Recent content by Tim Marks

Sometimes I wonder why I bother replying to these threads. It must be the Close Season. Some ‘dick-head’ always adopts the lowest common denominator approach……

I think many of his rods were built on Century blank. I have 2x 1.75 and a 2.25 built by Paul in about 1984. They have gone very soft over the intervening 40 years !

They close the lake here when the carp start - so after a false start yesterday it was quiet on the spawning front today. If they don’t spawn tomorrow, I expect it will stay open for 2 more weeks at least (based on the weather forecast).

I did the exact opposite 3 weeks ago. Baited a fairly deep water swim for tench a couple of times; away from the main concentration of carp. Turned up early in the morning to find the only angler (carping) on the 70 acre pit was in the one prebaited swim (by coincidence, not design). He was...

There have been several recent ‘scales’ threads on here. FWIW I carry a pair of £5 eBay digital luggage scales as they are tiny and accurate. I carry some old Avons (or small Reuben dials) as non digital back up. The Tenchfisher guys are worth listening to as they do scales checking at some...

As has been said; it really boils down to how particular you want to be. I’m a cheapskate - so I tend to buy custom built rods second hand. That way I save some money because there are loads of lightly used custom rods on the market (which implies that lots of people buy the ‘wrong’ rods). But...

Maples or tares would be worth a try. Both are dark, heavy and wouldn’t need flavouring. My memory tells me maples have been used successfully. But mates of mine have used particles (on the Thames) for carp and they haven’t caught any barbel like that….a few carp and plenty of bream certainly...

PM sent re Cutler book.

Many years ago I used the Dave Preston ‘cling film’ method to cook baits in a brick. I then cut up the brick to provide a variety of different sized square(ish) baits. This was for a heavily pressured carp water. It was very effective. In my current barbel fishing the primary issue is location...

That’s an interesting way of discouraging people from replying to your posts…..

And don’t mention the excessive abstraction at the top of the river….

Great fish, well done.

Apologies; the rucksack reference was about the pricing, rather than using it for your roving application (I use mine for saltwater fly fishing).

I was going to say exactly the same. Orvis stuff can be good but is fearsomely expensive. Other sling packs are available at a fraction of the Orvis/Patagonia/FishPond/Sage etc prices; whether they will do what you want is up to the individual. Same logic applies to waterproof rucksacks aimed...

I’ve never fished with an Allerton, so can’t comment either way. All my other float rods are hollow tipped eg Daiwa and Maver.