salokcinnodrog

Funny, but not funny...

Treated my 10year old Solar pod to a new bag as the old one is splitting. My alarms and indicators will all fit in as well

Oh believe me, I try to do my bit for the environment and I don't take the immediate environmentally friendly statement of a product or technology as fact. The truth is that some 'green' technologies are just as damaging but its not obvious. I save my batteries after use, and take them to the recycling ♻ bin after use, my soft plastic goes to the supermarket recycling. As @Golden Paws has said, rechargeable batteries have an unreliability issue, the charge does not last, so it is use the best battery available. For my alarms, my Duracell batteries are currently on a year, it would be longer, but I bought new alarms in August 2022. My Energizer camera batteries are on 6months, my Petzl headlight batteries are on a year. My rechargeable headlight had to be charged after 4hours.

Back up again, a Carpology article by Bill Cottam https://www.carpology.net/article/features/carping-allegedly-october-23/

I'm not sure new technology rechargeable batteries are more friendly to the environment! Mining lithium, cobalt, chromium, and other rare metals? Here's something for you, I use power banks to recharge my phone and my tablet when I'm fishing, so no problem with rechargeable batteries, however, the 3 power packs, between them only last 4 days. The phone battery is used up faster when phone signal is low and it struggles to pick up. It is not like they are cheap power banks as one is strong enough to jump start a car! Convert the shorter battery life to alarms, your power bank is now being used for 3rd purpose. A fish is at risk if the battery has died. I've used rechargeable batteries in alarms, I have a home charger that recharges PP3, AAA'S and AA's, all of which I use in both camera, torches and alarms. Again, battery life is limited. Cold weather and rechargeable batteries don't mix well. Rechargeable batteries have a life, before the battery dies. We seem to advance technology without thinking of the actual ramifications, moving too fast.

I use my local shops as much as possible, Birds and Breakaway on the north and west side of Ipswich, Markhams if I need anything heading east. If they don't have or can't get the items I want then it will be online or personally to Johnson Ross and Tackle Box. I'd much rather not go to Angling Direct.

I dislike rechargeable batteries for alarms, (and torches). Nothing against them in the right place, but rechargeable batteries have a terrible tendency to fail when you need them most. Delkims also have PP3, square batteries, not AAA's. I mention torches in brackets, I have a wooly hat with a USB rechargeable led lamp in it. The battery life is in hours, compared to the battery life of my headlights being in weeks. I quite frequently read from say 6pm to 10pm, 4 hours, the hat light will be dead after that 4 hours, the battery headlight will be doing that for days. Now switch that to your alarm, you have an electronic circuit, minimal power in use, maybe a led, when the limited life of the battery runs down, so you end up recharging it with your power bank. Then your powerbank is empty... Or worse, you miss a run. Alarms with removable batteries, whether AA, AAA, LR1, or PP3, have a longer life, it's not hard to replace. You could in theory use rechargeable batteries rather than 'disposable'! Here's the next points, those AA, PP3, are quite frequently manufacturers numbers, everyone knows that a PP3 is the 9v 'square', although the brand number will be Duracell MN1604 and there are others. Rechargeable batteries have for years had limited life, whether replaceable or not, and struggle in cold and wet weather.

I often put up a cheap link for gas canisters when I renew mine. I'm forever bargain hunting. Sadly local shops simply can't keep up with the price of 6x 500 size gas canisters, nor even my local camping shop.

@kevtaylor makes the point about the rod being a good one, I would say, avoid Sonik and Avid Hybrid Spod/Marker rods. On both of them I have had rings lose the liners. The liners fall out in transit, and on the Avid rod, the liner actually broke. I have had to replace 2 or 3 rings myself, and reglue the liner into the frame. I'm not sure what rings they are but 'lightweight fittings' now means cheap to me.

Big question with some variables included. Do you need a spod/marker rod? I've added in the bracket marker as many spod rods now do both, use as a marker rod and spod rod. When I was fishing the 2 acre Brackens Pool at Nazeing Meads I went 3 years without using a spod (rod), however my marker rod was used for precise location of the gravel, which if you missed, instead of fishing 7feet, you'd be in 22feet of water. My baiting was solely with stringers and mesh, as much as 30baits on a stringer, and I caught plenty. That is probably the last time I can recall not using a spod or Spomb. Now what makes up the variable, is the size of waters, what is working and what you might do differently. On a 4acre water, say going up to 10 acres, fishing boilies only, I don't think that you need a spod, almost every spot can be reached by catapult or stick, it is when you add in pellets and particles and mass baiting that the spod becomes essential, as anything above 30metres takes out cattie range. Are you going to fish boilies only, or do you need particles? Can you hit your spot with numbers of solid bags? It is different from most other people's fishing, it could be your edge. That might be your answer there. For a few years, my 3rd carp rod was my marker rod, it was 'ok', but not perfect, so I bought a marker rod and used braid. The feel was totally different, from gravel feeling flat, I could sudden feel 'the bounce', from weed feeling steady thick, I could feel pull back as it broke free. Braid may have been a lot of the answer, but the right tools for the job help. Next question why 3.5lb TC rods? On waters up to 4acres I wouldn't go above 2.75, even banging out big stringers or bags. I only use 3.25 TC rods on 45acres. The test curve does not equate to how big a fish, or how powerful a rod is, the action also needs to be included, but higher (say above 2.75lb ) are designed primarily for long casting. One 2 acre water I bailiff, with carp to over 20lb, you would be asked to leave with those rods. Other rules include No leads above 2oz, and hooks no bigger than size 10. When I fish there, I don't even take my carp rods, but use my specialist rods with a 1.75lb TC and believe me I've had many carp over 20lb and it's more fun on the gear.

Something that I noticed a couple of months ago, the Bank tackle and original Solar Buffer beads I was using to protect the knot with a run ring are absolutely perfect for sliding the run ring on to to make a semi-fixed bolt rig. A quick shake and the run ring becomes free running again.

In Britain, apparently the sun is a very rare sight

With and without flash

Believe me, I don't have any problem munching my way through 900ml of double chocolate or raspberry coulee ice cream in an evening and at £2.75, its not too bad...

900ml ice cream tubs are handy for all sorts, and you have to eat the ice cream before you use them... I put a days particles or boilies in them, freeze (or put back in the freezer ) and grab what I need when I go. They also make decent ice blocks in my bucket. They have also been used to store food in, steaks, veg etc as the size is perfect. Easy to wash and reuse.

Good floater bait...

Cinnamon EO and Peach works and as a low level in a food bait

Green zing I found was better than pineapple in winter.

It was available in 500 or 250ml in date stamped plastic bottles from the chemist. Tackle shops weren't quite so careful. Liver powder and flavour does mix quite well with a sweet cajouser. One thing I will say with hi-attract wafters and pop-ups is I've done best when they are fished on their own with few, if any freebies around them. Banoffee is a decent flavour at a low level with a food bait, but I've not done well with it in hi-attract baits. I've played with various hi-attract baits, flavours and the like. Some good ones are garlic and spice, pineapple (and N-butyric), green zing, squid and octopus, Tutti-Frutti and black pepper. Other flavours didn't work for me, and believe me I tried loads.

Those look like the Fox mk.ll's. While I liked them, I did find you couldn't get the weight and arm 'balanced' by pushing the weight right to the bend as you could the mk.l

I've got a few jackets and smocks for the winter, a Dickies Camouflage smock, and a Hoggs of Fife jacket. The Hoggs Culloden is the current equivalent, not cheap, probably around £130 and they do matching overtrousers. As good as fishing clothing is, I've had a preference for shooting/country clothing or army surplus style. I should add an edit, my Hoggs jacket, despite being worn for fishing is still in good enough condition to wear out for normal walking.

The rods are now up at the top of the bank. Lake has risen a metre or 3feet if you think imperial. I was hoping not to have to recast, but so much weed has drifted free I had no choice. The joys of working out how many times round the distance sticks compared to what I had worked out from down by the rushes. Just let everything dry out tonight before I pack away in the morning please...

For floater fishing and stalking I definitely can't see any need for a 50mm butt ring, even 40mm is too big. I wish someone did a 30 or 25mm butt ring, now that would be nice. My mate Bruce did have a Century stalking rod that he got from the Solar rep years ago, I think that had a 30mm. I do know it was perfect. Might have to start looking at spinning rods again...

I love the rain for fishing, but it is a bit heavy! I set up Tuesday at the base of the bank, with my front rests just touching the water. I've had to resort to the pod, moving them back to the bank, and even that's now wet. I also had to move the bivvy back up to the top of the slope, in the pouring rain. That wasn't fun, putting everything away, unpegging bivvy, moving it complete, pulling groundsheet up and clipping that in and quickly putting bedchair and bags inside.

I used a heavy Browning Spinning rod for floater fishing for years, it had the backbone, able to chuck big lures and had the guts to handle big carp. I never really found a floater rod that was quite right