In 1971 I was fishing a Lake called Cut Mill Pond Farnham ..(NO not cuttle mill lol)
it was always a nightmare for hoards of Gulls and very large population of ducks so fishing any kind of surface bait was impossible
and yet the carp were always on the top in this glorious summer we were having

Sooooo !! I sat thinking if you are under the water and it was a bright sunny day and you looked up anything floating surely would look black ? no matter what the colour as it would be outlined against the bright sunny sky ?
it took a while but finally got hold of some black edible dye I made up a floater cake dyed black cut up some 1 inch cubes

first I pulted out some normal bread crust in amongst the ducks and fish this instantly attracted the gulls and before the fish had any chance it was eaten by gulls and ducks even though you could see the carp trying to get some

I then fired out the black cubes
as I expected the ducks did not recognise them as a food item nor did the hoards of gulls that were present !!!!!!
but OMG !!!
The carp were crazy for it I had a total of 11 carp you must remember this was 1971 ( GPO hessian open weave sack`s lol)

and catches like that were almost unheard of here is a picture of 5 of them in five casts we used the last of the film and then an hour later they were back on the top and I had a further 6 more fish
Every problem has a solution you just need to think of one

In reply to Post #1
I expect you'd get strung up for a pic like that today gerry...

Black bread crust. Simple genius. You should give Ali hamidi a call....

They go for black foam so it makes a lot of sense.

In reply to Post #1
Fantastic. I live nearby and often stop by the lakes for a quick walk around them when passing.

In reply to Post #3
it wasnt crust mate ?
it was Fred Wiltons Red Devil floater cake that I had made adding black food dye

I had met Fred at Longfield lake couple of years before and became friends and was lucky enough to be in the inner circle of the very few people using boilies that Fred invented back in the day

In reply to Post #5
Sorry - half an eye on the water as I was reading...

Still a good shout though.

As for the seagulls I find an open bag of chips is a great attractor for them... cheeky sods!

In reply to Post #1
Absolutely revolutionary, true pioneering.

In reply to Post #1
Great story and pic a mate of someone I knew hung there hessian sacks out to dry , god thay took ages

Gerry,was Gerry Savage part of the inner circle at that time,..some say he was the instigator of modern winter fishing..?

In reply to Post #9
I never met him Fred and Gerry fell out big time before I became Friends
Robin Monday and Alan King were fishing with Fred at this time
but I did see the picture of 2 carp laying in the snow that GS had caught and that was in the days everyone thought the carp went into hibernation in the winter and never fed at all
so yes I would agree it was possibly Freds Theory and Gerry proved it was possible with the help of Fred and his bait at a time when the top bait was par boiled potatoes

In reply to Post #10
Was Derick stritton part of freds team

In reply to Post #10
Thank you Gerry..

If I recall at the time, Fred Wilton and Robin Monday were referred to as "Baitman and Robin".

In reply to Post #8
a mate of someone I knew hung there hessian sacks out to dry , god thay took ages

Funny enough not a lot longer after that picture was taken I made a delivery to a cold store in Wandsworth and was impressed with the cold store suits the workers were wearing after chatting to the boss he told me they were made just a few mins drive away and I explained I did a lot of winter fishing in below freezing temps he was a lovely bloke and said they would not sell to the public but would do me a favour and he picked the phone up rang the company up and said he was sending his nephew round and could he sort him out with a suit trade price cash deal
I did and instead of the navy blue with red lining he made me 2 green with red lining suits (green was less popular with the trade so cheaper)
later my mate Malcolm Winkworth RIP and Clive Dietricht wanted some so got them some you may have seen they put it on one of their VHS tapes ?
Anyway fast forward a couple of weeks later I was chatting to my fishing partner Brian Mckeown RIP and said why dont we make some sacks up using this heavy duty nylon these suits are made of ? we could maybe heat something up and burn some holes in them ?
Brian said great idea I can get some punches made to cut small holes in them
so back to the suit factory and bought some navy blue nylon and we made up these large industrial nylon carp sacks with neat holes punched in them a huge step up from the open weave GPO hessian sacks that were used by everyone in those days