Tom asked;
Thanks for the reply like most nowadays I read you must use 10mm in winter and so on. Just to give you the background on the lake it is a old estate lake about 4 and a half acres in size and it has got lovely beds of lily pads that unfortunatly seems to have faded out of most lakes which is disapointing. It is very silty which is the bad smelling stuff at times and finding the gravel seems to be the best place to fish. Would you recommend a fruity trifle pop up that has been glugged to keep the smell out or bottom baits. Cheers for your help Tom
Hi Tom,
Glugs come down to a personal choice scenario. They give a lot of people a lot of confidence but nowadays particularly during the colder months I find myself using them less and less. It seems the common denominator that most seem to boost the flavour of their bait during the winter, so it is something I no longer do. I have always tried to be different to others in my own fishing and since starting to use ‘conventional’ flavoured baits rather than boosted flavour baits my winter catch results have far from suffered.
Regarding the areas to fish and the situation of the ‘smelly’ silt;
I have spent a lot of time on silty waters. Probably the most famous of these is the Mangrove in Shropshire where I was lucky enough to be a syndicate member for many years. The Mangrove is thousands of years old so has a massive build up of silt.
Pop-ups didn’t work very well at the Mangrove. Silt feeding carp simply feed ‘in the silt’ and this is where they expect the food items to be. Certainly any free baits you fire out will end up in the silt rather than hovering over it. It all comes down to confidence at the end of the day but try fishing two baits close together on the same baited patch. One popped up the other on a normal bottom bait and see which method the carp prefer on the water you fish.
One thing I would advice if the baits are taking on a lot of the silt smell would be to pre-soak your baits in bottled water before you go fishing. This way they will soak up ‘tasteless’ water and be less capable of taking in so much of the silt taste.
If you can find some firmer areas of silt then these are the areas I would concentrate my efforts. Firmer areas are firm because they are regularly fed upon. They can be very difficult to find but one major clue and one I incorporated into my Mangrove fishing was to always smell the lead when you wind in. The swivel will always trap a little sediment and water from where you have been fishing. You will soon find the really nasty areas to avoid and once in a while you will wind in ‘clean smelling silt’ – if that makes sense?
Hope this helps
Best fishes, Shaun Harrison
