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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.

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.

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

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.

Something else that sticks with me is Elliot Grays description of what he wants his hookbait to achieve and that is to give the fish a choice of whether to take it or not. He makes his hookbaits a blatent pink pop up or wafter and by making it the most clearly visible highest attraction bait in the swim. The fish then has the choice. I can see these pop ups doing the same sort of job.

If you like a garlic bait, Urban baits - absolutely stink and very reliable bouyancy, great baits - was using these with the Premier Aminos Garlic and Tuna. MEGA!

I should talk about my recent failure with pop ups 🤣they looked and smelt nice I wanted to try and make some super buoyant match the hatch type pop ups, so I went with 50/50 mix of base mix and polaris, then added 10% cork granules, my flavour combo was banging btw 5ml scopex, 20 drops each of black pepper and bergamot essential oil. Very happy with that. But they didn't really pop up that well and also after 12 hours in water they went soft like a pellet 🤣 I have since bought some AA Baits super buoyant fishmeal pop up mix and my next batch will use the same flavour combo Do any of you add egg albumen into a pop up mix? I think my last mix needed it but I've gone off cork dust so will just be using the pop up mix next time(although I have read this mix can take up to 30% regular base mix and still pop up so will experiment) Just as an FYI I've now made a couple of mixes of the AA Baits Tropaminamino boilies and now they are dried they are still quite soft and smell like a proper carp catcher, I'm starting to really enjoy the process of baitmaking, need to get set up to upscale it a bit but I'm going to have bait no one else is using and that's exciting to me.

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 😂

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.

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.

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.

I agree Elmo 👍

I've not used them myself, they do seem to catch some decent fish though if you look at the catch reports. Now I am making my own bait I know I will probably get into making up some "specials" with coatings and crusts etc at some point, and can see how the process they use makes them the price they are. They seem well thought out IMO and have learnt it's not usually the bait that is the reason for not catching it's usually location, application and procrastination are the main factors for blanking.

I thought it had a spot on the test crew😀

Just joined and want to say thank you very much for this info thread as you've saved me a lot of money, because was going to buy four different flavor pots!

Err.. I have a few more than two…

Alright lads, bit of a different post from me. I’ve been building an Android fishing journal app called AquaLedger. It lets you log your sessions properly — waters, swims, catches, photos, notes and stats — all stored offline on your phone (no accounts, no cloud). One feature that’s been really handy for me is the built-in camera: Take photos manually or Set it to auto-take photos at intervals Choose how often it shoots and how many photos it takes Ideal for self-takes when you’re fishing on your own. I’m at the stage where Google requires a small number of testers before the app can go public, so I’m looking for a few anglers on Android who wouldn’t mind helping out. If you’re happy to test it, please send me a private message with the Gmail address linked to your Play Store, and I’ll add you to the tester list. Cheers 👍

That's a great build, well done. As @jh92 has mentioned, please private message him if you would like to help with the development.

Sounds like it could be a great app. Love the sound of the photo part, I would say I'd test it but I don't get much time to fish or catch enough to make full use of it 🤣

As special as they come that is mate. First class.

There are still some true leney carp around today. My old syndicate had 5 or 6 different known Leney's still in there from a stocking done in the 60's I believe. I was fortunate enough to catch one on my second trip to the lake, the others eluded me. It was 50 plus yrs old when I caught it and that was over 10yrs ago. It was caught last year along with 2 others. So still definitely 3 in the lake and it makes them 60 plus years old. I'm pretty sure the committee of the lake have the receipt in a picture frame. This is the one i had, probably one of my most memorable captures if I think about it. Weight was irrelevant but it was 28lb 02oz. Sorry about the quality, had to take a picture of my camera screen.

Now that takes me back..... I fished there probably 30 years ago as a spotty teenager. I remember turning up with all my kit on my back and there's these proper carp anglers with barrows everywhere. I loved it. I recall on my first session I hair rigged a cube of luncheon meat and hoyed it as far as I could (which wasn't far with the absolutely rubbish rods I had back then) and had one within 2 minutes. I got some right dirty looks from the proper anglers 😅

If its been touched by Donald I'm out.

meet an angler the other week who was moaning about his £13, 115ml kordaRipOFF goo lol so gave him my recipe ....was gonna write up a new post, did a search and this thread came up... yeah @Pete Springate's Guns ya post is bang on what i use but i add 1 more ingredient which is molasses. Vecon - Fish Sauce - Molasses, all in equal measures, told the said angler ya can buy Squid Brand Fish Sauce 725ml...for £2.50 from sainsburys you simply adjust the consistency using the Fish Sauce, told him ya can make a liter for chump change! AND most of all WORKS MUCH BETTER THAN ANY ripoff BAIT-TackleBARRON c r a p! case in point, a mate that took me babel fishing last year, he raved about his 'sticky' glug! Hmm...he BLANKED all morning next to me, while my CHEAPO secretSauce had the rod bend over every hour with some lovely barbel!

Don't I know it. Another series of trades with no new apprenticeships, plumbers, plasterers, electricians, carpenters. The top 10 building companies in the UK already own the 1.5million plots required by this government to reduce the housing problems, yet don't have the tradesmen to do it. In addition those building companies have the cash reserves to do the builds but won't unless they can sell for a profit, meaning local authority properties are not being built in many areas. Forcing tradesmen to go self-employed has not helped. The 'cash reserves' were often because the companies were given the land by previous governments, as far back as Thatcher, and it was 'sold' to pension investment and hedge fund companies as investment opportunities under a 'buy back' scheme once building started.