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It's defo a bit busy elmo. If you use everything then who knows what's working and what's not? I'd go for a simpler approach i.e. hemp 'n boilie/pellet, or hemp 'n nuts, or hemp 'n maples. Plus the bird food to bulk out/keep the price down. Tbh my first port of call is as simple as it gets - boilie bulked out with pellet. There's not many places this wont work imo.

Well if people are putting it in catch reports then they can't be checking people. Or are these anglers posting in the catch reports bailiffs or in with the bailiffs? Or are they trying to pull a fast one, tell people nuts work, people try nuts and tell them they are on them and then get them banned. There are some very devious people about, I'm one of them 😂

If people are saying they are devastating then I'd be using them 100%. On lakes where nuts are banned 30% of my particle mix will be nuts. Though if you scooped up a handful of my spod mix you wouldn't see it in there and yet as I said 30% of that handful will be nut. I've had other anglers, bailiffs even, look at my particle to make sure I'm not using nuts and never been caught. 🤫😉

I tend not to do much spodding, but when I do, I just go for pigeon conditioner, hemp, boilie, pellet and a dash of sweet corn. My current water doesn’t respond too well to spodding, although I will give it a go if I feel it’s right. My other water responds to spodding, but I just go for boilie and pellet. Simple yet effective.

Not above the mesh where it meets the leather. (You can see it better on the brown ones). I found that out when I did try to walk the outflow when it was higher than normal. However they are OK in rain, so I would say water resistant. They are decent walking boots as well, and comfortable enough to wear all day.

The nighthawk boots look really good, could you tell me if they are waterproof, i can't find it anywhere in the information. Cheers Keith.

HiTec Magnums are hard to find at the moment. The Nitehawk combat boots are good. A couple of weeks ago I had to resort to chest waders to cross the outflow, and pull some weed out to get baits in the water, I got flipping freezing feet. Back on the bank and into the Nitehawk boots a lot warmer. https://www.nitehawkproducts.co.uk/clothing/footwear.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiA6t6ABhDMARIsAONIYyzJ2b0hwKArqSSBA5CB9gG5kqpCLWjany2yP4jpAVa7iedVkz785pYaAtSIEALw_wcB As Yonny says, warm legs help keep your feet warm. I've been wearing combat trousers with Hoogs Strathmoor over trousers over the top, but even with chesties they were cold.

Not a bad secret to have don't blame you for keeping it under your hat 🎩 I might try and work it out tbh I don't even think anyone would even check where I am 😂

I like to chuck in one of those small tins of the golden grain complete with juice, the visual element plus it’s an instant fish puller.

Finely chopped and crushed nuts? I once used peanut flour and fine grade semolina 50/50 with an egg white powder sachet and rapeseed oil - all brought from a supermarket, mixed it all together with eggs and they made pretty nifty looking boilies, didn’t catch on them mind! I’m sure they would work, on the right water.

I always include tinned Sweetcorn. Probably just a confidence thing now but I feel it makes a positive difference.

I couldn’t put a finger on why spodding won’t work on my particular lake, I can remember back to about 2000 when one angler took the place apart spodding 20k of gear out then sitting on it for a week. He emptied the place, after that we were all spodding the granny out of it, and it was all one big blank... roll forward to 2020s, the lake has a new stock, nice young healthy fish, about 90 in 5(ish) acres, yet I’ve not had a single take off a spodded area. Maybe this is more down to the fact I can’t do any more than one night at a time... perhaps those that follow me into the swim clean up! My other water used to produce bites from about 4-8hrs post spodding, shearwater used to respond really well to spodding too, yet a big bed of boilies fished at range used to be just as productive. Maybe with lockdown, when we can finally all angle normally, the carp will be gagging for a nice few Kg of boiled bait that spodding might work again, who knows?

It's pretty nice to use tbh, when it hits the water it keeps going further away from you so you can get that little bit further from it 😂 https://www.uniqueweldingservices.co.uk/shop

That top one looks a good un elmo

For me wellies are a no no, they don’t keep your feet warm, if anything, I find they can cool your feet down. I tend to stick to the alt berg or magnum boots I wore in the army. Thin cotton socks with thick thermal socks over them. I avoid gortex or waterproof socks as although they stop water getting in, sweat can’t get out and your feet get damp anyway.

Strong spod rod and braid and a castable weed rake if you cant use a big rake, this is always in the car does a great job clearing localised weed That being said I have lost 3 castable weed takes already 😁 That was the last one I lost but that was due too poopy fox exoshat braid

Using prebait to clear gravel spots is always worth exploring, I used this to good effect last spring as there was a small hard spot surrounded by Canadian that would do a bite if the wind and light conditions were right. I kept putting hemp and pellet on this spot to keep it clear. It worked for a time, then during summer the surrounding weed grew to an extent that meant this spot was no longer fishable. I could rake the spot clean, but the large beds of Canadian between the spot and the swim prevented line lay and landing fish safely. Most people ignore the swim when the weed comes up, yet the swim has a nice silty area that is fishable, yet no one fishes it.

I wear this version most of the time and did a 12k walk the other day when it was raining I believe that equates to 16000 steps lol https://muckbootcompany.co.uk/collections/men/products/mens-muckster-ii-ankle-all-purpose-lightweight-shoe-black I bought them about a year-18 months ago on the recommendation of mark Bryant from bait works great even for dewy mornings in the summer. I keep the longer chore boot for proper winter and deeper floods

This is a good idea, I just thought chuck it all at them and it will be a winner lol, lockdown is probably hazardous for a habitual over thinker 😁 I think hemp, pigeon conditioner, boilies and pellets will be a good starting point I have pigeon conditioner, Pellets and boilies but I think hemp mixed at 50/50 with the PC will make it a more appealing particle mix,

I'm not a fan of the welly type boots (Muck/Baffin etc). I've been through loads of different boot over the years and actually found decent leg wear makes a bigger difference than most winter boots. Keep the legs toastie and they feed the feet warm blood. That said, the boots I'm using at the moment are the best (i.e. most effective) I've come across. They're North Face Tsumoro's.

It does make me think though I did alright not breaking the rules last year, if I start now then I am no better I guess, 🤔😳 Maybe hemp, pigeon conditioner and a mix of pellets and boilies is the way to go, then the only thing I'm adding is hemp,😁 Cheers guys

I'd go with the all the particles and the boilies but the liquid additives and salt I'd leave alone. If you do the mix you've written down and on top of it one of your goo'd up hookbaits there will be so many signals the carp wouldn't know what is going on. Sometimes too many signals, especially if over powering can be a repellent. It might also be a flier, but have you the time to sit behind rods for a number of weekend's to find out? Less is more they say. From your list I personally would use 3 items and that's it.

If he ever has a car boot sale il be there like a shot

I came off social media years ago because I couldn’t be doing with the hassle, after we returned from Afghanistan, my colleague posted some “helmet cam” footage filmed during one of our firefights with the insurgents. (In it you get to see my rear end in glorious detail as I’m heroically sheltering in a ditch!!) it wasn’t a long video, we are patrolling, we get ambushed, we fight back and then extract. Well the abuse we got as a result was laughable, we were called baby killers, (difficult to eat a live one I always found) we were government stooges, murderers, we were criticised by faceless sofa warriors saying how we were “fighting all wrong” etc - by people who had never served in the military and never been ambushed in a mulberry grove by a village, we were called cowards for extracting rather than fighting it out (hey, who cares about the civvies that have to live in the village) it was endless. I don’t understand why people feel the need, they wouldn’t say it to my face after all!