Golden Paws

Bet they promise the earth and fail to deliver!

I have several pairs of merino socks for work and fishing and they are good. Might be slightly pricey compared to bog standard socks but they are good and last a long time.

Can't comment on the Alpaca socks but I do have merino wool socks and think they are excellent.  

Hydrotuff won't let you down. It's the only line strong enough to keep my button attached to my trousers after xmas dinner 😂💪

I finally managed my first pike of this season yesterday.
I've really struggled with getting up early so camped out Tuesday night by the lake under the umbrella. After coffee yesterday morning I got the rods out and within an hour had the 15lb pike on float fished dead roach.
 
A while later I had a pick up on ledgered mackeral, which was dropped, a recast and a little later I managed an 11lb pike, as I netted it, the hooks fell out.
I also had 3 more dropped takes on mackeral, which leads me to believe that mackeral has been hammered as a bait.
 

my result 🙄

22lb common caught at 8am this morning 

Form a loop through the eye of the hook with some dental floss, poke the braid through it and then pull - simples. I've still got to use my strong reading glasses to do it though!

Main difference lads, GTHD is prestretched so great for casting but less abrasion resistance. Hydrotuff is the all out snag line so crazy good abrasion resistance, but still manages to cast ok and is still responsive.  Gt80 somewhere between the two. All great lines.

Another thumbs up for Gardner. I've been using GT-HD in 15lb for several years and highly rate it.

That's something I've done sort of for years, a few steps forward or back, or even changing up lead size. There is also a difference in casting between mono and braid, and mono being elastic can come back further than you think as it retracts. 
The number of people I see wondering why they are so far away from their marker, I've always allowed around a third of the depth past it to account for swing back, although I have smashed a few Drennan or ESP markers or pike floats in the past with the lead.
 
 
 
 
 
Oh boy!
One night at Taverham Dave Cobbold and I put in a 10kg base mix bucket full of hemp on one spot with the original Gardner spods. The anglers on the lake were astounded and laughed, until the morning when we'd had around 10 doubles between us. 
It was Rob Hughes who said if you have an idea of how much bait to Spomb in, double it. I've frequently put in buckets full of bait for fish. On Alton tipping whole buckets in off the bridge... I loved that swim!
Funny thing is that if I caught on the bait I didn't catch on the single bait, and if I caught on the single bait I didn't catch on the bed of bait.
Every other swim I think it was all over large amounts of bait.
I've tried wading and putting bait in on the syndicate and failed, yet Spombing has worked sometimes, not every time. Stringers and throwing stick have worked. It's a case of find the fish or hope they come to you.

I think we all have if we are honest 
a buddy of mine chucked in half a 17l bucket of particle 
caught nothing 
I ground 7 boilies shared between 2 rods in  pva sticks
(i always use 7 never thought about that before.)
And I had 6.
everyone calls me tight, I just say I’m trying to catch ‘em not feed em
lol.
 

Too much bait is underrated tbh, misplaced spods lead to creating a bigger spot which more carp can visit 😂
I do get what you are saying though these spots still need to develop if you don't regularly bait them, then the fish probably won't find them and keep returning. I guess that is probably where the advantage lies. It would be a lot more discreet prebaiting with a boat also, spombing in loads of bait seems hard to do without being spied on. 
In the defence of the guy that showed me he is a decent angler who would have caught them despite the boat,and he also puts more effort in than most, walks it a lot and always seems to know what's going on and he has caught a lot of the decent ones. 

GENIUS!
I solved any winter heating issues so long as you have a suitable power bank, check this little 60 watt beast meant for greenhouses so is waterproof against damp and splashes.
 

Had a short session trip this afternoon 4hrs on the feeder, you can actually see the feeder I was using in one of the pics  
 
 

The old saying "buy cheap, buy twice" is almost certainly true with bait boats. On the other hand £3.500 for an RT7 is probably a step too far!
I still find my spots with a lead and clip up, so I'm not entirely relying on tech. I still fish a lot of margin spots and literally "place" a spod on it, which is even stealthier than a boat. I don't use a spomb as you have to smack the nose to open it, which defeats the object.
On some waters they are banned but on others where the owners had to clear bushes of end tackle, I'm sure they are quietly encouraged.

I wouldn't bother with a cheap boat tbh, I bought one off Ali express, for similar money it was terrible, wouldn't go straight or open when you wanted it too, then I bought an actor plus and while it was a lot better to use, I found I was getting bogged down by tech, I had a deeper attached and in the end I felt like I was taking hours to get my rods out, I've sold it now and just use a good old fashioned spod rod, distance sticks with a lead, x spod, catapult or throwing stick, and I enjoy my fishing more again. Don't get me wrong there are times when it would be a godsend, but keeping it simple, gives me more time to focus on the important stuff like chilling out and looking at the water. 

For many years i was completely against bait boats but yes they do have there uses and place, i dont see me getting one as i can still cast pretty accurate and cant afford one with sonar/gps, though i have looked at the really cheap basic boat for under £100 that actually gets pretty good reviews.....still not getting one though and thats coming from an RC guru (drones,fixed wing planes and rc cars/crawlers)

"I am Noddy" (to quote Kirk Douglas!) I tutted a bit when bait boats first started to become common but when my mate had a 32lb'er within about an hour of dropping a rig and bait under a tree at about 70 yards that you dare not cast to, I started to see the potential. I've been having my best ever season and I'm sure a lot of it is down to the boat. The accuracy and stealth you can achieve is a huge edge. I'm only using a "basic" boat and no GPS or sonar. Obviously fishing to features is easy but for open water I'm still wrapping the rods out. When casting, I always hit the clip and take the sting out of the cast by holding the rod parallel to the bank and "placing" the lead down but it's still no match for a boat.
You can't turn the clock back. Boats are here to stay and you can either embrace them or reject them but you are putting yourself at a disadvantage if everyone else is using them.
 

"I am Noddy" (to quote Kirk Douglas!) I tutted a bit when bait boats first started to become common but when my mate had a 32lb'er within about an hour of dropping a rig and bait under a tree at about 70 yards that you dare not cast to, I started to see the potential. I've been having my best ever season and I'm sure a lot of it is down to the boat. The accuracy and stealth you can achieve is a huge edge. I'm only using a "basic" boat and no GPS or sonar. Obviously fishing to features is easy but for open water I'm still wrapping the rods out. When casting, I always hit the clip and take the sting out of the cast by holding the rod parallel to the bank and "placing" the lead down but it's still no match for a boat.
You can't turn the clock back. Boats are here to stay and you can either embrace them or reject them but you are putting yourself at a disadvantage if everyone else is using them.
 

38lb new personal best! 
 
 

22lb 
21lb 
a couple from last night, my boy did rather better…

Took Elmo's advice and added some 2mm pellets to my mix and compared it against the powder only and it wasn't conclusive and they still take an age to break apart. I added some 6 and 8mm pellets and that didn't really improve matters. That said, the Baking Powder was doing a really good job and the water in my tub was very murky that was making it difficult to see the bottom.
Several years ago I used to barbel fish a brilliant swim. There was a gravel hump about 15 foot from the bank and you could wade it with wellies. Just below the hump, the river shelved off steeply to form a hole. I used to stand on the hump and fish with the rod pointing directly downstream. If things were quiet, I would stub my toe into the gravel so it kicked off a stream of silt. The amount of times I had a bite shortly after couldn't have been a co-incidence and I caught many doubles to over 12lb.
Sometimes it's just doing something different to the crowds that brings results. 

Took Elmo's advice and added some 2mm pellets to my mix and compared it against the powder only and it wasn't conclusive and they still take an age to break apart. I added some 6 and 8mm pellets and that didn't really improve matters. That said, the Baking Powder was doing a really good job and the water in my tub was very murky that was making it difficult to see the bottom.
Several years ago I used to barbel fish a brilliant swim. There was a gravel hump about 15 foot from the bank and you could wade it with wellies. Just below the hump, the river shelved off steeply to form a hole. I used to stand on the hump and fish with the rod pointing directly downstream. If things were quiet, I would stub my toe into the gravel so it kicked off a stream of silt. The amount of times I had a bite shortly after couldn't have been a co-incidence and I caught many doubles to over 12lb.
Sometimes it's just doing something different to the crowds that brings results. 

Took Elmo's advice and added some 2mm pellets to my mix and compared it against the powder only and it wasn't conclusive and they still take an age to break apart. I added some 6 and 8mm pellets and that didn't really improve matters. That said, the Baking Powder was doing a really good job and the water in my tub was very murky that was making it difficult to see the bottom.
Several years ago I used to barbel fish a brilliant swim. There was a gravel hump about 15 foot from the bank and you could wade it with wellies. Just below the hump, the river shelved off steeply to form a hole. I used to stand on the hump and fish with the rod pointing directly downstream. If things were quiet, I would stub my toe into the gravel so it kicked off a stream of silt. The amount of times I had a bite shortly after couldn't have been a co-incidence and I caught many doubles to over 12lb.
Sometimes it's just doing something different to the crowds that brings results.