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If you like a wide gape have a look at the ESP Claw Hammer, lovely hooks and sharp out the packet too.

The Dark Matter 30lb is a good hooklink Try Armourlink as well Some good choices there I'm afraid 10 footers are not for me - too much torque and power going into hookhold - 11ft are great, as are 12, if I had to use 10ft I would want them at maximum 2.5lb test curve

I no longer use shelfies, a look at the ingredients tends to put me off. I've been making my own for a few years now. I got lucky with a spice blend, that suits both fishmeals and bird food baits. I have noticed a reduction in flavours for cat/ dog biscuits lately. I used Aldi chicken and liver in a mix for barbel, but 100 mile round trip to unfishable small river put paid to that. Must haves imo are milk powder, yeast and seaweed/ spirulina.

Curve shanks are a bit notorious - I think the general consensus is they're dodgy on smaller carp which tend to turn quickly and dart about a lot at the net area I don't get on with barbless, I'm very fussy with hooks and use fine wire, widegape only, with a tiny whisker barb - size 6 Korda widegape (normal not X or ka(k)makura) is the biggest hook and chunkiest wire I use (its quite fine wire in that size but never fails) I'm trying those gripz I just invested in a whole load of size 8s - haven't seen for myself what they're like yet but I need them for barbless only old favourite classic dayticket venues It sounds like you haven't encountered soft mouthed carp yet mate - they are a problem which thankfully you only get on the odd lake - I looked it up its quite a complex problem

We've all been there over the years, trading tackle in, chopping and changing - often too cheap by mistake as you can't sell it on Ebay (courier fees have gone mad; its the full insurance that's the issue on flash rods) Collection puts you a bit on edge, its easy for a dodgy stranger to dash off in the darkness without putting the code in for you to confirm the sale I had a stupid thing for pairs of flash beach casters before I realised I don't like using two rods from the beach anyway as its hard work and faffy rebaiting etc. and moving up and down with the tide on shingle Long story short I deeply regretted selling a pair of Bruce Ashby Mirage over a decade ago, they're a timeless classic fish playing, small water big fish carp rod - even nicer to play fish on than Ballistas - Romantically I found a set again recently, these will not be sold, I use Ballistas as well and was very happy to find some excellent cheap fibreglass rods which have fabulous actions - they aren't dirt cheap, about £40 each - they're called 'Freshwater Carp' - made by WSB Tackle and I can't recommend them highly enough as the PERFECT beginner rod for a youngster - I use them very happily at a rough park lake where I don't want my shiny best reels and Harrisons on show while I'm snoring off the whiskey!

I've never been happy with braid hooklinks, or inline leads. I nearly always use a lead clip set up. I use 1 to 1.5 oz leads on silty venues, going up to 4 oz on hard bottomed lakes. I use size 6 or 4 hooks. The only mouth damage I recall was slippage from a curve shank kd rig, an 11lb common, 3 oz leads at distance. I think the hook didn't set properly. I tend to use barbless hooks.

I have cork handle rods which are classy rods but I hate cork anyway and simply covered it up in Winn rod wrap Its fabulous stuff, fairly expensive to do a set, depending on the job you need a roll per rod (roughly) Don't use the finishing tape, its ok but Vinyl tape is much better The handles end up a bit thick but I don't care I just use the old large ESP rubber grip rests - you may get the odd issue with lifting banksticks out of the ground with the rod - some tape can be wrapped tight on an area of handle to compress it, its not a big issue - most carp rod handles are slim anyway, a single layer of wrap and you're still slim enough handles The grey wrap looks classy, so does the blue on my bass rods - don't get the red as its actually dark shocking pink! - sorry I haven't got time to dig out rods from boiler room and take photos, you can find photos of it all over the net - its a little tricky to master the tapered cut at first but you don't need to be very accurate just cover up any mistakes with vinyl tape (vinyl tape has a super tough glue, is quite expensive, highly weather resistant and durable, and never comes undone - in fact its hard to even pick it apart again - don't get 3mm its too fiddly, stick with 5 and 10mm

freezer baits are easy to preserve mate just dry and salt them - fair enough there are restrictions on amounts, drying space and time to do it, freezer space, (wives and revolting boilie smells etc) - I just dry boilies spread out on an old bait towel in my living room in half kilos but I'm on my own and have a box freezer which does me perfectly for me and my bait about two thirds full at any time I'm not a big fan of shelf life they seem a bit sort of plasticcy and sterile to me

Depends how you fish, I don't do spods or particles I prefer a variety of (catapult only) small amounts of boilies, fine pellets etc They shouldn't be mixed as they have different glugs on and I don't want them all to smell the same in case something isn't working - I also wouldn't want pellets drawing the moisture out of thawing boilies and getting soggy I keep everything neat and compact, some people are funny like that I hate bulk, slow setup, clutter and confusion and never rated heavy baiting anyway (especially on tough to rock hard venues)

In the early 90's, I used boilies made of mostly ground go-cat.They air dried rock hard, and were also hard to hair rig. I caught a few carp and tench on them, but shelf lifes got the better of me. Now I still sometimes use powdered cat biscuits, but at no more than 25% of a base mix. I only fish short sessions, so a softer bait suits me.

I do mix my dry Vitacarp with my pellets beforehand, keeping my PVA pellets separate. I have a lovely collection of catering buckets, which originally held Knorr gravy granules, and a Hutchy bucket for my PVA stuff which also gets my hookbaits put in there. If I need 500grams or so of high attract boilies from the freezer, or some luncheon meat, I do have plenty of 900ml ice cream tubs, (my own indulgence). I've also got a few maggot tubs. Yes I do keep my casters and maggots separate. I don't mix maggots until on the bank as I often find a particular colour works best.

Assuming you are a raw beginner here so apologise if not Unfortunately it isn’t simply a case of best rig they could be mid layer which would mean a zig they could be on the top and up for a floater but easiest to tie and most universal will be a knotless knot hair rig. check out carl and Alex on you tube for their early stuff as that may give you some idea watching it is easier than describing it

Thats the good thing about Brookfoot lake birds are not really a problem, got a few Canada geese on the lake and islands at mo but they are just noisy feckers

Has anyone fished Mill pool please ? I am just started getting together some tackle and getting advice. Anyone know what is the best rig and setup please ?

Bobby's lakes are near there (Bobby George, ex Darts player now pundit) he had some lakes up that way

You can get some different types of pellet powder off the shelf, trout, halibut, bloodworm, carp, etc personally I think if the point is to use hydrolysates I would use a lower oil content powder as that would absorb more of the good stuff. You could always just glug pellets in hydro though they can take a lot of liquid on board. That's what I do quite often.

Might do mate but if I do it will be super duper koi food, not just coarse pellet powder I might look into some deeper advice about ground dog food of very high quality, get somebody to grind for me or use something else like insect meal I do use some coarse pellets (Dynamite) - they are coated by them and have lashings of glug as well by me - but I don't really trust the cheap price of common coarse pellets - maybe I'm a bit of a bait snob lol Mind you the pellets get the swim buzzing so who am I to argue with their effectiveness - I wish somebody made organic coarse pellets available for us to use for fishing- organic fish-farm food is only available for trade in massive bulk or from abroad

I Kwould Kontane it in a Kbin Just messing I'm not a fan of Korda

What about buying a pellet powder so you don't have the faff?

I also got tired of blitzing pet biscuits in my beautiful Ninja processor they are hard work once you reach a certain stage they mound up and the powerful blades are quickly spinning dry I will if anything be using flours and meals already done in future but it feels a bit pointless there are so many excellent pastes out there to try which are already scientifically and/or artfully designed for catching carp plus TESTED like mad

Thing is different dry dog foods, different protein quantities and obviously ingredients. I will only use dog food crumb in groundbait. By law, every bait containing GM ingredients has to declare it. The threshold is if the ingredient is 0.9% or less of the bait. This to do with animal food legislation which bait is now classified under. I know Dynamite Baits have made this a headline within the bait industry.

The only luck will be if the birdlife leave me alone.

Any luck ?

I hope you’ll be happy with your choice 👍 I do like 10ft length rods Iv got a set of ESP Quick draw rods in 3.5 lb which in hindsight were to powerful in 10ft as someone on here rightly mentioned could have been Kev ? The 3lb would have been perfect. 😏 Now ESP are bringing out a 4k version all in 10ft so il be selling off the other rods and getting a set in 3lb ….after a good waggle in the shop

Trouble with DIY is it’s easy to make something rubbish, heavy and unsuitable for carp That conscientiousness tended to spoil my bait making adventures But I wish the multi million industry would use higher quality ingredients such as non factory eggs and organic non GM etc I was very shocked to find out a “highly regarded” big name old school ingredient supplier uses GM ingredients in their mixes we are talking BIG name who supplies EVERYONE