salokcinnodrog

I normally get pop-up mix from BAF. https://www.britishaquafeeds.com/pop-ups-and-wafters For normal size pop-ups I put them through a rolling table as per normal baits and boil them keeping them moving. For the tiny ones they are all done by hand. For a boilie or maize on the hook, I go back to a standard hair rig and line aligner with a rig ring on the shank.

My thoughts as well, barbel are a river fish, and from what I've seen do not grow as well or as big in a still water.

I still use size 6's, and the rig is short, no more than from base of palm to tip of middle finger. I normally put the whole rig in a PVA bag of very small pellets, crushed boilies and ground breadcrumb.

Weird how some cause grief, yet for others including myself, never had a problem. Incidentally, "no bleeps on a take", that can happen on a drop back, no matter what alarm, and the cause is apparently water resistance and heavy indicators preventing the alarm sounding. I was actually talking to a friend this week about the very issue, and I think the name he mentioned was Martin Crackoff on YouTube where the heavy indicators were deadening indication, so the answer was actually to go light. We don't help ourselves with semi-fixed leads!

It might not just be down to aniseed, it could actually be the whole pigeon conditioner and hookbait. Small particles can get the fish grubbing, but quite frequently they won't take a big bait over them, a 15mm boilie is too big. It may be that you need to be using hookbaits no bigger than 10mm, or the size of say 2 grains of sweetcorn. I've had to come up with a presentation of small baits on the syndicate if I fish over particles, and that involves 2 6mm pop-ups meshed together on a Multi-rig, or the next experiment, meshed grains of hemp tied to the hook. The alternative option is to use bigger baits in your groundbait or freebies, and that's not just a few bigger boilies in your pigeon conditioner, but bigger freebies altogether. I say "bigger baits in your groundbait or freebies", but sometimes the carp will ignore the boilies themselves, so your bigger freebies may be bigger particles like maples, chick peas, kidney beans, or even just boilies as the freebies.

I love to disappear and be uncontactable. I'm the same, about no mobile signal. Part of the problem is that different providers have different signal. As an example, near Botesdale and Redgrave, Vodafone is absolutely awful, signal will come and go from 4/5G one or two bars to Emergency calls only, yet EE offers an almost continous 4/5G. Worse is it is not consistent, always one provider with best signal, it is fragmented, some areas if O2 or Vodafone have masts in the area, you will get signal, where if EE or Three whoever don't, you won't.

Before I fished Virginia at Earith I spent 2 days feature finding and pre-baiting. I mapped out the whole lake for myself and @brucelait, I know I had a hand drawn copy, I think we had one each. Over 2 years I had a total of 4 blanks, and 2 of them were when the lake froze over while I was fishing. I can't remember how many fish we had, but it was hundreds and many were over 20lb. It's not that hard. If you want full depths and distances then a float and lead, if you are happy with just 'rough' then a lead alone. Use braid to a 30lb mono ( Amnesia) shockleader for a better feel, with a run ring and 3 or 4oz lead (maybe a lead link), and a marker float at the end. Obviously cast out and feel around; gravel feels 'bumpy', sand is smooth, clay often a bounce as the lead comes free then slides smoothly, silt is the lead pulls free, but slides slowly. Weed almost pulls back, jams, comes through, sticks, and repeat. Hold the line tight down, then pull a foot of line off the reel at a time until the float reaches the surface. Weed might stop it, even with a lead link. If you use just a lead you are counting it down from the cast, I've always used roughly a metre a second, but it won't 'donk' on or in silt or weed. You then have to clip up once you find the spot and get the distance on sticks or walking it out. I can't remember who said it, I think Dave Lane, mono is a smoother cast, and on distance sticks I think recommended taking a wrap off for the fishing rods. So if you got 15wraps with the marker rod and braid, go 14 with mono on your fishing rods.

I'm upset, I mean, they said 08.20 and it was 09.50.😆 Fed-ex usually deliver at the first time mentioned, not within the time bracket. Seriously, that is some service from Johnson Ross, and to be honest from Fed-ex. I know the depot is not in Ipswich so fair play.

If I go mail order for anything I will only use them and The Tackle Box

After a weld broke on my Sonik SK-Tec chair mid session I had to buy a new one online. Poetic justice in a way as I didn't like how the locking legs didn't... CH04 Solar SP C-Tech Recliner Chair Low-with arms CLEARANCE DEAL £99.99, they were around £180. I know its a low chair, but needs must and other than a normal deck type chair which I will get for taking to the beach, the Solar is the best available. Johnson Ross got the order around 15.00 hours Friday, and delivery has already been quoted by Fed-ex as between 08.20 and 12.20 Monday! That is some service.

Obviously I got the distances myself, but used Google Earth to get the actual satellite shot.

I might split the thread about feature finding. This was Google Earthed

I finish my antibiotics today, so that's good. The hospital has sent me a follow-up appointment to discuss tonsils out for next month. I've managed to actually stay awake for a whole day. I had been getting up, breakfast, ablutions, walk Sky and fall asleep, lunch, take Sky out, fall asleep, dinner and take Sky out bed then a rough night's sleep. Fishing this week, although cursing at how quickly the weed has come up. On Sunday, only a few weeded over spots, within 3 days the surface is covered by blanket weed and any that breaks free drifts into the lines. I'm going to have to go out in chesties to clear some of it. Not fun as the water level is still high. On a positive note I have seen the big uncaught common that I would put at big 40's, and I managed to retrieve the line and rig that the pike bit through a couple of weeks ago, still with bait attached, but negative is that I haven't caught this trip.

I suppose that in a way I am always looking for the right presentation for the fish over how I am fishing/feeding, then once I have got it, stick with it on that water. On Nazeing Brackens, the snowman worked from session one with those massive stringers, and you would be looking to be on gravel. When the first fish is a 30, you tend to keep on it. Nazeing South and Central was snowman baits partly because of crayfish. A wooden ball soaked in so much glug it sank, and a pop-up then meshed and tied on top. If I was to hit the gravel instead of just off it, I would at least have a hookbait of some kind, and I caught a few fish to 33lb that the pop-up had been clawed and chewed. Certain areas of Alton are rock hard, possibly old buildings (!) or structures, even bridge piling, and the double bottom bait was on the harder bottom, whereas the pop-up was over softer areas. The snowman produced near the culvert, the old road across, and in the bays. Earith it may have been I had introduced and prebaited so much Trigga, an out of the bag bait was best. Bruce who fished with me probably caught more, on the same tactics, but not as many 20's, and he caught when I had one of my rare blanks on there. (I did lose a couple that trip) I tried pop-ups on a few sessions and blanked, yet the bottom baits caught, so I frequently went back to all 3 on single or double 15mm boulies. Something else that may have relevance is that over massive beds of groundbait and particles that I fished on Ardleigh, South/Central and the culvert and bay areas of Alton the snowman was just sucked in, yet on the syndicate, I have had to resort to 2x 6mm pop-ups or a single trimmed 12mm on a Multi-rig. The snowman has produced, but not over large beds of bait, and the pop-up doesn't produce as many but does the occasional bonus fish out of nowhere.

Kamasan B170, B400 are barbless, probably in fly anglers section or via flea bay, it's then just a case of looking for a barbless equivalent to the Solar's.

I'm trying to think about my fish over the years, and funnily enough I reckon that I'm on a 33/33/33% ratio of pop-ups, bottom baits and snowman baits for all my fish. Earith I could not buy a bite on pop-ups, it was all bottom baits, Ardleigh and Nazeing South/Central and Brackens it was snowman, including what is my largest carp, and Alton Water was a mix of snowman, pop-ups and bottom baits. A number of fish from Alton came on 2x 18mm bottom bait boilies on the hair over Vitalin. Really weird that either that rod would produce or the single pop-up, rarely both. Yet in other areas over Vitalin and particles I'd catch on snowman rigs. I'd frequently be fishing all 3 presentations until I got what they wanted to take.

Thing with Haith's, they were probably the first mail order bird food store for aviary birds and pigeons. Then us anglers discovered them. In terms of quality, I have never bought any bad products, but as with everything cost is high compared to other animal feed suppliers. I still do get occasional bits from Haiths, but I do get birdfood from Gladwells or if I only want a small bag of a kilo or so, the supermarket**. Gladwells do a mail order service as well as the shops they have an online order page (https://gladwellspet.co.uk/), so with the link you can have a looksee online or if there is a local shop to you go in in person. ** I put the asterisks in because I have noticed that some supermarket packaging has had things printed on them like 'packaged for Sainsbury's by Haiths'.

I have no pretensions or ideas as to its name. I started playing around ages ago and came up with this to totally confuse the fish on the edge of weed and silt. Since then I saw John Claridge use something similar in an article and online.

Or @elmoputney can beat me to it with a good picture. Lots of choices for pigeon and chicken feeds

Pigeon conditioner is full of aniseed, it is used to 'detoxify' after racing and as a 'trapping' mix. You can get Chicken mix, chicken corn or chicken conditioner which is aniseed free, or Wild bird seed. My advice is to head into the, local animal feed suppliers and have a look around, it's obviously carriage free. If you can't, I'll try to give you a decent link.

Found it. It is held up by the pop-up in water, so the curve link is not quite so severe as it looks. The boom is a doubled over length of Smakeskin, and the pop-up weights are free running. The hooklink section goes through the swivel exactly like a 360. Yes, it is on a helicopter set up, Solar Unleaded needle knotted to the mainline, and I had cast it to around 115metres, just under the outer branches of a tree on the island where I'd seen a few fish, so it's tangle free. The fish I had runs from, absolutely nailed. You could quite easily swap the boom section material.

The theory of carefully putting chest waders on before striking the run goes right out of the window when you actually get a run. The number of times that I've stepped into my trainers on waking up to a run without thinking, struck then realised I need chesties to play the fish, so play twister trying to sort myself out...

Mirrors my thinking. I have a magnetic bivvy light which is enough to read by, tie rigs or make PVA accoutrements, and the headlight is usually hanging from the sounder box if I need it.

That looks like a good idea! I have the same problem even in daytime due to the dodgy hip. Folding the chest section down they fall over when you put them hoping that you can step straight into them. The number of times I have overstepped in wellington boots, suddenly getting a boot full of water, or sat in chesties and sweated my gonads off then having difficulties if I need a pee.

The strange thing is I didn't know how ill I was. I know that sounds stupid, but on Boxing Day I had the sore throat from hell a few days after a cold, then within a week or so it was gone, I just felt constantly tired for a few weeks, occasional cold symptoms, sniffles, slight sore throat nothing major though. In April I had to go up to A&E, 24 hours after seeing the GP, with the quinsy, which is an abscess in the tonsils, in the throat. While I was there, it burst, which the ENT doctor thought had 'cured' it as the infection was no longer in the tonsil. I finished a course of antibiotics a week later. Then this week, it came back again, from nothing to full on struggling to breathe as my throat was almost completely closed up within 18hours from Saturday morning to Sunday. The general lethargy from Christmas to now is quite likely a minor 'blood poisoning' as the abscess obviously is an infection I was fighting.