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My view is that the 10ft rods do not cast as far as a 12ft or even longer rod, even in the higher modern test curves. Much of my fishing is on larger waters (above 20acres), with open banks, and at times I need to cast long distances. Even my lighter rods for smaller fish are 12ft, albeit 2lb test curve. I think that the smaller rods to some extent are tackle manufacturers pushing a new item to sell a new item, create a new market.

With age, unfortunatly comes cynicism, suspect @salokcinnodrog, is probably right. @BackInTheGame, why do you actually feel you need the shorter rods? oh and the rest of the stealh stuff that is probably associated with them too? In perspective, I still have a 9 foot Wychwood extractor, I used it at a small Dorset lake years ago for margin fishing with a centre pin, probably the most enjoyable carp fishing I have had for years, but on everyday carp fishing I do now, just not an option and can't see the point really? 👍

I was reading through the thread that I think Andy ( @crusian ) started on Carp care treatment and recalled the advice not to use them from a scientific perspective. If anyone is interested here is a link to the webpage: https://www.ukfishingschool.co.uk/post/carp-care-liquids I must confess, I did stop using Kryston every time as I was wondering about whether it worked as 'it says on the tin'. I have had a couple of recaptures, and spoken to other anglers who have caught fish I had caught and I can honestly say of those fish there is no apparent mouth damage, and a few of them have been out regularly.

I found Baz's Bees honey by 'accident'. I used to fish Alton Water and as I drove through Tattingstone noticed the honesty box next to the bus stop. At the time there was a QR code for direct payments. If I can buy surplus eggs or fresh fruit direct I am happy to support. Anyway this honesty box had jars of honey in, so out came my £5 into the tin. Since then whenever I drive through Tattingstone I have a look see if he has any for sale, and return the cleaned jars. Otherwise I buy honey from my greengrocers or Jimmy's Farm. If you have a local farm shop or garden centre or nursery they might have a supplier who is local.

Bargain..... Manuka Health NZ MGO 950+ Rare High Grade Manuka Honey 250g | H&B

If you’re not lathering your catches in the highest grade Manuka then you can’t call yourself an angler imo.

Yeah was a nice steady take on a fairy tight clutch, then when I got to the rod and tighened further made some savage lunges taking line in spurts making it's way over to the far margin. I was nervous about the trees in the water off the island but turned it and got it half way back (think that was more it's decision) then it kited left all the way around the point into the left nearside channel and tried to find snags in the near margin, treelined again obvs. Nerve jangling moment again but got it back bit by bit - no rubbing on branches - probably because the water is 3ft down. Then of course it picked up the left rod fished single style into the left nearside channel, making it impossible to bring fully over the net. Bail arm off and with another go it went in the net. Glad you asked it was proper scary tbh especially as I was expecting a blank lol. Hopefully more to follow fingers crossed doing 3 nights instead this week from thursday, going for it and baited up as I left. Heard another good fish roll after the fish and having that one made me think the big common must have been there that night, maybe having a few boilies too - close but no cigar! It's coming - feeling it 🤞

I know honey itself is one of the healthiest substances available. There are a few c&p's coming: Due to honey's high sugar concentration and acidic pH level many microorganisms cannot grow in it Honey is a folk treatment for burns and other skin injuries. Preliminary evidence suggests that it aids in the healing of partial thickness burns 4–5 days faster than other dressings, and moderate evidence suggests that post-operative infections treated with honey heal faster and with fewer adverse events than with antiseptic and gauze.[103] The evidence for the use of honey in various other wound treatments is of low quality, and firm conclusions cannot be drawn. Antibiotic Honey has long been used as a topical antibiotic by practitioners of traditional and herbal medicine.[108][109] Honey's antibacterial effects were first demonstrated by the Dutch scientist Bernardus Adrianus van Ketel in 1892.[110][111] Since then, numerous studies have shown that honey has broad-spectrum antibacterial activity against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, although potency varies widely between different honeys. Sorry about the Wikipedia numeric references left in place, but Wikipedia was the easiest place to confirm my own understanding. Mind you I WILL NOT be covering hookholds in honey, I love it too much on toast or with peanut butter in sandwiches, (blame my daughter Lily for that one). The other thing with honey is that supermarket honey has been found to be 'fake', so I always get mine from a local supplier; an honesty box in Tattingstone (Baz's Bees) or greengrocers who have another local supplier. Would set or runny be better for hookholds?

I don't think that's 100% accurate. I had a look at the report that this article is based on when it was first published and (I think*) I recall it was looking strictly at propolis products rather than all carp care treatments. I have mentioned several times on here, way before this stuff was published, that I question the use of propolis in angling. The use of propolis originates in koi keeping. It creates a barrier on the wound to lock out any nasties rather than act as an antibacterial/antifungal solution (although dodgy marketing from the tackle firms would have you believe otherwise). This barrier effect is fine when a koi is living in a posh pond with clean, filtered water with controlled salinity. Not so fine for a carp lake - my opinion is that you risk locking nasties IN to any wound. There are other (non-propolis) carp care treatments options available that are genuine antibacterial/antifungal treatments. How effective they are is open to debate but one thing is for sure - they cannot do any harm to the fish. Even if it washes off straight away you can be safe in the knowledge that the hook-hold or wound was completely free of anything that could result in infection when you send mr carp home. My overall opinion is: we don't really need to use treatments, but if the right treatment is used, it cannot be a bad thing. Propolis is actually the "mortar" that bees use to build there hives! I think it's a mix of beeswax, bees spit, and plant resin. Clever little [censored]s aint they!

I used to fish a little place in France and the fish mouths and bodies were always immaculate. Just using an iodine solution. you could see where the fish had been mouth hooked before as there was a yellow mark around the hook hold.

I go back to my previous comment about water quality, if the water is good the fish will heal naturally. I did think that maybe the propolis may be good, being as it's made from honey and used by koi keepers I believe but even that sounds un-proven in the report. A baillif in Belgium asked me to treat the hookhold of one whilst we were about to take pics, thankfully I had a kit with me.

Just back from 2 nights on the syndi, first session on the big lake and I only went and had one at 23.30 on the 2nd night. Made up with it at 35.02 and a proper one. Dont know what I've trodden in but feel like I'm having a run of good luck, long may it continue🤞

Afternoon all, so I managed to get a free pass to get out and dunk some boilies in a pond last night, so I chose to head to my local tricky park lake. now I haven’t been there since the start of the season, and due to extremely low water levels, the club made the decision to shut the water for fish welfare, so last night was my first trip back in a while. on getting down to the lake, I found it was fairly busy, but everyone was on the opposite bank. I headed around to a small, neglected swim that is often ignored, which coincidentally is my favourite swim on the whole lake! there were a few signs of feeding fish, so I got the marker out and located the area of smooth harder silt that does the bites and soon had the rods clipped up to the range. tackle consisted of 3 x 12ft fox horizon X4S TT carp rods with fox EOS 12000 reels spooled with 12lb esp synchro main line. Rigs were leadcore helicopter rigs with 10” fox cortex soft slip D rigs with size 6 ESP barbless Clawhammer hooks. Bait was my usual premier superaminos/shellfish sense appeal offering made in the shed. 3 rods were dispatched to the spot adorned with 7 bait stringers, and with that i broke out the spod rod! I’m not quite sure what possessed me, but I ended up putting out a whole bucket of hemp, boilies and mixed pellet with lashings of salt which is a lot of bait for a quick overnighter, but my gut said it was the way forward, so in it all went! rods out, about 100 spods (so it seemed) done, it was time to chuck up the bivvy and get the kettle on. as the sun sunk beneath the trees, the swim came alive, with bubbling and swirling all over the spot. I was getting liners like nobody’s business and it was getting pretty obvious that something was going to happen… …well it did, bream after bream! I was hammering through the rigs as slabs of 3-5lb came gliding in, it was simply a case of hitting repeat and getting the stringers out there. as an aside, some anglers try to avoid the bream, but I welcome the activity, all that feeding soon draws the carp. at 11pm, the left hand rod pulled tight then dropped slack, as I was crouched next to it trying to decide if it was a liner or bream, the middle rod picked up and tore off! after a spirited fight, I soon slipped the net under a pretty linear that just scraped 20lb I don’t know what happened, but I look deranged in the pics! I sorted the left hand and middle rods and got them back out there, lucky 7 bait stringers attached and tried to get some sleep. I was awoken by a single bleep at 1am and opened one bleary eye to see the middle rod rip off again, this fish felt slightly better, taking me through every overhanging bush in the near margin, but the trusty horizons soon had it beat, and at 25lb made me a buzzing lil carper. pressing repeat again the middle rod was back out there, new hooklink attached. I finally got some shut eye at 2am for a whole 90mins when the middle rod decided to trundle off again, the strike met with a determined slow plodding weight that didn’t really give me too many dramas, just refused to come in. eventually, it succumbed to pressure and rolled into the outstretched net At 30lb it made the trip really! Big high shoulders, broad across the back, it was a pearler. (Cue stupid face again) it was so wide over the chest, I struggled to hold it properly. that rod replaced, I climbed into a damp, carp slime encrusted sleeping bag and got some kip. on dawn, the bream reappeared as the carp retreated back into their day areas, the sun started beating down so I decided to wrap it and head home, well happy!

I wanted to buy some locally produced honey as it can help with hay fever apparently, getting you used to the local pollens. Sadly the FB seller didn't send me the link I needed to pay - but interesting all the same.