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Just got back from a 2 day trip. Apparently a bait company hired the place for a few days and my swim was littered with beer bottle tops, Fag butts and other assorted rubbish. The crisp packet and brunch bar were mine to go into the old quality street tub I use as my rubbish bin.

Not at all. It's a decent topic.

Tigers and hemp - never buy hemp anymore - poor quality imo and price gone through the roof too. I sometimes use an alternative that looks like it tho, Not tried Kidney beans but have made a mental note 👍 Chickpeas I use in my spod / spomb mix, and mix natural and coloured ones together. Might even sneak them on a hair rig too! 🤫 Blackeyes are very underated and many many years ago I used them float fishing at a Kernow venue with great success. @greekskii and @yonny I accept you might find my posts on here a bit 'provocative' but as said before I have really seen and heard it all before, just for info I should be off to a lake tomorrow, method feeder and particle hook baits, will I catch, I hope so, at my age just love getting out on the bank now. Tight Lines all

Tigers, maize, maple peas and hemp are the only particles that I don't think are improved by adding flavours to them, however dark brown sugar improves them. Chilli hemp seems to work no better than standard hemp in my experience, but other may find different. I flavour almost every other particle, birdfood, chickpeas, kidney beans, black eyes, and colour some of them. Kidney beans seem to be improved in chilli sauce (even better is that you can get chillied kidney beans in tins). Chickpeas and blackeyes, both take on colour and flavour during the soak, and turmeric and paprika are brilliant spices to add in the soak, as is crushed ginger. The ground turmeric and paprika add colour, while ginger is a 'flavour'. I've tried artificial or carp shelf flavours, and some work, others not so. I have a feeling that artificial flavours are not as good as Nature Identical or flavours made using essential oils or natural products.

I think tigers are a great examples mate. A little sugar transforms them. Agree on the salt (particularly rock salt), garlic and chilli too. Fantastic additives. I'd also mention fenugreek, yeast extract (marmite), condensed milk, fish sauce, fizzy drinks (coke/red bull) etc..... there's loads of them (most of which are heavy on either salt or sugar) that can really put a twist on your particles. Do they work?.... who knows. They defo don't do any harm as I've caught plenty of carp on all of them.

I’ve just made some tigers. I add heaps of dark brown sugar at the soaking stage. Boil it in the same solution. Really kick starts the “gooing” stage. Two nights in a relatively cool garage and there is a heavy goo already. poor example as tigers don’t take much on but I tried one and they are super sweet compared to a standard one cooked without sugar. I don’t add anything to particle apart from sugar, salt or garlic. Occasionally chilli. No artificial stuff, think it defeats the point. as Yonny said you dont boil out salt or sugar. When you cook pasta you add salt to the boiling water before adding to pasta, to enhance its flavour. You then boil it and you get the taste. The salt remains. Sugar in the same.

Hitting boiling point does not mean boiling out. You can boil all the water away. The salt/sugar will remain.

Apparently, salt boils out at 102 degrees C boring AI response, And Sugar: Low concentration: A small amount of sugar raises the boiling point only slightly (around 100.5°C to 101.5°C). 80% sugar solution: Boils at roughly 110°C to 112°C (230°F to 234°F). Anyway, with respect, I can't see that adding anything to particles pre boiling really has any benefit. I just use my particle baits this season with limited success, which I really like. After all what would an old guy like know after 50 years of fishing? 😄

Depends what it is I suppose. Salt and sugar can't be boiled out. Soluble stuff can be added after boiling but it'd take a while to disperse through the bait.

Well whatever 'goodies' are added ie artifical flavours etc, maybe even sugars or salt 'might' help but wouldn't they be boiled out tho? I only now add something to my chick peas, black stuff, to dull the colour down, before boiling them. Only thing I can think of that would possibly still take on any 'goodies' whatever that might be would be groats, no boiling involved in prepping them Thanks for your reply tho 👍

You cook the goodies into them i.e. add during the soaking stage.

Remember someone doing some Brazil nuts maybe? Trouble is, I think, most cooked particles would never soak in any 'extras' just wash off quickly in lake water... 😕

You can already buy silly priced pots of particle hookbaits. They are out there.

Wasn't the original carp/specimen angler Richard Walker versus Match angler Billy Sails? Then there was a John Wilson one against an England international match angler, Di ck Clegg(?) Both were on 3 head to head matches and I think that both were one by the specialist angler 2-1. I don't think that I was born for the first, and can't remember the Clegg vs Wilson waters, other than John Wilson knew the Royalty stretch of river and drew on a big shoal of bream. I think that they used the same waters as the original, so it's likely that the Witham was included. I have seen John Wilson tie a size 16 spade end behind his back, and it was tidier than me with a spade end hook tyer. I think that we have mentioned the silly price of super duper tubs of pop-ups, and I agree £25 is silly money. I get disgruntled at paying £9 for a tub!

Not sure if I am allowed to post this on a chilled site like this is but: Have looked on 'another place' and seems like so called magic hookbaits are going thru the roof price wise 😂 Think I might have an idea to do the same with mini tubs of particle hookbaits, can't be bothered but suspect it will eventually happen? The hookbait 'wars' seem to have reached stupid levels, one bloke even challenging others to a 'carp match' for lots of money..... Years ago remember a thing about 'Carp anglers' vs 'Match anglers'..... Match fisherman won on Carp caught weight.....

Respect! Here's another one for you: I was sat watching the water from my bivvy, and Sky and me saw a van move slowly along the bank to what I call 'second car park'. A few minutes later my Messenger bleeps, with the message asking if thats me on the far bank followed by: "Thanks pal ill been down in abit mite fish to the right of you if aviable". JR is dyslexic so I wasn't worried about his spelling, but 'asking' if its ok to set up in the swim to the right. Not that he needed to ask, the nearest swim either side is around 100metres away, but just a little courtesy. That is the attitude of majority of the anglers on the syndicate.

Cheers for that mate 👍 I took the head apart and found a wire had parted from the led so I've soldered it and it's working again 👍👍

Dal henwood can fix it cheap enough dalectronics on Facebook he does get busy though and there are a few others who could repair if needed.

Ha ha they work ! Well two of them do the red one does not seem to work 😔.... See what the seller says . Thanks for the help lads it's been greatly appreciated 👍 👍 👍 👍

Another lovely animal! Funny story about a hedgehog from years ago at Taverham Mills. It was dark and I had to go for a pony so walked back to the lodge toilet, not bothering to switch my head torch on. As I came back to my swim I heard a crashing and clattering in the bushes. It was so loud I thought someone had fallen over and hurt themselves, rolling in the undergrowth, so I put my head torch on. It was a hedgehog with its head stuck in a sweetcorn tin. I'm especially wary of hedgehogs fishing now, not sure whether Sky is trying to play or eat them, but I have had to remove one from her mouth that had rolled into a ball.

Makes the hedgehog I had to shoo out one night look pretty tame!

Will do 😁

Awesome. I see them a lot, but v rare to get so close!

Tbf I'd assume the same mate. Keep us updated. I'd be amazed if they're not compatible.

Firstly, it's great to hear of the sport growing in popularity in China. I last visited China (Shanghai) on business in late 2019. It was a really vibrant place back then. I'm not sure I would be comfortable going back there ATM, but who knows what the future holds. Personally, I've never come across TICA. I suspect they're more aimed at the US market, but please correct me if you think I'm wrong on that. Whilst bait boats are great tools, they aren't cheap. In fact, compared to a set of big pit reels, a decent bait boat with GPS is very expensive and it's big and heavy. Whilst I'm sure you can be much more accurate with a bait boat, when you have to add that to a barrow and potentially lug it up to a mile to get to your swim, potentially sacrificing something else, the bait boat will probably be one off the first things to be removed from the barrow. Even though I could probably afford it now, I've got other things to worry about. The IP disputes is probably only a matter of time. Once a big manufacturer gets a significant new product copied and put onto the market very early on in production, then the issue will be taken seriously and something will get done. Right now, from what I can see, it's lots of small things such as line strippers, swivels, rig bits etc. being picked up and sold cheaply in bulk by small discount sellers here in the UK. As for design, that comes from necessity. Once there are anglers with specific new problems to solve, then people will start designing solutions for those problems and those problems may be specific to the location. It'll be interesting to see what comes in the future when new problems come up. That's an interesting blowback rig. Personally, I prefer a shorter shank, but it's whatever works. Is that what you caught the fish on? Is that a grass carp? Most of our fishing over here and on this forum is for King/Common Carp (Cyprinus Carpio), but doesn't mean we won't discuss other species. Tight lines!