My mate Dean was the dirtiest sod ever on the banks of the Ebro you always took your own mug to his swim as he just used to swill the cups out in the river which was @ times 1 up from a cesspit of bacteria ...he did 2yrs living on the bank and never had a bad stomach !!!!!
just a shame couldn't be said for the poor idiots who went into his swim for a cuppa and some inside knowledge on how the river was fishing we used to sit there laughing thinking you wont be fishing tomorrow mate sometimes it was hard to keep a straight face when he said it was Segra tea...he now makes a comfortable living working for a medicinal company as basically a human guinea pig testing drugs ...true story

Esso swim
this was a known Bream hotspot but was next to where the carp like to frequent
it only had 2 parking spaces on the short walk 2 mins away but it was very popular walk etc etc with everyman and his dog liking the area so getting a parking space in daylight hrs was virtulally impossible so then it was a 1200mtrs + walk from the main car park to hope you had a swim as you couldnt really park anywhere to check
thats why i only fished this swim at night when i worked for Esso if you left your car in the car park over night it was pretty obvious where you were and your car was then very vulnerable to the scallys and you would come back to your car / van on bricks or your locks done and radio missing

In reply to Post #3

Don't worry about it you are obviously very passionate about it and have put the graft in over the years to achieve your results and i admire anybody who has earned there fish

i dread to think how many hrs i spent walking the banks and that was while i was at work sometimes ...being a self employed 360 excavator operator i used to try and get jobs on the river sometimes i could fish off the barge or lock i was working on and would always volunteer to lock the gates / site for them if they wanted to away early if they were travelling lads which they appreciated and would always ask for me on there next job .....or as close as possible lol so i spent alot of years near the river and spent every opportunity i could walking / spotting / fishing
even spent 2yrs @ esso research as a test fuel car driver back then it was testing unleaded petrol ...my mrs worked away from home all week so i worked the 3pm till 11pm shift i could be on the bank by midnight and fish till 9am then go home to sleep before work 5 nights a week if i wanted but in reality it was every other night in the winter ....sometimes you question your sanity on a jan night in a howling gale and pissing down rain and you just put your 10th bream back and then pack down in the rain take everything home empty out in the garage to dry before that nights adventure ....

i have been in spain now for 8yrs and now i think carping in the UK has changed forever or perhaps im looking back with rose tinted spectacles

I'm guessing my last post about NH fishing the Thames got abit heated last time i looked it was on here ?
so i thought the chances of me returning to the Uk are getting smaller as it does look like a ****hole dangerous place to live where you cannot speak your mind even if it is the truth
so here is the best swim on the river Thames which i fished from 1975 till 2019 in this swim and believe me this swim produced an extrodinary amount of carp at the right time of year when they were moving to there winter depths
at least in my time on the river the people i fished with / shared info with stuck to a gentlemans agreement we didnt fish / poach each others swims so everyone could benifit from the shared info along the river and then bait to there hearts desire ...but none are still fishing the river now so heres my swim ...2 rods bottom of the shelf ....happy hunting

I always thought MB was a good guy and liked his style and looked forward to his videos etc but that has gone out of the window now ...so just goes to prove we never know how honest people are in real life
as for his uncle JW always loved watching his TV shows until i had the misfortune to meet him whilst fishing the Ebro ...he was the comsumate proffessional in front of the camera all though slightly sulky if he didn't get his own way or something interupted him .. but in the evenings after a few red wines he was a proper diva and not a nice person and we did try not to eat in the same restaurant as him in the end and that included his guide and production team which says it all

Without a doubt everything in nature likes a quick easy meal
and i think frog spawn is without a doubt the most spought after food source for carp in the spring maybe its easilly digestible ? or full of protein ? whatever it was it certainly preoccupies them and i never found a boilie that could compete with frog spawn
But there was 1 bait that came second on the carps top food preoccupation list and that was TOFU they loved it ...i used to chuck big cubes in my pond it was amazing to see how they would force it into there mouths
i caught more carp in the margins with Tofu than any other bait especially on the Thames the only downside was every thing thats swims likes it too but in certain swims @ the right of year you could watch your baits and you had to just sit on your hands and wait for it to scream off

Another brilliant video from Terry
met him quite a few times many years ago when he was chasing carp in oxon
and he always had time for a quick chat on his laps around the lake
it was never that hard to find them when it was quiet but catching them was a different ball game all together and thats what separates Terry from the rest of us he always got his target fish and rest of well ..we carried on dreaming about catching them

In reply to Post #6
Thanks yes i am very lucky that where i live we have a very diverse amount of wildlife as i am surrounded by National / Natural Parks ...normally this Golden Eagle doesnt let you get within 500mtrs but i had a lucky day and took the photo from approx 150mtrs with a Nikon P950 camera that has an amazing zoom capability
i spent alot of time working / shooting / fishing all over Scotland and never managed to see a single Eagle and i see one most weeks from my house soaring across the valley and if determined just drive 30 mins up into the park and its pretty likly you would see one

In reply to Post #2
Yes when we lived in the UK we had a large koi pond and the Frog spawn never lasted long the Carp would gourge themselves on it but the toad spawn they werent that fussy about it ?
but the sturgeon would eat the Toad spawn !
it was quite fascinating watching the Carp work along the margin but i had to stay in the cover of the shrubs so couldnt get in any of the corners as i was there really to see the Golden Eagle fishing and didnt want to be seen moving around to much
did manage to capture the Golden Eagle eventually sat nearby

A mate who doesnt fish phoned me and said whilst out with his dog he had seen a Golden Eagle catching a small carp out of the water irrigation pond near where we live live in Murcia Spain
so yesterday with camera in hand off i go to sit @ the 2.5 acre square pond for a couple of hrs to see if i can film it ...luckilly there is a hole in the fence so i could hide in the bushes out of site and watch the water without being seen inside the fence
anyway watched the Golden Eagle flying around but no where near me
when i heard this noise coming along the margin ...probably about 75 small 1lb carp coralling small fry down into the corner so they then has them pinned in the shallows and were feasting on them ....never seen this done like this by carp before it was like watching Dolphins on a wildlife documentary
i had to keep moving in front of them to film it ..so i made a quick video this morning to show on here
has any one else seen anything like this before ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1XwtTkdHeo