15th try for a screenname

I've tried the glow-in-the-dark stuff, cost me seven bleedin quid too! Left it out for two 12 hour nights on this lake in France with no bites at all. Tried it twice since in Britain, both times for about six hours, still nothing...buy it and give it a go if you think it might work for you, mine came with one of those little 'laser' type blue lights for quick charging.

forgot to add the url: http://www.wyresidelakes.co.uk/

His profile says Southport...Fletch, have you tried Wyreside near Lancaster? - they have quite a few lakes. We fished it on a day ticket a few years ago but we're not really geared up for the bivvy / rod pod shenanigans, there's a clubhouse and showers on site and the club does food and snacks delivered to the pegs, a word of warning though, watch the lager, it's rocket fuel, seriously! - I only had seven pints and I was ratted for three days.

They're not coming up for bread as much as they were a few weeks ago, but carp should be catchable for a while yet...I suppose they are catchable all year round but the winter months can get tedious with long waits between bites. I'm having a few more weekends on the carp pools then going to Scotland after the pike and maybe, possibly, hopefully a stray salmon or two I've got use of a mates house up there for free, but it's very cold on early mornings and on an evening frosty

They generally won't eat it as they instinctively 'know' that it can't be digested, it's not natural for them to be taking in high calorie foods that cannot be digested easily, however all fish are individuals and some of them are just plain greedy and will eat anything and everything! Carp are ectothermic, meaning that their metabolism and ultimately their digestion processes are controlled by their body temperature, which in turn is controlled by the surrounding water temperature, obviously in a world withut angling, 'natural' fish would fatten up in summer and utilise the stored fat through the winter, pretty much what they do now, which is why summer fishing is better than winter, the only 'fly in the ointment' so to speak is people feeding them the wrong foods at the wrong times of the year, high protein food eaten in winter will almost certainly damage the fishes liver, too much in really cold weather can kill them. Some pellets are not high protein though, you can get low protein ones which I tend to use in spring and autumn and only use the oily ones from May to August. Not all fish are the same though! - some predators for instance feed all through winter, pike, trout etc, but they are indiginous (they evolved in this climate) the carp did not, I believe it originatd in Iran or thereabouts, although it has now spread all over the world. If you ever go to Scotland or anywhere else that's bloody cold, you'll find that they don't fish for carp as they don't grow too well or feed very mch due to the water temperatures.

I once put 2 dead mackerel deadbaits (left over from piking) a few handfulls of fishmeal and a tin of sardines into the blender to make a highly stinky paste...I didn't catch anything with it though.

Pellets are made from fishmeal which is oily, fattening and high protein, they have other ingredients too as mentioned by Dazler, they are made into a 'paste' which is put through a machine which pelletises them and are then dried. A boily contains mostly flour and egg, without the egg, the boily dough would just melt in water (like bread) but with the egg it is bound together, once boiled the egg hardens (like boiled eggs!) and I'd say that boilies are low to mid protein, the only protein coming from the egg, and one egg can make easily 30-40 boilies. Dynamite baits (and others) produce pellets and corresponding boilies with the same flavours and smells, this is where the similarity ends, so I wouldn't go down this route if you are trying to argue that they are the same - they aren't - carp and other fish will have trouble digesting high protein foods (pellets, meat etc) especially when the water gets colder, moreover a fish with a belly full of high protein food stands a good chance of dying when winter comes as the food just rots inside them, they can however easily digest low protein foods such as bread (mostly flour), boilies (mostly flour), and vegatation such as corn and maize.

I think more and more people are coming around to the idea that big carp are not always found in the centre of the lake at the bottom and so they try to land a 2oz lead a foot away from the opposite bank :confused: I find it much easier and more fun to take one rod and a landing net and creep up to the bank and p-l-a-c-e the bait into the margins with a small float on, this tactic will often outfish traditional methods of heavy leads etc - I caught a 13.5 lb common in 14 inches of water they are fairly easy to spot, just lob a load of freebies in the margins next time you go and watch for clouds of mud or reeds and grass being pushed aside as they root around, I have seen big fish in water so shallow that their backs are showing! They are easily spooked in shallow water though and I always try not to allow my shadow to fall on the surface or break the skyline with my outline - not easy if there's no trees or bushes in the vicinity as I'm no stranger to a fish supper!

You read my mind [ 01. September 2005, 10:37 PM: Message edited by: 15th try for a screenname ]

1: Unless you are using them all on Sunday, you'll need to freeze them, for what you require on Sunday you could just put in the fridge until then. You can re-freeze them but I've found their texture to change afterwards and these ones get used in the next session chopped up as freebies. As a general rule for frozen boilies: treat them as any other fresh food (bacon, fish etc) they will last indefinaely in the freezer, I have some that are 8 months old! 2:For large bags I tend to put my hookbait and lead into the bag then fill it up with freebies and lob the whole thing in. You'll need to put the hook in one corner and the lead in the opposite corner, fill it up, lick and stick, then pierce a few times with a bait needle to allow the bag to sink. For small bags you can make them up at home before you go and attach them to the hook before casting, but beware; they have a tendency to either fly off on the cast or float away when they hit the water

Pellets, paste and meat on the bottom, bread on the surface, I've tried umpteen different types of floaters from flavoured chum biscuits to crab flavoured spongy blobs, nothing beats bread, preferably wholemeal. From late May to mid August I rarely fish on anything else (my fav pond is about 75 yards round and has hundreds of surface feeding carp and chub in there, I usually catch about 20 - 30 on a good day, using unsoaked expanders to get them to the top)

quote: Originally posted by Common 40: allthough I agree to a point where the popped up hookbait will stand out, I also feel this method spooks a wary carp... [/QB] I don't know if I've over snipped the quoting here I agree that wary carp are easily spooked but without knowing the water, I'd be tempted to take popup maize as a 'just in case', one water I fish is only 4ft deep, crystal clear and with 4 inches of blanket weed at the bottom :mad: you can drop the bait right in front of them ...and then it sinks into the weed Ggrrr! I've been experimenting with pva foam etc and have had a bit of success but I'm still catching more weeds than carp.

I've never been a big fan of boilies and I don't think I ever will be, they are usefull in many situations though, the primary one being that they are inedible by small fish, tiger nuts if properly prepared do the same thing though and I've caught more carp on them than boilies! Pellets have to be my top bait and I seldom use anything else in summer on commercial pools, over a bed of boiled particles and micro pellets.

It all depends on the water, for a silty or muddy bottom I would be tempted to use one grain and one grain of pop-up maize (enterprise tackle make it) over a light scattering of free maize, there's little chance of the carp filling up on corn and maize and they love to 'browse' over an area, some other mixed particles or just hemp will add to their interest in your swim, the popped-up hookbait /should/ stand out amongst the rest. For a gravel or sandy bottom I would use 1 or 2 real grains, again amongst a scattering of freebies...by a 'scattering' I mean a kilo spread over a fairly big area, about 15 feet by 15 feet. I tend to use PVA bags to achieve high concentrations of food in a small area where there are lots of carp, again I would put in a kilo or two of prepared maize but keep the area down, as small as you can get it, this is where baitboats are ideal, but cost a small fortune.

I've caught on active8, and that's pretty much it...I've never been a lover of boilies and prefer to use Dynamite baits' tiger nuts or something similar for long sessions, for short sessions I mainly use drilled trouties in pva bags, or a lump of meat over a bed of cooked grains