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To do our 2 acre lake ,12 yrs ago ,I reckon was 900 quid ,we only had one solar panal at that time . also the pics dont show it ,but the mesh is double ,and in one stretch triple meshed .. battery i showed earlier ,will niw be used as a spare,i have another already on the system in my insulted box ,and on thurs ill buy a brand new one for this winter I did all the work ,and continually maintain it ...

Good question, funnily enough for the last 12 years ,the lake in question is fully otterproofed with two very large solar panals,the battery is trickle charged from the solar panals .. The panals also have a USB charging outlet built in so we use it to charge mobile or power bank,its great cept ,no signal much ... I change the battery ,maybe once a yr ,unless it shorts ,generally caused by the local hounds ,bending the isolators and hitting the mesh .. System works very well,...

Not a believer personally, but good luck. Nature can be a real beach.!! Seeing you're power requirements had me asking a question? Has anyone had any experience with solar power gor fisheries? Thankfully we dont need an electric fence, but do need to run aerators & or a fountain. I would be interested in anyone's thoughts or expertise. Thanks

Local river adjoining the lake ,went into spate yesterday river looks like Bovril .. The search for an easy food source starts now,being extra vigilant, as always ,but even more so as two orphaned otters have been rewilded locally from Shropshire, let go in a 500 acre rewilding estate..The stream where let go ,leads via other ditches and streams to many local pools and lakes .. Battery on charge ,new battery for fence ordered, isolators checked ,no shorting out ...the rest is down to god ...

Just an update on original post, after playing around with the stuff it tended to make method mix very sticky and not as firm as I wanted (oh err). Anyway, probably should have thought of this before, just blitzed up some flaked maize to add to existing mix and it seems to do the job nicely. Off to an 'easy' Kernow water next week to give it a go.

Dynamite still going alright. Plenty of anglers on their books. Think in Europe they have a good following. Their new squid and black pepper seems to be doing alright to those using it locally to me.

yesterday's driving music

Terry's still with Sticky. They released a video with him not too long ago and talks about the in this months Carpology. There's far more than just those I mentioned, but I always got the impression Nash and Dynamite were some of the bigger brands. I guess that UK manufacturers may be struggling selling into the EU now we've left.

Lot more than 2 brands left mate. Just wondering what happened to the Hearn / Sticky bait thing tho?

With the loss of Nash Baits, it seems like 2 major bait brands are exiting the market. What do the likes of Sticky C C Moore etc do? Are they producing in the UK still or have they all setup manufacturing in the EU?

Total fishing tackle and Johnson Ross both have Complex T in stock. There were quite a few others if you Google it. Johnson ross even do a bulk discount offer. https://johnsonrosstackle.co.uk/dynamite-frozen-boilies/18538-dynamite-baits-complex-t-bulk-frozen-boilie-deal-5kg.html

Losing TH must have really hurt their business lol

I got into discussions with someone about bait companies this year and I gave some figures for various bait companies. Dynamite baits (owned by Rapala), have less than 10 employees, and have a turnover of less than £1million.

Does anyone know what's happening with Dynamite Baits and their boilies? I haven't seen anywhere with Complex-T in stock this year and their presence in tackle shops seems to be waining. Its such a shame as Complex-T was great and I had lots of success on it, it was my 'go to' bait. I know Terry Hearn left them a couple of years ago now. Maybe they've decided they can't compete.

I know mate obviously good and bad trips and area specific but when it's on it's on! Can see me doing another trip or two at some point. He was freelining from up a tree pulling the bait away from what he thought were 40s and 50s because there was one giant lurking at the back. 4 days later he finally allowed the biggest fish on the spot at the time to take it and it went 66lb and he thought that was a 50 at the most at the time, so what he'd been pulling the bait away from all week who knows, but the lure of that possible 80 at the back kind of forced him to refuse the others. Was up a tree all day like 10 hours in the rain, wasn't pretty but exciting he wouldn't come down, I did find the spot as well it was mega! Over a day a fairly small group would get through a full bucket 1ft from the edge, wish we had a go-pro.

I found this short vid on pillows, they do look pretty decent to be fair, he used a 16mm sausage on a 14mm table for this. Dumbells seem to be the opposite 14mm sausage on an 18mm table for example.

I'm sure that I have done that for dumbell shapes, or a too large a sausage, say 14mm for ovaloids. In fact on a 'compatible' nozzle and rolling table, say 12mm, if the gun compresses the base mix, as they are extruded they will expand slightly and be slightly off shape as well. I used to air dry unboiled base mix balls totally, mixed with water and the other liquids, to get a fast breakdown, basically like the ball pellets that were available at the time.

I must have miss read it easy mistake to make lol but it’s all cool however you want to do it. Another alternative is you could always just air dry them without boiling at all to get a harder skin on them and once that has dissolved you would have a paste so even quicker as no boiling involved it would keep the Rudd away for a little while…

I can remember when Taverham Mills was sold, a 25acre lake, stretch of river, a house and I think another 20acres of land. The Carp Society put in a bid, but were outbid by Anglian Water with a bid for £1,000,000. Anglian Water managed to fence the lake trapping otters inside the fence. What irritated me is I had built the fence around the roadside and the woods at the back when I ran it and had no problems. Anglian Water ripped the fence down to rebuild it leaving it down for weeks, allowing otters to get in. Those same otters were getting the barbel and carp in the river before they got into the lake, so AW would have known otters were in the area.

When I was 19 a v large water near me came up for sale at 40k. I pleaded with the bank to lend me the money and of course they just laughed at me. Ten years later it was sold again for more than a million. I still haven't forgiven the bank 🤣

I saw that, and here’s me buying a family home for the family like a chump. Could have brought that lake and a caravan…

I know one venue that's up for sale for less than £300,000

To be honest, if I want a different hookbait, I just make the pillows the way nick described, put the sausage on the rolling table and cut it like that. Also using a (I think, im sure someone will point me right) using say, a 10mm sausage on a 12mm rolling table will make more dumbbell shaped baits? Im sure I’ve seen/heard that somewhere. Never tried it though

Very sensible investment.