Leaderboard

I'm happy to be a part of such a great community. I've been lurking a while here, and have already noticed great topics and replies.

Funnily enough, I’ve started using solid bags again on a new days only water I’m playing around on. I’ve been using the fox system which works really well, can make lovely tight bags. I tied up a load with home made Polaris pop ups flavoured with a slight dash of cherry flavour and then soaked in different goos, one batch being orange goo and one in the red factor (I think it’s called) goo both bright coloured and smell lovely and fruity. One thing I noticed when leaving the pop ups in the ready made bags was that sitting in the pellet mix, the baits became dehydrated and shrank ever so slightly, which affected their buoyancy and as I was lassoing them on with floss, they would fall off! Hair rigging them solved this problem as well as over weighting the pop up to take in the effect of the dehydration of the baits. I never worried about the baits going off, when I had left over bait - I make all my own baits at home - I never refreeze baits - I used to either use them to prebait before heading for home, or I’d chuck them in a bucket of pellet. They would dry out, become rock hard but not go off. Then they would end up in my spod mix next session. ive found that if I make the bags up on the morning of the session, rigging and balancing each pop up before dropping the entire rig in some groundbait to dry it off, before making up the bags, they would be fine for a day or so but leaving them in the air tight bait bucket for a week or more, the pellet would dehydrate the pop up - not an issue per say if you overweight them, but then they will take in water once submerged, making them heavier which could lead to them being too overweighted, if that makes sense! if you’re planning on using a bottom bait, then this wouldn’t be a problem, the boilie would just dehydrate, shrink and harden off on the hair of left for a while in a pretied bag of pellet, which wouldn’t bother me unduly. Or you could tie up a load with a couple of drilled out larger pellets as hookbaits? Or a single 21mm halibut pellet? They won’t be effected sitting in a pva bag of pellets for ages! Obviously, drilled pellets won’t last long as a hookbait though, I’d only give them 30-40mins initially until I could get a bead on how quickly they were softening up and dissolving. When pellet fishing with pellet hookbaits years ago, (mid 90s) I’d take a jam jar, fill it with lake water, then bait a spare rig with pellet hookbaits, then drop it in the jar as I cast out, then when they softened up, I’d reel in and rebait! - very few pellet pecking roach in my jam jar though, so probably not very accurate!