kevtaylor

Best of luck Chill - hope you have a great time 🙂 Lake looks very nice

I think the fish spawn in the social or year groups they hang around in, on one of my old waters it was completely clear that the small fish went first, then the high doubles and low twenties together. The big girls stayed well clear and had their go weeks later. Whilst I watched the 20's going for it in a bay, my mate was down the other end playing the big-un. IMO he did nothing wrong there whatsoever.

I will look up the guy who does wicked swivel less leads and send you a link 😉

I've not rolled baits for ages but I recognise the issue from your pics - sausages too thick - you end up with hollow blobs dragged out of shape. The nozzle doesn't determine the exact width of the sausages - sounds crazy but if they cant slide accross a surface they will bunch up and become thicker, same as if you stretch them out they are thinner.

Yes I think they are excellent at getting away with it no matter what we do so for me the bigger the lead the less movement the fish can get away with before being pricked deep enough for it to have a problem. I will use different shape leads as well going for a flat pear over casting leads if I can get the accuracy and distance with them and consider swapping from lead clip to drop-off inline. As Yonny says if the lead plugs that's great adding to the weight, but on a hardish bottom a tournament casting type lead spins round too easily IMO giving the fish early warning that there is resistance present before the weight has the chance to come into effect - like 2-3 extra inches of movement, so I go for flat sided leads instead or squares or dumpy casting leads over tournaments, in the same way the swivel in the lead clip gives an extra inch of movement where inline doesn't. Just my opinion of course. Another note on riggy: In the Nash In Pursuit videos fish sit rigged up all night when using the trigger link, and not just a one off, many times. Also in a particular swim on Kingfisher I have had 5 takes in total from the same spot right on halfway, so isnt it surprising that all fish chose to charge towards me giving drop backs. Firstly they are so riggy, then if they do get pricked they seem to know exactly what to do in a given swim, so interesting/frustrating.

The big Sandmartin fish has never been out, crazy with the pressure it receives.

Personally I use heavier leads if I feel the fish are riggy, mega pressured. So if I'm down Bluebell Lakes 4's and 5's are standard. if I'm on my syndi main lake 3.5 - 4. In my mind the lead is the essential element for hooking other than hooks obviously. Not sure about hook lengths and how that matters with lead sizes, I've seen a fella have 12 fish in 24 hours from a hard water using 1-2 inch hooklinks 3.5 oz leads. Surely the key here is that its different, the fish couldn't cope with it and that's what matters, not whatever rig fashion and length is said to be the latest wonder. Oh and that included 2 x 40's so you don't need long lengths for big fish as many dictate, and it was a normal bottom bait rig.

http://www.olivemeadlake.co.uk/ I found this last year when my mate was looking for a little social venue, we didn't go in the end but it looks good to me.

Put plainly its the same, small hooks, light lines, take it steady, you cant up the tackle because you wont get takes

We have a water park in Leicestershire, with a decent boating lake full of carp. Lets just say its become Eastern European central, carp bbqs the lot. They dont even have to take equipment because they can just pick up your net without asking and walk off up the bank with it to catch a unsuspecting carp in the margins. Act like your out of order for taking the net back. I dont know anyone who still visits OUR local water park with their kids anymore because it seems WE NO LONGER BELONG THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Absolute joke - but what can they do - Nothing 😡

I reported Eastern European anglers arriving on dark at Coombe Abbey, record Zander water, for their illegal night time fish stealing session. Fortunately they have a wardens office to ring and have installed cameras on car parks to catch the [censored]s!!!

I've got the old shimmy LCs, have looked at replacements but whats the point? Bullet proof and old skool retro

There was nothing good about trying to grab that spinning handle lol

I slip a swivel type bead over the snap link it stops the float sliding off 😉

I hooked up on a snag on Swan Lake, Bluebell and by pulling by hand and very slowly walking backwards I got an absolute ton of weed out that was stacked full of mainlines, a spod and leader, 15+ rigs and leads. I'd say the only difference between my setup and all those that snapped up must have been that my line was relatively new 15lb, why they all snapped up I will never know but it took some pulling in I can tell you. I guess each lake has stuff like that in, pretty bad!!! Oh and use a spomb float ffs