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Almost a sunset

Another from the river Lot.......

A blank from oxlease but my mate had a 19lb Common a long fish what yonny would call a cricket bat fish, he also had a 25lb Mirror so made up for him…. I learnt the need to cover all bases and eventualities. I knew the swim I was going to fish a little bay to my left only I access to it and it was a 151/2 wrap cast to under the trees, feed them by hand and cast close to them. Well I fed them by hand cast to them and that was that lol. I should have realised after a day that they were there just to chill and hang out, should have had a plan B taken a marker rod find a spot in open water bit of spod and fish that…. But what a sight I had up close to carp in gin clear water over a clean sand gravel bottom, hours of just looking at them lol Apologies for the quality of the pics

Why not just get them serviced? They don't make them like they used to mate.

PROPER REELS! I would get them serviced over buying new current models. If you do decide to go new, of all the current Shimano range have a play with the current Beastmasters, but shop around for price. I think they are much better than anything over the £85 price range, including the Ultegras. That's from working in a tackle shop. https://fish.shimano-eu.com/content/fish/eu/gb/en/homepage/Product-detail.P-BEASTMASTER_XB.html/

Get some second hand Daiwa Emblem ST - the old "gold" ones. They're cheap, reliable, and no one will bother nicking them. The line clips are pretty bad though. I reckon you can get a set of three off of ebay for about £200 tops. You can throw them in bushes, in the water, in mud, off a cliff, in font of an artic lorry on the M40 (don't do that), and you'll never care one bit.

The reels are 743g and the biomasters are 720g so not much difference 👍

They aren't the lightest, but I don't find it a problem to be honest they are so smooth though and reliable though, they never seem to tangle line lay is beautiful, they are a pleasure to use tbh Edit the only other slight neg is the spools take a lot of line, I just got some cheap line off amazon to use as backing, problem solved 1 spool of hydrotuff now fills 3 reels 👍

I'm sold lol, can't fault the price. The only thing I was a little bit unsure about was the weight but the biomasters weigh a tonne anyway so shouldn't make a difference 😆 Okuma didn't even come to mind when I was looking for reels even though we used to use them as kids, would pick a bait runner up for £30 lol. Thanks for the link, awesome deal 👍

I nipped mates house while little en was at footy training, the Ultegra xtd 14000 are honestly the best looking and feel of any reel I've handled. The occelation, feel, look, drag, line lay, clutch....OMG think I'm set on these reels now.

Save yourself a bit of money and go for okuma 8k, they are the nuts, I will confidently say they are better than any other reel around that price bracket, certainly better than a shimano aerlex as I also own one of those, This is a cracking deal I paid £80 each for them and would again if I needed too I love them, smooth slow oscillation, long spool, just solid reels that come with a 5yr warranty https://parkfieldanglingcentre.com/collections/big-pit/products/okuma-8k?variant=31504247488623

I did a photo of it chucked in the boot its pretty flat plus the wheel and handles, that is the main bag on top and the water carrier is housed by one of the front panniers, It is quite long but flat it is a great barrow though the galaxy is smaller but I quite like it seems stable and easy to push and load That's it fully laden 2 buckets, bedchair, food bag, clothes bag, rods, bivvy and all my tackle and bits fit in the underbelly (which like the fox have side access)

I'm positive I had fish feeding over my bait this week, in fact this morning, but I felt because it was over birdfood and Vitalin they weren't picking up boilies, so with previous sessions in mind I had ordered some treats for them for hookbaits. The massive flat patch is where one of my baits was, but a snowman hookbait, 15mm pop-up over an 18mm bottom bait, not a bleep. I'm pretty positive it was carp clearing the smaller food items.

One from a few years ago.

Delaware Bay, NJ, USA.