It still makes me giggle when I see guys turning up for few hours on the bank with a barrow load of gear, they don't even walk to the far end of the lake but proceed to park themselves at the first swim they get to, do they really need that much gear for a day session?
I'm going to put my hand up here as I've been there and done that so I am guilty of over doing things when it came to tackle on the bank so it must be a learning curve that all Carp anglers go through. It got so bad at one point I had some problems with a trapped nerve in my shoulder which I think was caused by carrying way too much gear. Gone are those days, the trolley I used to use to lug the gear around is at the mother in laws rusting away in the corner of the garden after being sacked from its fishing duties, my ruck sack is a much more manageable size and my old rod holdall, in a rather fetching 'realtree' pattern that was capable of carrying six, yes six rods, is in the attic, no longer being used and for sale if anyone wants it?
I used to carry everything just in case it was needed but long gone are those days, I don't even bother with a marker and spod setup anymore. If I want to look for a new spot I do this on a separate trip and try and find the same spots from different swims keeping my options open for when I fish the lake. Watercraft can give away spots that are far more productive than ones that are bombarded with kilo's of 'Munga' and been able to up sticks and move onto showing fish can put a Carp on the bank much quicker that sitting it out in one swim because the weeks budget of boilies were piled in onto the one spot.
Cutting all my gear down to the essentials and being able to move quickly is really important to me now as it helped me to put my personal best Carp on the bank, if I'd had a barrow load of gear with me that day I wouldn't have moved swims as quick as I did and caught 'Roxy' within a few minutes of doing so.
When I'm on the move I use my pod to carry both rods and net, I have a bag on my back that carries everything I need and I carry my bait bucket, mat and chair in my free hand, sometimes I don't even bother with a chair, I sit on the bucket or the mat.
In the bag, all the terminal gear has been cut down to the bare minimum and I only add something to the set-up if I didn't take it with me and it cost me a fish. All my rigs and hooklinks are pre-tied at home, ready to go and when I think about the rigs I use there are only a few of them I use to cover all my Carp fishing.
Chod rig, I carry a few leaders ready to go and a box containing the 'choddy' hooklinks.
Standard clip rigs, I've been tying the same bottom bait hooklinks for this setup for years, why use anything else if it works? I will give something new a go but it's usually only on the second rod and if it doesn't work, it's out.
Method feeder, I love using them, my favourite method leaders are set up ready to go, hooklinks are the same bottom bait ones as above or choddys!
Zig rig, as above but with a longer hooklink tied to the depth I need when I see the fish cruising around.
Floater setup, I carry a controller in the bag and use the same line and hooks as I use for zig rigs.
Bait is the one thing I take plenty of, but never too much. I've been caught out once when I was having one of those magic days with runs galore then I ran out of the stuff. There's always enough dry stuff in the bag to keep the method busy for a day session, being dry it doesn't weigh too much, the same mix is used for sticks and ground baiting. I always have enough boilies for the session and never go without a selection of coloured pop-ups which are all one flavour to get around having that every colour in every flavour, 'just in case' mindset!
Give it a go, lay out all the gear you took on your last trip, move all the things you actually used on the last session to one side and look at the stuff you didn't use, do you need all that?
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