salokcinnodrog

As David says, give us a budget and I will come up with something for you

I tend to keep my pike fishing and carp fishing separate Deadbaits on my local Stillwater I leave one out pretty much for a couple of hours, and the other I recast every hour if I haven't had a take. If I haven't had a take I do tend to change deadbaits to try something else, or simply a different area. I have my favourite deads, Mackeral, but have found some waters there are preferences for other baits. One lake I caught more on blueys, in fact every fish except one, a mate and I caught came on blueys, the one exception was a take on a half herring. On the adjacent lake we only got takes on Mackeral. Next strange piece of info is that on the bluey lake, most takes came on float paternostered set ups, and we fished one ledgered and one paternostered every time. The Mackeral lake, every take came on bottom fished, ledgered baits. Considering the two lakes are separated by a spit of land that is weird! Someone in PAC commented that a pike may ignore a bait you have cast right next to it for hours, then just decide to take it, so if you move it you could be knocking your chances, although I think in many cases if you land a bait next to a fish you will get a quick take.

Hoggs of Fife Shooting trousers and jacket. Found them better than almost all fishing clothing. The only name that I think gets decent fishing clothing is Drennan/ESP, but you do pay the price, at around £200 for the Drennan Jacket

Nige says he has seen carp spook from large crayfish, although I have not had that pleasure. I consider smaller crayfish will act as groundbait, I don't think a carp will turn its nose up at munching on a few small ones. I have had carp take cray munched baits, I played a carp in November a few years ago that when I checked the bait, the mesh was cut and the pop-up had chunks out of it.

Gives me an idea! Fill them with boilie paste, and even roll it outside the cage, and boil as per your boilie mix. You then have a crayfish resistant bait. The outer skin may be munched, but the 'liner' is protecting the inner part of the boilie from the little beggars

Brown Daiwa Sensor, very good line, used it for a long time in the past. It is better than most more expensive lines

Same sort of size in Nazeing

Try fishing a lead link. Have the lead attached via a length of line to either a lead clip or a run ring. The same standard rig, but fishing a lead link. The lead will sink into the silt, but the lighter hookbait closer to the surface of the silt.

I'm not sure it does put the carp off, I have had carp takes when I have had a bait half eaten by Crays. As if the carp are being attracted by the feeding Crays, and eat the bait while they are there. The Crays probably disappear if a larger predator is about after them! I do also use wafters or pop-ups as part of the set-up, putting them in a uni knot loop, and check the total buoyancy of the bait, so it is on the bottom. All of these are rock hard. Both meshed bottom baits as the end bait and the Wafter or pop-up have produced fish. The one thing I can never be sure is if I have had the take before or after the end bait has been eaten by the filchers. That wooden ball definitely catches! One thing I have discovered is that doing this, I can get away with a combi-link using a braided final section as per the picture. Basically I can get away with using braid, coated braid or stiffer hooklink materials.

It just wooden go....

The best pod I have ever seen:

I thought that is what brolly spokes were for... You haven't seen some of the swims at Nazeing! This is normal, at least this one has a platform

Think I'm going to have to get some stage stands, means I can dispense with pod on stages, and can also screw then into concrete tough ground that some of the swims are like at Nazeing.

I'm sure I have said on more recent 'Crayfish' threads that the little blighters will cut through Armourmesh to get the goodies within, but here is the proof: The mesh is all that remains, tangled up around the boilie stop and the hair. The remaining hookbait is a wooden ball soaked and drilled, as you can see that is untouched. The large loop knot holds the ball on the hair, so even if the Crays do manage to take the real bait I still have something as bait. The longer you can leave your wooden balls in soak, the more they take on the extent they become critically balanced. Once used, take them off the hair, allow to dry out, and then resoak in glug. Hopefully a never ending circle.

I dislike having to use a pod, I much prefer buzzer bars on banksticks goalpost style. However, I do own and use on, that as I keep saying, I can use as single sticks, goalpost on sticks or as a goalpost pod. Banksticks in soft ground, although I do sometimes use a sacrificial bankstick to dig around to create a hole for the bankstick in harder ground, and pod on stages. Versatility, important! I honestly don't know how old it is, but I bought it for £50 at 5 Lakes around the time I was fishing Earith, and it was made by the joke of the time, Badger. I have replaced the buzzer bars with some JRC stainless bars, and put in some Solar banksticks, but the central frame is the original.

Gone and merged the two threads

That ESP Boiliepult actually left me with bleeding knuckles; no matter how I held the catapult I would get knuckle rap. I do like the idea of the guard, but sadly to get any distance I had to get longer arms. Holding the catapult at full arm extension, and pulling the elastic back as far as I could across my body still didn't make the distance of Drennan Boiliepult. I know it's not easy, but a throwing stick I can get single baits around 100metres, and multiple baits the distances I need up to that.

Have you looked at the Rod Hutchinson range of short rods? Dream makers or The Ones in 10ft, or The One in a hybrid 8 and 10ft. Hutchy pulled back to Italy last year, but is now being sold in the UK again, may be worth a look.

I could make a bait probably a lot cheaper than paying retail price for boilies, although if I wanted top quality, I may find it a bit more expensive as I wouldn't want junk ingredients. Animal feed suppliers are good places for ingredients, Lamlac, Cooked cereal meal, fishmeals, birdfoods, vitamin and minerals, you think of it, we got it. The bit that works expensive can be bulk bags, 25kilos at a time of some ingredients. This may be restrictive as some ingredients have short shelf life, some 6 or even 4 months or less. So you may need to bulk roll, and that can cut down fishing time.

Drennan Boiliepult, keep the elastic away from sunlight (as any cattie elastic), tie wrap the elastic to the arms, and get a smaller pouch than the standard one, and tie wrap the elastic through the pouch holes. I usually get a few months out of each elastic I use.

Blooming heck, you lot think you've got it hard? I can remember the day of fishing an open bail arm on your reel, probably the original reason for the line clip on your rod, just in front of the reel seat From that I went to using the rear drag on Abu Cardinal Ultracasts instead of open bail arm, to the baitrunner system. Now that was fun, trying to judge when to close the bail arm either manually or by winding in! In fact I still use open bail arm frequently for pike fishing, on my Baitrunners. The baitrunner is effectively a safety feature, to stop the fish dragging your rods in, and that is what I use it as, either from the baitrunner lever at the back, or the front spool baitrunner facility, the further out I fish, the tighter the tension, unless snag fishing when it is tight! In fact on many runs I actually get to the rod before any line has been taken off the reel. From Baitrunners I went back to front drag on big pits (Aerlex's), and had no problems. However when I went back to 10000 size Baitrunners, I did have a calamity on my first run back, I hadn't tightened the baitrunner enough, so ended up with a major birds nest. That sorted I soon got used to the baitrunner again. Since then I have once again gone back to front drag baitrunner, again, no problems. Playing fish off the drag, or clutch, and allowing line to be taken off the baitrunner does cause line twist, one of the major reasons I stick to back winding even now.

If I had to pay full price for PVA, I would be using Tim's recommendation

Yonny,I think you prefer frozen baits wherever possible, but do you think shelfies are nearly as good as frozen now? Some baits from various manufacturers are exactly the same recipe from frozen to shelf life, is it just the preserve 'dip' that makes them different? In fact some bait companies release some baits in a shelf life only. What are your thoughts on these? Some glugs, like Marine 17 will coat shelfies, as well as frozen.

Come see me for a Fox Easy mat Folds into itself and bag easily after a bit of practice.

The best alarms on the market are the ones that work for you! I have not recently had the problem of my Delkims going doolally when they got wet (it has happened in the long distant past), and I use the sensitivity dial dependant on lake and weather conditions and lead style, running vs semi-fixed. I use the volume dial dependant on whether I am an overnight or just day session. Overnight I have my ATT receiver in my bivvy. A day session I have the volume on the alarm at a level I can hear it, and that means I use the tone dial to put the alarm at a pitch of tone I can hear comfortably (usually quite high tone). They work for me. Yet there will be others who prefer Fox alarms, although my gripe is that models change every few years. A Mini Micron from the early noughties should be the same now, but we have had Micron this, Micron that, Micron M, Micron MS, MR, Mr+, NTX all in the name of convincing anglers to spend more money on tackle that they should not need to. Steve Nevilles, Gardner ATTs alarms, TFG Dave Lane MagRunners as far as I can see are almost bombproof, and the TFG's are around £80 for a set of 3