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Making pop-ups. I do make my own special pop-up hookbaits with a special flavour combination that has worked well for me. I work on a 1 egg mix with the flavours, oils and attractors as a 6 egg quantity. For pop-ups I do use Mainline Polaris or Richworths Pop-up mix, dependant on which is easily available. A 1 egg mix lasts me usually a whole year. So added to 1 egg is 5ml of Ultraspice Flavour, 2.5ml Verselle Laga Garlic Oil, 20ml Marine 17 liquid and 10ml Tunamino liquid, and the whole lot is whisked together and the base mix gradually added until it is stiff enough to roll. As I said a 1 egg mix produces enough pop-ups for a whole year, this year I rolled a load of 20mm and some 14mm baits. I boil the baits in boiling water for 1minute and then leave to dry overnight, before adding a bit of extra liquid. The 20mm I added a touch of red dye in with the extra liquids.

Its a case of managing expectations here. Ok there aren't too many places that have bunches of 30's waiting for us to amble onto, but if the guy has a pb of 23lb surely he wont turn his nose up at a 25 - 27 - 29? Then by the time he has managed to reach the top end of the 20's list he should know where to move on to improve on that, if only by listening to the gossip around the lakeside and in the tackle shop. BOF

I've been fishing in Cheshire for many years, outside of the south east we have the biggest concentration of carp anglers in the country but we don't have many big fish waters, so the big fish waters that are known are often under intense pressure if you come across a little known water with good fish in, the quickest way to ruin it for yourself is to put it online because everyone up here is looking for a leg up...lol

Ta , Yonny That simplifies / makes things cheaper for me ! .

Tin hat time... Please don't get me started on Korda Kra... Seriously for years I used black tulip beads, black run rings, although now I'm using khaki coloured run rings. My leads are a flecked green, or brown, or grey, my hooklink swivels are black, although I must insist that some tackle manufacturer makes me a khaki green and brown flecked swivel... You think how many carp were caught on John Roberts rig beads, stiff tubing and uncoated leads, with a length of black Dacron and a bright shiny Drennan Super Specialist hook.

Keep to what you know buddy don't change anything until you need to , if you're missing bites or just not getting any then it's time to have a rethink.......