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Did you buy direct from them ?

Still unable to get through to NGT by phone or email. Trying to get a reason to go down that way and knock on the door. (Or maybe trading standards might concentrate their minds on communicating with people that have paid them for things). Cheers Ian

yep, got my account banned on there during the scamdemic time, though i had no interest in shb at that time, i remember him really having a go at peeps big time for not getting jabbed, quite a few got banned for being so called conspirloons ..fast forward today and the truth is finally coming out, even in the msm.....

Yep that does it. Think it was crayfish meal so same thing. Very light ingredient! to be fair they good alternative ingredients to make pop ups with basemix! Take some testing on inclusion levels though.

It will almost certainly be krill/shrimp meal. I've heard a few cases of this. Very buoyant stuff!

I think, it will all depend on the base mix ingredients. a one egg mix rather than a bigger mix could easily determine that for you. Looks like nick has said the same lol 👍👍

And that's what catches, confidence in the bait. Do I use SHB? No, not because they don't work, simply I have confidence in my homemade Garlic Spice thingamajigs. There are others I use, again I have confidence in them, RH Monster Crab and Fluoro Yellow Nutty Bait. Annoyingly others I really rated are no longer made, or have changed. @greekskii mentioned Lego heads, I have used plastic corn over Vitalin and had 6 carp within an hour, although I no longer use plastic baits.

That's where I used 50% base mix and 50% sodium caseinate to have a matching pop-up to the base mix. The base mixes I used that ratio with were New Concepts Mariner mix and Nutrabaits The Biollix, which were both fairly heavy base mixes. Usual procedure was make a 4egg mix of normal baits. While the base mix was out I would put around 1eggs worth of powder to one side for the bit for pop-ups and I would sieve the base mix to get rid of larger lumps and then add the same amount volume of sodium caseinate. So if I had 1 measuring cup of base mix, I would add 1 cup of caseinate. One egg in a bowl, add the required flavours/liquids if using any at 1/4 of what 4eggs took then mix as per normal. I usually had enough pop-up mix left over for another 1 eggs worth of pop-ups. A mate did the same when he used Enervite for his pop-ups, and that must be sieved!

I feel like I've heard that story before somewhere. Could you find out what it was and what level please 😂

Heard of 50kg pop ups that went on a trip to France with some mates once 😂😂 can’t remember which ingredient did it though.

I use SHB pretty much exclusively for pop ups nowadays. Caught plenty. Probably would have caught a proportion of those on another brands pop ups. Do I believe they’ve caught me fish that I may not have caught on a different hookbaits? I’d say maybe a few. But I’ll never know. Have I blanked on them? Yes. Down to the baits? Probably not, my decisions on location, rigs, baiting approach, etc at fault. you’ll catch a carp on a lego head in the right place. You’ll blank using an all singing all dancing hookbait in the wrong place. I’d choose SHB above any other pop up though. As Yonny said it’s a confidence thing. Plenty of options priced similarly with much less to them. I’ve looked at making my own, similar but obviously not comparable as I don’t know his process in and out. I’m talking cork chunk pop ups with a curing process of my own. Doable but I don’t have the time. IMO buy with confidence but they aren’t a miracle worker.

Thanks Nick what I meant when I asked was what % would I need when adding to my basemix to make a matching pop up? I know it's not going to be exact and basemix dependant I was just looking to see if I could make a food bait pop up with it. AI isn't perfect but it can be a good tool, I've made loads of basemixes from scratch with it just for fun and I would be happy using some of them.

Cor, don't do Ai, it grabs information that is frequently incorrect, lol. Joking aside, it does get facts wrong sometimes, basically double check using another source, preferably not Google based, as Google can have an agenda. (Don't get me started on that one!) I was using sodium caseinate to make buoyant pop-ups so 50% base mix and 50% sodium caseinate was right for me, I wanted the buoyancy. As an ingredient in a base mix 10% is probably the maximum. I know that a few people have overdone it unintentionally in a finished bait and had floating freebies. I preferred calcium caseinate in any of my standard base mixes, more to do with cost as sodium caseinate is about 10% more expensive. As a specific ingredient in hookbaits it was bearable.

Well the Big Common would be the icing yes, but No the remaining target on my syndi is a 50 common 'white tips' so the yellows will be coming out, thinking of maize or corn as feed possibly. On the syndi I've concluded that baited patches are not the one, Kingy and Sandmartin PVA sticks and maybe a few with the stick, cannot see me using much bait this year TBH but you never know

Do you think 10% added to 90% basemix would be enough make a hookbait buoyant though? Or you do you think that means max inclusion alongside other ingredients? I can't help thinking if you could make match the hatch pop ups with 10% everyone would use that tbh.

I can't say I pay too much attention to branding. The value of branding is down to one's individual perception based on the product and, I hate to say it, marketing. Most of what I would consider to be 'premium brands' offer their fair share of stuff I'd never use but I'd not want to devalue any brand based on that fact (apart from Nash, obviously 😂). A brand is just a name for a company imo. Do I think SHB make decent/premium hookbaits? Yes, absolutely. I only use them for certain applications, but I've done so for probably 10 years + now. They have caught me some very special fish and that breeds confidence. Confidence is as important as anything in carp angling imo.

Do you consider SHB a premium brand or not ?

AA baits suggests 10% for pop ups Sodium Caseinate is a milk protein derived from using sodium to remove the protein content from milk. It has a protein content in excess of 96% and makes a very functional binder. Being one of the lightest of the milk proteins caution should be used as to the inclusion levels as 10% plus can make baits buoyant. Recommend inclusion level is up to 10% – (100g) per kg base mix.

Yeah I think with egg albumen it would have made them less soluble and firmer but yeah I've learnt I'm not going to bother with cork dust,the AA Baits wafter mix seems pretty good so will use that if I need bright or alternate wafters but tbh i will probably just add some pop up mix next time to my basemix to make wafters. Keep it simple and all that. Is 50% sodium caseinate not too high? I just used Copilot and it recommented 20% max? I know it's AI but it does seem quite useful for stuff like this? I know it also might be wrong though 😂

You made the discovery that cork dust absorbs water, and expands allowing the bait to break down. I pretty much just stuck to pop-up mix, or with standard base mix adding around 50% sodium caseinate after sieving it.

Many premium brands as @yonny has said are pop-up mix and flavour, that could be any brand, although there are some that have that something. Garlic is one of those additions that can really put fish on the bank, but it is finding the garlic that works; in pop-ups I never found powdered versions work, possibly not enough smell, and I am not scientific enough to work it out, but in a food bait they may work well. Oh those coatings can be fun to make, can be as simple as rolling dried baits in egg, then rolling in powder. Funnily enough I have caught far more on a food bait equivalent than on a yellow pop-up on most waters. The yellow pop-up produced fish on 'small fish' waters, but not on big fish venues, although the past couple of years did produce stocked fish rather than original fish on the syndicate. Thinking back to various 25lb+ commons I have caught, none came on yellow baits, all but one were on snowman baits, food bait with an identical coloured pop-up (not necessarily same flavour), the one that didn't was on a single 15mm food bait. As an add, I did remove the 'disagreement', not going to have it get nasty. Express an opinion, give your point and don't have a go.

Maybe keep at least one on a yellow all year then, is that "the big common" 😍 I do kind of agree with the give them a choice kind of hookbait still though. Maybe just tone it down a bit later on in the year, and go for something similar but different if that makes sense. At times I've done quite well on the brown proper jobs. Something a little different but not greatly. Also I've never been one to use the same hookbait on all 3 rods, so I can't ever be conclusive about it 😂

I agree with the common thing they do seem to go for yellow a lot and I don't use yellow much and catch mainly mirrors, gonna use this as I actually want to target a big common this year. Underwater vids aside, I just wouldn't consider using brights after spring on a busy water where they see everything all the time, 90% anglers on brights with ronnies all year round says to me AVOID THIS I think you'll catch more over a season on match the hatch, just my opinion though👍

I think that was his go to for a long time but the underwaters have definately made him question it a bit.But I can't speak for him. Thing is Kev without a camera we probably won't know half the times we get done or a carp won't take a bait. We can only go onthe ones we catch. (or not 😂) so the more you use a bright or match the hatch one the more you will catch on them 😬 Another thing I gleaned from a podcast was to change hookbait colour depending on whether you were targetting a mirror or common. Now when I look at my big common captures they have been on a yellow pop up. Maybe to catch the bigger mirrors I need a match the hatch or duller bait. The theory was that commons are more sight feeders than mirrors. Again Just a theory but I might use more match the hatch type hookbaits this year as I want to catch the big mirrors.

Does he then miss out on all the fish that avoid a bright one, all his eggs in one basket? There are lakes and times of year that I'd use a bright, other lakes where I wouldn't dream of it. 🤷‍♂️ Surely he has seen thousands of carp spook off brights on camera.