days ago the lake was 2/3 full with about 15 anglers. It's not a very big place. Not a single person including match fishermen had a bite.

One time I went down after work for a planned quick 2 hours. Have been trying worms as nothing was working. Left the worms at home.

I also fish a multiplier reel, which I know is very rare for carp fishing here. I might be the only one in the country doing it. I saw a carp show on the other side of the lake. Not a big lake. Well thumb slipped off the spool on a big cast. birds nest from hell. Spent 40 mins unpicking the line. Then it started pouring rain which wasn't forecast. So I packed up and went home. Doesn't get much worse. I still haven't caught a carp this year. Or any other fish for that matter but most days neither have all the others fishing the place as well.

What a sad tale , Ukfrosty .

I hope that the replies to your post have cheered you up a bit .

I wonder how deep is your lake ? .

😃

[B B]

I honestly can’t remember my last trip, the closest I’m come to going fishing was painting a bridge today between two islands on a small lake 

 

[welder]

21 hours ago, ukfrosty said:

Old thread I know but I'm just reading it now.

I know how the op felt. I joined a club after a 2 year break. My daughter was born.

Despite fishing probably 20 3 hour sessions since Jan 1st I still haven't caught a fish. I first joined this club in 2013. It took about 2 years before my first carp. It can be crazy difficult. I've once had 17 carp in a 3 hour session. When it's fishing well it fishes well. When it's hard it's solid. Two days ago the lake was 2/3 full with about 15 anglers. It's not a very big place. Not a single person including match fishermen had a bite.

One time I went down after work for a planned quick 2 hours. Have been trying worms as nothing was working. Left the worms at home.

I also fish a multiplier reel, which I know is very rare for carp fishing here. I might be the only one in the country doing it. I saw a carp show on the other side of the lake. Not a big lake. Well thumb slipped off the spool on a big cast. birds nest from hell. Spent 40 mins unpicking the line. Then it started pouring rain which wasn't forecast. So I packed up and went home. Doesn't get much worse. I still haven't caught a carp this year. Or any other fish for that matter but most days neither have all the others fishing the place as well.

If I caught every time I went fishing I'd very soon become complacent and my levels of concentration and enthusiasm would reduce accordingly. Frosty, may I say that three hour sessions barely give the fish time to realise that you've put bait out? Maybe a couple of full-day sessions are in order?

Ian.

[yonny]

On 21/03/2021 at 00:10, ukfrosty said:

I saw a carp show on the other side of the lake...........

 

I still haven't caught a carp this year...........

If you saw one then at least you have a starting point for next time buddy.

I wouldn't worry about not having caught this year. It's been winter, the hardest time you could possibly be fishing. We've not really had any prolonged periods of high temperature to get that water temp up. Tbh this last 5-10 years I've considered March to be part of winter rather than spring (in fishing terms anyway).

Clocks go back in a week or 2. All this blanking and freezing our nuts off will soon be a thing of the past. No need to panic yet.

[salokcinnodrog]

41 minutes ago, yonny said:

 

Clocks go back in a week or 2. All this blanking and freezing our nuts off will soon be a thing of the past. No need to panic yet.

Forward this weekend to BST. 

Blanking can be a sad sign of winter, even if you know where the carp are getting onto them may be difficult, especially if other angler's are on the lake. 

10 hours ago, welder said:

may I say that three hour sessions barely give the fish time to realise that you've put bait out? Maybe a couple of full-day sessions are in order

I must admit I have not been putting much in recently while fishing, but a number of pike trips have enabled me to prebait a little bit with mostly Vitalin and maize. 

I know where there were fish on Saturday, let's hope they are still here today... 

A full day from sunrise until... 

[framey]

Lol don’t put us back into winter yonny lol

[ouchthathurt]

I would like to think that we don’t get worse, but we can become complacent at times. After Monday, we can all dust off the bivvies and get nights in! Hopefully we can get back to normal and start getting some fish on the bank. 
 

besides, if I look back, I seem to remember catching a lot more fish than I do now, but there are various factors for this, with rose tinted specs on and the benefit of hindsight, you remember the good times and the blanks don’t seem so bad or numerous. I hark back to my first carp water where the sun was always shining, the reeds were thick and vibrant, the carp were dark mahogany commons and you caught every trip, I still fish this water occasionally, the reeds don’t look as vibrant as they do in my nostalgic minds eye, the carp are pale and it’s usually raining! The water has changed in 20yrs, it’s silted up, the stock is lower and the reeds have been cut back. 
 

I fish different waters then back then, my waters now are harder, lower stocked and this affects my catch rate, I may not catch the same numbers, but as the waters are a lot harder, I’m a better angler now then back then as I’ve had to learn and evolve as an angler to be be successful on difficult waters. 

[torchy]

This thread definitely hits a note with me. I returned to fishing around 18 months ago after a 40+ year break! As a teenager I was pretty competent, but heck things have changed (we used to put bait on a hook, rigs were things our North Sea oil came from!). Back in the day we'd fish for anything, including carp. This time around I have dedicated my time just to carp.

I am very fortunate insofar as I retired 12 months ago and so can get out mid-week (in fact I make a point of never going over a weekend as I think that's unfair on the anglers who work through the week).

I have absorbed as much as I can through reading, YouTube, and a couple of lessons—one each from two different 'carp fishing gods' (in my mind anyway). A few observations from all of that:

1. Keep it simple. I was horribly confused by all the stuff about rigs. I genuinely thought I needed to learn to tie hundreds of different types and then try and work out which to use in any given situation. I have cut right back to just a couple.
2. The YouTube videos are great entertainment but probably create unrealistic expectations. They are (usually) heavily edited to make them interesting. Who wants to watch [insert name here] famous angler blank? The pros blank too, we just don't see it.
3. Early on in my reintroduction to the sport I fished a runs water (didn't know that's what it was or that they existed). Very soon the initial fun of hauling out fish soon wore off and it became a bit dull. Since then I made a decision to fish harder waters and now feel a real thrill when I catch.
4. I have come to understand my own aspirations better. My professional life was just stress on steroids. After 40+ years of that I don't want my hobby to be the same. Fishing, for me, I have realised is not just hauling out fish. It's being in the countryside, camping out, getting great quality sleep, rest, etc. If I start worrying about catch rate, rigs, am I doing it right, etc. I might just as well 'un-retire', go back to work again and get paid! I'm doing this for fun and relaxation. I'm still trying my hardest, just not beating myself up when I blank.

The last lesson I had with a pro was especially illuminating. I told him which syndicate I'd joined and it was one he was familiar with. He told me I was very lucky to have got in, that it has some very beautiful, very old (and big) carp, but that they are exceedingly wary. It's also a low stocked water. He said I should set my expectation that five fish in my fist season (whilst learning the lake and its fishes' habits) would be a good result. I'm happy with that. I will enjoy nature, enjoy learning the new skills and chill.

So I guess to the OP my advice is, as someone else has said, see this insane hobby for what it is—it's 'fishing', not 'catching'. It's nice when they both come together but one isn't necessary (or guaranteed) for the other to be enjoyable. And you are probably doing nothing wrong!

[elmoputney]

I've been having a slightly lean spell lately, I have changed baits about 10 times in my head including looking into all the required equipment to make my own, like a boilie roller set up, basemixes, ingredients and all sorts 😁

Then the other day I went to have a look round and do a bit of hole filling, I had a bucket of pellets with me and ended up feeding quite a few big carp at about 5 yards out,and they were chomping, then I remembered its not the bait, that works in the right spot, my rigs do work usually it's always about the location, and putting it all in the right place at the right time  😳