salokcinnodrog

I layer my clothing, usually with an army Norgie over a standard tee-shirt and a fleece over that, with a Hoggs of Fife jacket and overtrousers. As @yonny says, I don't go for fishing brand clothing, preferring shooting clothing, although I do have a Dickies camo smock as well. If it drops to colder than -4⁰ then chances are I will be packing up as it is likely that the lake has frozen over, although I have reeled in a few times as I heard the lake freezing over and just climbed into the sleeping bag for the night and packing up in the morning after coffee and breakfast. Quite spooky hearing the surface 'tinkle' as the lake freezes. The hard part to be honest is footwear and socks. Yuedge socks and a Merino pair of socks over the top keep my feet warm in normal combat boots to around 4⁰ but I do have a pair of Tundra boots if it is colder.

Welcome to Carp.com OK, let's go through this in order, and it will depend entirely on your waters. Would I Spomb or spod on a 1acre lake? Yes if it is the best way to get the particles, groundbait or pellets out to where I'm fishing. How long between a recast? I've left a bait in place for 48hours. I was convinced that after baiting up and casting in, the carp would not come onto it for 2 days. It worked! If there is no sign of showing fish? I'm nearly always binoculars and watching the lake. If I see fish I will move onto them. If I don't see anything then I'll leave the bait where it is until the morning on an overnight or longer session. Yet on a day session fishing I might recast after 15minutes or less if I have had no action. Are plastic or imitation baits effective all year? They may be, but I refuse to use plastic baits, I don't like the thought of me leaving plastic in the environment in the event of a crack-off. A hook will rust away, plastic takes years to break down. I would use wooden balls soaked in glug in a crayfish infested water, but on my current water, all plastic and fake baits are banned. On arrival at the lake, if I don't see fish, I will go on weather, current and predicted, my hunches, or whether I have prebaited swims, or areas that I know that the fish move onto.

I've just lost 2 friends to carbon monoxide poisoning in the bivvy. NEVER, NEVER, use a bivvy heater, gas stove or burner in your bivvy. Proper clothing and sleeping bag. https://forum.carp.com/topic/33876-bivvy-death/

I think that the original ball pellets were hard compressed with no liquids, where trout pellet shaped fast breakdown pellets get extruded through a machine (gun or rolling table) so must have liquids added. Eggs definitely slow the breakdown time compared to water as water totally evaporates and doesn't bind like eggs.

The block method was basically a way to get a particle type boilie. It's easier to block and cook the base mix, then cut rather than roll 8, 10 or 12mm boilies. The floating edge pieces made great critically balanced baits, even pop-ups on stack rigs. The floating bits did also work well for surface fishing like floater cake made with base mix as per Brian Skoyles method. Glugging wasn't really a thing back in the 1990's, it was coming in with a decent food source bait, glugging started early 2000's I guess, maybe a bit before. Fast breakdown nuggets? When the ball pellet was a fashion, I was rolling baits (and additives) mixed with water and airdried. They did go out with a throwing stick as well.

Personal choice would see me avoid Nash, even if it is better, I try not to put money in his pocket. Too many failures on most Nash tackle in the past. Saying that, I have not had a problem with Solar. Big problem is often finding one shop that stocks all brands.

In that price range I would think on a budget Shimano Beastmaster rather than any other make.

Years ago I was at Taverham Mills testing baits against each other, steamed versus boiled, (various boiling times) blocked and cut (the whole block being cooked in boiling water then cut into squares), and just dried. The results were inconclusive, not a failure because the fish loved them all, clearing the area within minutes of a handful of bait going in. If anything the only failure was discovering that edge pieces of blocked baits floated. It was then down to breakdown time, and steamed and boiled baits took longer in a large tank break down than the other forms, because of the harder outer skin. Final point, there is absolutely no need to boil a boilie for any longer than 2minutes, it is down to drying time on how hard they are.

Out with the Spomb and homemade baits £10, £20, £30... And the few that fly off course £80, 90, 100...

More so if you buy from supermarkets than locally. Many egg suppliers refused to sell to supermarkets unless they paid a fair price to egg producers. I get my eggs from the greengrocer or butcher, no price increases. I was bait making yesterday, working on a base mix for early spring attractor baits to go with the garlic oil and Megaspice flavour. 5ml of Verselle Laga Garlic oil, 2ml of Megaspice to 5 medium eggs.

I was running a village pub and restaurant, and another Marina restaurant near Ipswich, 5miles from home, so easy to get to. I was supposed to have Mondays and Tuesdays off as when I was taken on at the marina, it was closed Monday and Tuesday, but the village pub was 'given' to me after the manager there left. Even on Monday I often ended up going in to get change for the weekly float, but the owner refused to let me know the bank details so I would have to pay the post office to get change, and I would sort out my weekly bar stock orders. I discovered the 'area manager' was using her credit card to swap payments from card to cash as I started doing an 'x' reading at the start of shift when cash and card did not add up. I then had two of my waitresses in the pub had both been given holiday at the same time by the area manager and she had not arranged any replacement, so I ended up hiring someone out of my own pocket. The Marina restaurant I was lucky as I had an assistant manager who could run that while I was at the busy village pub. I don't have a problem with hard work, but when you have proven the area manager is fiddling and stealing cash from the takings I was not going to take the blame with an owner who wasn't interested. The second one was just after Covid. I was assistant manager at a 20 bedroom hotel. We'd had a Christmas party and had used plenty of stock, so Sunday morning I did a full stocktake before the Sunday Carvery and mid service the manager came in swearing "I can't order that, we don't sell that", complete with expletives. Wednesday as I was due to be in, I got a phone call asking me to go to MY cash and carry and buy the stock we needed as she hadn't placed a spirits order. It took 3 weeks to get my money back from petty cash as there was a £100 weekly limit. I was having to deal with things my overall manager had 'forgotten' or not done, customers not had a return call, bookings, and her spending more time off site. Next few weeks over Christmas I was rostered lates on Friday and Saturday with an early Sunday 12 hour or longer shift. I can finish at 3am after a party, but can't start at 8am with a 45minute drive either side. We still had covid restrictions in place, and I was losing staff to illness left right and centre, and despite having staff, the rotas were continually being cocked up. I had enough just after New Year when every shift was a reverse, late early, late early rather than able to catch up.

I've been in the same position myself, a couple of times. An absolute pig of an owner /boss and long hours can really grind you down. What is sad is that I loved the place I was working at, loved the people who came into the establishment, but the owner or overall manager really screwed it up.

Hydrolyzed beef and liquid liver are both good additions. Decide what liver you want as both liquid chicken liver and beef liver are available. Something else that is useful in baits is garlic oil, very low level. The other thing is that a number of powders are hydrolyzed, beef, fish etc. They may go under the name of bio-active.

Bait companies have to roll baits that are economically viable, so few can go to the 'edge' of preparing ingredients by fermentation, and often have to use ingredients that are off the shelf. Also bait rolling companies need to make baits that will go through the machine, whereas at home I may have to roll by hand. Not many anglers are willing to pay for a bait that works out at £10 a kilo to produce. An example of being different from others was when I was rolling my own Trigga. The standard Trigga worked and was quite simply Trigga base mix, Liquid Trigga and eggs, but by adding extra Betaine, Liver Elite and Sweet Cajouser it outfished the basic mix, either as a shop bought frozen or angler rolled Trigga. I can roll a basic nut mix bait, tiger nut flour, peanut meal, semolina, (for example) and it will work, but by adding garlic oil and liver powder creating a meaty nut mix improve the base.

Always nice to get positive feedback