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After 15 months of trying I finally caught my 1st White Cottage carp. Beautiful 27lb Mirror just as I was contemplating packing up and going home as the weather was so dire. To say I'm chuffed is an understatement!!!

My first visit to my new ticket. Took the kitchen sink with me as I had no idea about the lake. Few friendly lads gave me an idea of the lake and its stock (only 40 carp apparently) so I wondered around the lake aimlessly looking for a sign of life. 3 hours later I had picked a swim. Only to see a fish jump a few swims down so quickly moved the gear down and by midnight I was into my first match pit carp. 32.2lb. Chuffed to get one on the first night.

So I've just got back from a long overdue session on my local water which I call zombie sheep lake. It's a spooky place at the best of times, being in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a farmers fields surrounded by sheep. At night when you look around with a head torch, all you see are the reflections of eyes looking back at you. On my first session, I woke up after a blank night to find a dead sheep in the margins under my rod tips! How it got there without setting 3 alarms off I could never work out. Hence the name zombie sheep lake. Now I've fished it a fair few times and

I'll start off this month if I may. Went done to my guesting place yesterday armed with a tin of hemp and a couple of pints of maggots and my float rod. Ended up with 2 tench and 3 carp. 21lb and just shy of 25lb. Epic battle on the float rod for over 30 mins with both , got weeded up numerous times. Proper thrilled to land them. The other carp was a small double.

Its not often I put photos here but here are a couple from the latter part of the week .

Finally had my first bite of the year. 43lb 14oz

29lb!!!! First fish this year!!! Well made up!!

So as I can't find a may catch reports I thought I would start it off. So I came out for a last minute afternoo/ evening session and finally after sitting here for a few hours thinking to myself I'm going to chalk up another blank to add to the list the right hand delk beeped.....nothing unusual in that but...........it then ripped off like a steam train 🚂 The result being my pb smashed to pieces and a beautiful 27lb 14oz common in the net much to my delight 😁😁 not the best picture as she/he was rather lively anyway picture below......

After blanking overnight the weekend before last , decided to fish over night last night ,and ended up with this fish at 6:00am ,which i caught in May 2018 at 29lbs 9ozs , it was substantially bigger this time round ....

I don't believe this!! The last time I brought Liddy up here she caught two to my blank... She's now just landed a 30.5 Linear. And it's a named fish. I'm never going to live this down!!

First fish out of White Cottage for ages this morning. 30lb on the nose. ABS Plan b again

Had this 36lb 08oz mirror earlier today, the biggest of 5 fish today. Gone quiet now though.

Well I only went and blooming done it! Had the session of my life Thursday night. Arriving at the lake around 5pm Fishing before work the next day and managed 5 carp. A low 20, 25.6 dark scaly mirror, a 27.14 mirror and the biggest in the pond slate grey, down in weight at 37.4lb. I caught it Friday morning and still can’t stop looking at it! Spent the whole of last year about 20/30 nights for 12 carp. A switch of tactics for this season and in 6 (1st one being a blank) sessions I have had 9 carp 5 being over 20lb (didn’t get anything over 18 last year). Absolutely mental it’s all come g

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Well, it was another work overnighter for me this week. Arriving at the lake the entire surface was covered in fluff and a slight ripple was coming in on a South Westerly breeze. It was warm and the sun was out. Perfect conditions for a floater really but alas, I needed to get sorted for the night ahead as the light was soon to be fading. As always, I began with a couple of laps, baiting up a few spots in the edge with a mix of boilie crumb, pellet and corn. I settled into a swim at the eastern end of the lake and got the rods sorted before cracking on with the important business of prepa

Just done 48 hours social on a new water to me, a small pond containing carp and cats. There was a rope through the middle with a shallow bar on the other side - I used the baiting pole to get under the rope and onto the bar between the sets of pads coming up. First night I had the first fish - a mid double at dusk of the bar. Then a mid double grassy at 2am on the marginal point rod. Mate had 2 double figure cats. 2nd night I dropped one rod short of the bar into a deeper gully and upped the baiting in the hope of a cat. Soon into dark I had a take from what was obviousl

Did a couple of afternoons at the beginning of the month. 1st afternoon looked barren for Carp so I got the perch rod out. Second afternoon I found a few carp milling about in the weed so put a nice lump of bread in amongst them.

Couple of commons this weekend and cats of 35 and 41 lb🤢

Having done next to no fishing this year I was very excited to begin my autumn campaign on Friday. I was actually due to start this week but conditions were improving so rapidly last week I just had to take the Friday off to get down there. I've only been baiting for 2 week so wasn't really expecting much to happen. I got down to the lake at 04:30 and spent the first hour or two just looking and saw very little. I decided halfheartedly to get the rods on the baited spot but it was clear that it wasn't exactly kicking off down there. I kept my eyes open and by 7am I'd seen some activity wa

I'm glad to say Alton Water has reopened again. Doing my first night on there since pike fishing. RH KMG still working, got woken up at midnight by a 15lb scamp

10lb, Hopefully something bigger to follow.

had my 1st fish out of the secret lake about an hour ago. A few fish were breaking the surface so cast to them , within 5 minutes it tore off.

Best of a 2 fish catch on my one day session of the spring on a reasonably low stock res. Buzzing with that.

I’m absolutely buzzing with this one!! Couldn’t find a spot for this rod in a new swim, so decided to bang a bare lead over to the far margin on a whim. It goes down with an almighty crack. Gravel found. After a little less about the spot is surrounded by a wall of weed 4-5ft high and dense. A mix of parrots feather and Canadian. A 1 inch chod was the best way of presenting on here at the range with the crosswind. It took 10 casts but I was finally happy with it. Half a kilo of boilies sticked out and time for a beer. I never expected anything from this rod but just as the light was goin

I see a lot of confusion over mainlines. Guys seem to compare lines that are intended for completely different uses. There are numerous different types of lines and each have different advantages/disadvantages, and I'm only referring to mono here.... not fluoro, braid etc..... Pre-stretched lines: These are your casting lines like Fox Exocet. They obviously have very low stretch and fine diameter vs. BS and they have a super smooth finish. The result is a line that casts really well. Unfortunately the abrasion resistance is what suffers. Hence in a weedy lake you want to avoid pre-st

Got down after work today and saw a few fish topping at range so launched a single hookbaits as far as I could and within a couple of minutes the rod rattled off resulting with this 23lb 04oz mirror.

here's one i had at the start of the month, 40lb 02oz happy days.

A late start for me this year after the winter lockdown and starting a new job in March. Hard to believe it is May before I have had the chance to get the rods out! I had the lake to myself and so, I perched up in a corner swim with a South Westerly rippling in. It was mild and drizzly and looked ripe for a bite after a few shows in the area but alas, the weather changed during the night and the bobbins remained motionless. Brew in hand, I watched the water intently as the morning broke and there seemed to be some activity a little further up the lake. Half an hour of watching gave m

10lb 4oz.

Well blanked the whole of April so decided to have a bash with the floater kit on the local park lake to remind myself what it feels like to catch a kipper, caught a few low doubles this one being the prettiest.

Got out for a bit last week and struggled for the most part with the carp showing way out of range but did manage this old original common to save a blank.

Seems a bit silly to start a thread for March on the 29th but hey-ho. Managed 2 days on the bank this weekend which a rarity for me nowadays. It was clear they weren't exactly having it which is standard for March so it was singles and zigs all the way. Had some crazy conditions; massive winds, brutal rain, freezing cold and blazing hot sun, pretty much everything bar snow! Had a little cricket-bat common on the zigs and a slightly better mirror on a pub-chucked pop up. My first carp this year and did see a few so it looks like winter is finally over.

I managed to nip down for a cheeky midweek day sesh yesterday. My pre-baited area is still not happening which is really disappointing but that didn't stop me doing whatever I could to catch one of those old originals. I managed to keep track of the fish as they clearly reacted to a brand new south westerly. A well placed pop up with about 30 freebies did the trick and I was very happy to land another old'n. Really nice long fish. A repeat, but I could never be disappointed with a carp that's older than me.

So after a couple of people saying they would like to see/hear about my time on dinton I've managed to find my pic's and even my old diary/ fish lists. So here goes, I'll start with my best session I had on there. I'll give a little insight into the season first and to what then followed. So its 2006 and just before the start of the season a mate i worked with , who also fished dinton, asked me if I'd like to go on his bait. It was a homemade bait so something I'd not really done in my fishing and especially as I was more than happy with premier baits and also the fact that I'd given a

After 4 blank sessions on the more difficult one of my club waters I had this at 1,30am this morning. Packed up at 5, 30am to go to work so made it worth while.

Just the one today 9lb 8oz. 😁

I’d just like to take the time to thank you lads, it’s a tiny little percentage of the internet this forum but just what I needed... I may not have the bottle to post to much on here but love reading the stuff you lads post... 👍

Nice common from a morning session yesterday.

Two fish today 6lb and a new pb 17lb 8oz well chuffed, ignore the daft smile. 😁👍

Rod was in for no longer than half an hour. 43lb

Back down this evening with the float rod.

Managed this lovely one on Monday night. 22lb and stunning scale patterns. Caught early at 6.30ish then just one pesky tench. Lovely fish and a great nights sleep. Success for a school night!

Biggest of 3 fish so far at 28lb 14oz.

On Saturday I managed to get out for an impromptu overnighter which turned out to be a right laugh. Drove down to my syndi on Sat afternoon, mainly to say hello/congratulate a mate who landed something very special on Friday. Wasn't too excited tbh as I was convinced on the busiest night of the week there'd be no chance I'd get on fish. Had a wander round and couldn't find much to fish for, not looking good. Was chatting to a fellow member and saw a lovely big common nut out in the swim next to him. I had a quick peek down the bank and matey in the swim had his stuff on his barrow. Legged

26lb 8oz pb common this morning.

My 72 hour session ended after about 48 hours as it was just too hot. The fish were all chilling out on top and typically the lake had a no surface fishing rule which sucked. I was the only 1 on 5 acres of lake for my stay. It fished hard at first but once the cool wind got going so did the fish. Unfortunately most of these were under 5lb as all the big boys were on top. I think I had about 16/17 carp only 3 being doubles. Faced various issues, little silvers were pecking my boiles to death, small carp were giving me aborted takes or actual bites which meant I couldn’t keep the rods in t

ZIGS As I mentioned before, I am no expert but I do use zigs a lot of the time in my angling. I have lost count the amount of times I would have blanked if I didn’t fish with zigs. I have also had lots of big hits using them. If I could only fish one tactic all year; zigs or standard bottom baits/pop ups, there is no doubt in my mind that the zigs would heavily outscore the standard set up come the end of the year. I have had a good think about how I could go about writing some information on how and why I use them but don’t want to bore you all with paragraph after paragraph of ramblings

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22lb 6 oz Mirror, on Sharpe's 8' cane rod, Speedia pin and Munch Cream Seed... get out there...🤩