Andi

I have spoken to the EA on the phone regarding this question after finding out i was no longer elligible for the discounted licence (no blue disc). The young lady i was speaking to told me in no uncertain term that should i be using either a spod or marker rod (once my 2 rods were out fishing) that i had to have a licence to cover them, her words were "the rod licence covers the rods in use not the end tackle" Now this made me think about all those carp anglers out there fishing with four rods plus using spod and marker rods as they would, according to this young lady not only be unlicenced but would be over the national rod limit so could possibly be prosecuted on two counts. I have also been told on another occasion by an EA bailiff that you need hooks on your line to catch fish and as such spod and marker setups dont count. Needless to say i am still confused about this and tbh it seems to me that it a) depends on the day and depends on the EA bailiff in question

For me its long hooklinks (12"+) with free running leads and slack lines (hanging off the rod tip) and short hooklinks (below 6") with fixed lead rigs and when fishing at long range, its also worth considering the depth you are fishing in as well as this can cause problems dependant on hooklink materials used.

try spodding a shed load of cheap pellets (layers pellets)then fish your hook baits well away from the bed of bait this seem to pull out the bigger fish, for me anyway

Thats was a Dr Gaffer wasnt it (givin away how long i have been lurking on her now lol) before some named git nicked the idea

chesters try aqua products mate they used to do a padded cover that fits the mk1 fox bowframe hope it helps

Yes the lads on peg 80 are still at it, they still have a long way to go but so far they have a commanding lead and long may it continue, nice also to see Dave Waite and Carl Goulsbra getting up in there with the other UK squads starting to find the fish as well 1st place Peg 80 - UK - Tim Paisley and Steve Briggs - 1023lb 5oz - 53 fish - 34lb 8oz largest fish 2cnd place Peg 11 - USA - 350lb 13oz - 18 fish - 27lb 8oz largest fish 3rd place Peg 75 - Ukraine 326lb 2oz - 16 fish - 30lb 12oz largest fish 4th place Peg 79 - UK - Dave Waite and Carl Goulsbra- 319lb 14oz - 16 fish - 27lb 10oz largest fish

No disrespect taken either, the reason we know this because on recieving some bite detection and striking / tightening into the fish the lines totally in the wrong place compaired to where we have originally cast too (the lake in question is quite long and narrow) and the fish has been several swims away and yet there has been little or no movement on the swingers and i do tend to sit on the rods and strike at any indication regardless, its difficult to explain and i hope i have managed it if not sorry but it will have to wait as i am off to norfolk fishing for the next couple of days (just waiting for my brother to arrive as i type this )

Rats do it for me as well tbh i detest the little bleeders so i make sure i have one of my snakes out before i go fishing and i guess the aroma of snake keeps em away because i havent seen a rat since getting the snakes. did think about taking one with me once but the UK temperature even in summer isnt hot enough for them and not sure of other anglers reaction to a 13ft burmese python in yellow and white crawling round my bivvy

Some good points there Budgie and Den, One other thing though myself and my fishing partner have also had situations where the carp have moved both hook and fixed lead system round (on a clay bottomed lake) to almost 90 degrees from its starting point before any bite was detected at the rod end, has anyone else had this occur (not entirely to do with backleads I know but the only time I have experienced this is when using back leads). JDW ok its nice to know fish are in the area mate but for me liners are a pain and the last thing I want to do is risk scaring the carp off by having tight lines in the water (I am a believer in giving the fish enough rope to hang themselves)which with running leads and slack lines does the job admirably for me, at the end of the day we all fish differently and have confidence in vastly differing methods and rigs which is exactly how it should be just as long as we enjoy ourselves thats the important thing

I used to use backleads when using three or four rods but I always had the theory of most commercial backleads being too light after having runs that lifted the backlead off the bottom of the lake (sometimes they even left the water the carp were moving so fast) before showing any indication at the rod so I made my own using 2.5 - 3 oz leads connected via a john roberts run ring that I had cut with my trace blades in a similar location to the shop bought backleads, these homebrew backleads then acted like a pulley due to the extra weight and the bite detection was much improved. However since I have now gone back to fishing with two rods only (and not having noticed my catch rate dropping) I have now stopped using backleads totally and fish with a 5ft flurocarbon leader (which sinks like a stone) and a totally slack line (takes a while for the line to settle) with a very light hanger or my swingers with no weight on them. Obviously waters with weed in or shelves / gravel bars kinda make the use of backleads a no go so maybe if your waters are like this the fluro leader and totally slack lines may help though always make sure the leader knot will allow the leads to fall off if you are not using a lead clip arrangement.

I know i am new to these forums but to me people are just that "peaple" show them respect and consideration and 9 times out of 10 you will recieve that back and ok there is always that one time i get stiched but hey the other 9 good friends i meet make it worth while. I wouldnt normally get involved in a discusion of this nature tbh but i personally despair how we treat each other and the world we live.

Surely all that plastic cant be good for em now thats real shelf life All joking aside mate cant say I have, I cheat and buy my baits from a company being the lazy bugger I am. [ 10. April 2005, 03:01 AM: Message edited by: Andi ]

With you all the way there carping_mad most shelf life boilies appear to be nothing more than a carrier for a flavour and tbh i am a firm believer of "feed em dont fool em" By way of a carry on to this I had an interesting thing occur a few weeks ago fishing a 20 acre lake in kent that has a large population of tufties, geese and swans, now as it was very cold and bleak at the time I was amusing myself with my digi camera attempting some close up shots of the swans by throwing some bait for them to eat which tbh was working fine (got em to within 2 ft of me), now I had some shelf life tigernut boilies and threw them down for the swans which picked them up and promptly spat em out again, so I tried the same thing with some frozen (thawed out) tigernut boilies from the same firm and lo and behold they couldnt get enough of them in fact they ate far more than the fish did that day lol. The moral to this story, if there is one? is maybe wildlife can detect and be put off eating something due to the preservatives that are included. Coincidence possibly, but it sure got me thinking about frozen baits as apposed to shelf life.

No dont refreeze, bang em in a bag (i use a carp sack) and air dry them keep a glug pot full in my bait bucket and blend the rest

I wish Townlad, just a normal home use one took an entire evening but hey at least the baits not wasted and even though the baits were hard they were no where near as hard as my air dried baits, the blender struggled a bit with them, lol Its caught me several good fish as well so I am glad I decided to experiment (be tight)

Lovely looking fish, well done mate, i would guess you are totally addicted now then if you wasnt before

I must confess to being a bit of a hoarder when it comes to baits and have until reciently kept some shelf life boilies in my bait bucket that are several yrs old, yes they have kinda lost some of thier smell but they look and smell ok and there are no signs of going off just getting harder (they are like marbles now) That said what I have started to do now is blag the blender for an evening after saving up all my old boilies and blend them really fine as it makes a wicked pva bag mix, I did 7 kilos of assorted baits the other night added a handfull or two of betain pellets and presto loads of cheap bag mix or method mix.

Another possible reason is they are preoccupied on fry. I noticed on my local lake a fry hatch on january 17th it was quite strange as one minute there were non and the next there were hundreds of tiny fish round the the magins so maybe try fishing with tiny lures /spinners