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@salokcinnodrog and @InteraX Sorry guys, no disrpect about age thing, I am slighty older 😂 Can understand why you want a good bedchair for session fishing 👍 On the subject of reels and line: Before 'Big pit' reels were even thought about. I used big sea fishing reels to do the same job. as for line, well used to fork out for some 'Tryline'' maybe a typo stuff. However, bought some 15lb sea fishing line after and did exactly the same job and if you think about it, sea fishing line needs to be more abrasion resitant? Don't think AI that has now crept into search stuff is 100% reliable but: AI Overview There is no exact global count, but dozens of primary factories manufacture raw fishing line worldwide, while hundreds of companies brand and distribute it. Actual Line Extruders vs. Brand Labels The Makers (Extruders): Only a relatively small number of specialized chemical and polymer plants worldwide actually extrude the raw nylon, fluorocarbon, and polyethylene (braid) filaments. Major manufacturing countries include Japan (such as Sunline and Momoi Fishing), China, the United States, and Germany. The Brand Owners: Hundreds of tackle companies market and sell fishing line under their own names, but many outsource the actual extrusion and spooling to these specialized manufacturing plants.

A couple for you, aimed at the American market

Can you share that YT video. That might be interesting to see. I agree that I prefer the modern bedchair. Thankfully I missed out on the sunlounger heyday. I've got a Trakker RLX flat 6 and I don't have any problem with the big snooze I've got on it. There's only 1 strap across the centre with a hood both top and bottom and no issues. I've even got one of the big trakker pillows on there with a strap around the head section, again with no issues. I don't think having 6 or 8 legs should cause problems to sleeping bags. A sleep system may be able to reduce some weight, but I suspect for the biggest manufacturers it's there to turn it into a disposable item. You can't take the bag off to wash it. If the zip breaks, you've got to replace the whole top or complete bed. With a separate bedchair and bag, you can swap out parts as necessary. As I suggested earlier, I wouldn't be surprised if a less honourable reel manufacturer tried to make it so the reel was sold with line and you couldn't replace it yourself. Anything to lock you in. Look at the way tech and the car industry has gone. I don't doubt they are much more advanced and have a lot more advanced features, but I don't want a subscription for heated seats/headlight arrays or anything else and please stop snooping on what I'm watching on my TV thank you. That's just creepy! Of a certain age? I'm in my early 50's. I wouldn't have ever thought that description would apply to me, at least not until I'd retired, but maybe we were brought up in a different world (I first came across the internet and email in 1993 when I started at Uni and the only GUI web browser was NCSA Mosaic running on Sun SPARC computers). I don't want to be beholden to the uber wealthy and tied into subscriptions for everything. It may cost me more initially, but I still buy CDs/Vinyl for music. I then have it for a lifetime. If we just allow it to happen then we'll loose everything we gained over the 20th century. The NHS, social security, extended lifespans etc. We've allowed our politicians to be influenced by those with money too much and that's on all sides.

Without going on and on about the old days (late 80's and 90's) but remember when an Argus bed chair and blanket were fine, might have said this before on a HorseShoe thread tho! Anyway, can see the way 'carp fishing' is or has gone now, it's big business for a lot of companies, I am not bothered about the latest super bedchair/bivvie/bait boat/rod/reel/ bait etc etc..... Sadly I feel the pastime I really loved in the past is now for the social media generation, sign of the times I know. As for me, now given up the use of boilies this season, I am doing purely a particle approach, have had a few and just feels nice to me to do something different for a change 👍 Not sure about that😂 I'm mid 50's if that qualifies, so yes probably. I've seen the change of carp fishing, or fishing as a whole. I don't mind the increase in comfort, a sunlounger that would collapse at the most inopportune moment... I do much prefer the modern bedchair, even modern bivvies, but I do feel that the prices have made it ridiculous. I still prefer an umbrella system, although I will admit to having used a few domes, and very nice too; Hutchy Apotheosis, Fox EasyDome 1 and 2. I think it was Rod Hutchinson and Shakespeare who brought the domes onto the market, Cyprydome and the Apotheosis, quite probably the first switch from the camping market. I caught up with a research video on YouTube this morning, there are only 2 independent reel manufacturers, (Daiwa and Shimano), every other brand is made pretty much made under the same factory roof, whether Okuma, Sonik, Nash, Penn or whoever. The same reel can be sold under multiple brands and names, and at various prices.

Guessing you guys must be of a 'certain' age? Without going on and on about the old days (late 80's and 90's) but remember when an Argus bed chair and blanket were fine, might have said this before on a HorseShoe thread tho! Anyway, can see the way 'carp fishing' is or has gone now, it's big business for a lot of companies, I am not bothered about the latest super bedchair/bivvie/bait boat/rod/reel/ bait etc etc..... Sadly I feel the pastime I really loved in the past is now for the social media generation, sign of the times I know. As for me, now given up the use of boilies this season, I am doing purely a particle approach, have had a few and just feels nice to me to do something different for a change 👍

They're trying to create a captive market where you have to go to them. Look at landing nets. You used to be able to easily get a handle and a net separately. These days about the only people doing a reasonable carp net without handle are NGT. As for handles, they should last a lifetime if you can find a decent one. Everything is now being integrated For your convenience or to lock you in. Eventually, I can see a time when reels will come with Line and you can't reload them without specialist equipment or other things like that. You won't own anything and you'll be happy. Sorry if I come across a cynical, but it's what's happening in many other industries. Just look at cars. When most people get a new car these days, they're not the purchaser, the pcp provider is, so if anything goes wrong the dealer won't speak to them. Late stage capitalism.

I was having the typical bivvy thoughts while fishing and made a major realisation. In the days of a standard sleeping bag, it would fit onto a standard bedchair, from sunlounger to Lafuma, to original Fox bedchairs. There were some decent cold weather sleeping bags, manufactured by cold weather sleeping bag specialists. Tackle manufacturers got involved in the sleeping bag market, sleeping bags with pockets for the bedchair to hold the top and bottom on the chair, so it would not slide off. Then came the gradual switch to 3 and 4 legged bedchairs and the now universal flat bed, and tackle manufacturers discovered a problem that they had created; with the position of the legs the pocket or flap holding the bedchair was now not suitable. Sleeping bags could rip, get caught up and tear. Next innovation is the 'sleep system', bedchair and sleeping bag combined. It takes money away from other industries and puts it as a fishing essential. The 'Realisation' is that this tackle innovation is to solve a problem that tackle manufacturers created for themselves and anglers. Now having been outside at -12 in a sleeping bag, I would much rather be outside in a sleeping bag created for survival at those temperatures than a tackle manufacturers sleep system. Of the bedchairs I have had over the years, from Lafuma and springs, to Fox, Bison, Badger (heavy, but very comfortable) Saber, Chub and Solar, probably the most comfortable was the Bison, not a flatbed like the Chub and Solar. Not just in bedchairs, but in tackle, rigs and ideas, are we going forward or backwards?

on the deck at the end of the sesh

few quick hours while the girls at nursery

Six egg mix ready for the pan, I’ve dusted them with dry base mix to prevent them sticking togetherafter boiling for 1min 45secs, (timed once the waters actually boiling) they are left in the garden to air dry for half hour or so, giving them a shake every few mins baits bagged and ready for the freezer

the “screw fix sausage” gun with nozzle cut to 12mm (ish - I’m not that accurate!) my eBay rolling table with sausage ready to go rolled 12mm baits

The base attractors, 20ml salmon oil (free with the basemix) 2.5ml belachan and 2.5ml shellfish sense appeals. Couple of oz robin red and a heaped tablespoon of blood powder added to 6 eggs, then enough supermarinos basemix to mix into a slightly sticky, tacky ball. (just the basemix, oil and shellfish SA on their own would keep the cost down and still produce a decent bait, the basemix has robin red in it, so it’s not essential to add more) the flavour shelf in the shed! white basemix is the protein bird food, the reddish sacks are supermarinos

I was for years more confident in baits that I had rolled compared to shop bought boilies, even though I was using Trigga base mix and there were (are) Trigga Shelf life and freezer baits. I seem to recall 10kg of base mix costing £72.50, flavours around £5.95 for 100ml, so prices are not that far different from the 2000's. As said, the only reason I went to having bait made for me is I was testing and giving input to the company. When that went belly up, I simply couldn't be bothered with going back to making big amounts of bait as I was using around 10kg a month.

I don’t get to do too much angling these days, shift work on the ambulance, young children and family time all come first. I usually get 1 overnighter a month (maybe 2 if my shifts fall right) and a few evening/early morning sessions a month during the summer months. For me, as I’ve always made my own baits, that’s where my confidence lies! I haven’t used a shop brought ready made in so long, that for me, if I were to rely on one for a seasons angling, my confidence in the bait would drop, so I’ve defeated myself before I’ve even started! Illogical I know, after all, readymades (frozen or shelf life) produce 1000s of whackers every season, but after all these years rolling my own baits, I’m supremely confident in them, far more than I would be with a bag of cell or something like that. Confidence is all after all! cost wise? Hmmmnn I’ve never really thought of it! A 10kg bag of basemix from premier baits costs me £60, it comes with 500ml of salmon oil. I roll my baits in 6 egg mixes, so add the cost of 6 eggs per bait making session… (I have 12 chickens so my eggs are free) From 10kg of basemix I’ll probably get 15kg of rolled bait. the flavours are £7(approx) a bottle for 100ml, I use 2.5ml of each per 6 eggs, my current bait has two flavours added haiths robin red, probably £13-15 a kg, but I’m probably adding a couple of Oz at a time. rolling table was a small 12mm one off eBay years ago, say £20? the boilie gun i buy from screw fix (heavy duty caulking gun) £23 but mine has lasted 2-3yrs before they wear out. so I probably spend £80-100 on ingredients that will last me 8months of angling. So £80 divided by 8 months = £10 a month on bait, I can use around 5kg a month, so 5kg for say £10-15 a month? £100 divided by 8 months = £12.50 a month all high quality ingredients, formulated to a mix that I have upmost confidence in, which (in my mind) are superior to a bag of shelf life’s, so it all works out. obviously if I needed to be ladling 5kg of bait per session then the cost goes up as I would be replacing used ingredients sooner.

Many thanks all! 3wks in and the sleepless nights are starting to catch up! well I took the new aforementioned banana baits to a local club water the other day for a quick few hours while my daughter was in nursery, I had 3 out to 21lb so that’s the biggest hurdle crossed when making your own bait, knowing it works!

Not a maker either so Imo It’s knowing what is actually in the bait not saying all fillers are bad but you can afford to put in better quality ingredients and come out the same as a shop bought boilie. if I was only using 1 kilo a time i would want that 1 kilo to give me the best chance going rather than 10kilo of lesser quality a well thought out £6 home produced boilie SHOULD be significantly better than a £6 shop bought boilie.

congrats on the new arrival. I have never made my own bait but i have thought about it many times. Even looked at buying small setups from eBay, but nothing came of it. I don't get time to do huge amounts of fishing so i don't go through 10s of kilos of bait in a season. Based on that it didn't seem a sound financial investment. excluding all the equipment, how much do you think home made cost per kilo. I know its not about that but about getting the exact characteristics you want (smell, colour, consistency etc.) Problem is every time is see these type of posts it starts me thinking about it again.

BIG congratulations on your newest family member. The true meaning of life! Same as Kev, I haven't got a clue about bait making. I sometimes wonder if I have a clue about fishing...

Can't help with bait making you know far more than me, but congrats on the new addition to the family ❤️

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Congrats @ouchthathurt. It doesn't seem 5 mins ago that I was up with the bottle at 3AM so I know what you're going through. And I understand the struggle of not being able to get out. A healthy bait obsession is just prefect to keep the juices flowing. Ultimately carp have evolved over millions of years to harvest the food sources available to them and one the most abundant is in the silt. I have even known them to feed in the horrible stinky black stuff. It's all about natural cycles and when the beds of naturals are ready for harvest. That horrible 'dead' silt does contain food, just not as frequently as the 'live' silt beds that hold bloodworm for long periods throughout the year. You're dead right that it's not feasible for a carp to reject baits tainted by silt. Silt is probably the #1 source of sustenance for the species.

Correct😁 Dunno.... I could have done with some help on Saturday 🤣

Many thanks mate!

That’s exactly where I am when it comes to bait, i much prefer a food source bait over a bait that’s all food signal/smell but little substance. I could have used the same attractor profiles, flavours, oils and powdered attractors and bunged them into a 50/50 semolina/soya base, I would get bites on it short term, but I like having something nutritional that they will come back to, in the thought it is doing some good. of course it’s all guess work really, my fish meal baits have shellfish sense appeals and monster crab as a flavour, when I smell them, they smell like, well shellfish and crab! But that isn’t how the carp smell them do they? They don’t smell like we do as such, they recognise them at a different level, maybe the chemical base of the flavour. So theres me thinking well it’s 2ml of shellfish SA and 0.5ml of MC, but as the flavours are from the same company, which probably use the same base for these flavours, the carp are just detecting 2.5ml of the base chemical? After all, when we smell ethyl acetate, we smell pear drops, but the carp just detects ethyl acetate? So use 2 different fruit flavours with the same ethyl acetate base and to the carp it’s all the same? In colder waters, I want a flavour that’s more soluble, so it can escape the bait, I also wanted a coarser base to help with leakage, hence the bird food. Yet I added fruit factor 6 as a powdered attractor, which won’t have the same solubility, but can help in “repelling” silt ingress to the baits - my waters are pretty silty, but again, is this important? on one of my waters, I was told that I won’t catch unless I use pop ups to keep the bait out of the silt. All my carp in the last 2 seasons have been on bottom baits in the silt… when I fish pop ups, they tend to be low lying pop ups over the gravelly edges in the margins, fished in complete isolation. I know that the carp are in these margins regularly, so a single pop up in the right place will produce the goods. there is a belief that silt tainted baits will not be as acceptable to carp, but I disagree, they are used to feeding in silt, their senses through their barbules are extremely sensitive, if they detect a boilie in the silt they will still recognise the food signals it’s kicking out. One lad couldn’t believe that I had 4 runs in one night fishing bottom baits in the silt, when we talked about it, he said that when he fished bottom baits in the middle he caught nothing. But that’s not the bait, but down to the type of silt, where the hook bait was placed. some silt is horrible sour crud that the carp doesn’t like to feed over, but some silt is much finer, with a more neutral “taste” (?) without that sour smell that the carp will happily feed over, it’s where bloodworm and other goodies are naturally found so the bait presentation wasn’t the issue, the location of that bait was. if I offered you a nice meal on a clean plate, you’d eat it, if I offered the same meal on a plate that was smeared with human excrement, you wouldn’t go anywhere near it. That’s how I see it anyway. I still like to sniff my marker leads, as well as drill and score them to collect silt so I can see what it’s like

Congratulations on the addition to your family , Ouch . 🚼