salokcinnodrog

I honestly don't think that there is an ultimate spod mix! Small particles like hemp, pigeon conditioner, mixed bird food, chicken corn, even pellets and a groundbait like Vitalin will all attract fish to a point. That point is whether the fish come in and feed while you are there. It is a whole lot easier on 'hungry' waters, but even so. I am happy to use pretty much any of the above knowing they will work. I fished Bromeswell a few years ago and would bait a margin spot heavily with particles, it rarely worked. You were far better fishing groundbait and feeder, a handful of sweetcorn over a float or a small PVA bag regularly cast. Yet on Nazeing Lagoons, Alton Water, even Ardleigh a spodded bed of bait would produce, although Ardleigh could be a headbanger at times as fish could take a few days to get onto it.

Even using new iron ore takes only 30-60 MJ😉, which is still less than creating new plastic packaging. As you also mentioned plastic often ends up in landfill, or other environment, which David Attenborough has highlighted, so plastic is far less friendly.

I merged your later posts into one, I know with pics it only allows a certain size. Blooming heck, when you phoned you said it was a tight swim. Never figured on not being able to get round both sides of the brolly. Glad you like it. Result on the bait, and fish, and getting that 'thing' back in. It looks awful! At least one fish is saved. Sounds silly, but a tent peg over the base of the pod to hold it down might help, or a screw and guy rope. Something else, every bivvy door, roll it up around a bankstick when you want to strap it open Hope your next session is a bit more smooth.

Sadly it takes far more energy to produce the plastic packing than melt and recycle the steel of the can, approximately 10 times as much! Steel (from recycled steel): 6-15MJ (1,665 to 4,170 watt-hours) Plastics (from crude oil): 62-108MJ (17,200 to 31,950 watt-hours) Also the plastics are produced from crude oil. On my water spodding does sometimes produce, but rarely on the day the bait was introduced. It takes 3 days for the fish to move onto it, whereas a PVA bag can produce that night. Once the carp are on the bait you can get multiple takes, but it is hard work. As an add to that, tinned sweetcorn is actually more attractive baitwise than frozen sweetcorn. Most tinned corn is with added sugar and salt, whereas frozen corn is just plain straight bagged no extras.

The tin is more environmentally friendly, metal can be permanently recycled, plastic can't, and often has to be disposed of in landfill or incinerated 😉 I think you won't learn anything, for so many reasons. On a hungry (overstocked) water, the fish are or may be reliant on anglers bait, so will eat anything and everything. Certain parts of a spod mix can be attractive, pellets, hemp, sweetcorn, Vitalin, etc, but you are relying on the spod mix to attract fish, as a whole. You might be better trying them different sessions! Some swims may have preferred feeding spots, if your 'not so-attractive' mix is on the feeding spot you can still catch. Your super attractive mix can be a blank, because it is not in the right place. I have fished lakes with different groundbaits, Vitalin, Vitalin with added particles, Vitalin with a mix of mushed and fresh pellets, and particles. All worked! The right spot is far more important than bait.

Shimano quality of their price ranges is vastly different, the £90 upwards doesn't work for me, yet in the cheaper range only the standard ST Baitrunner, Beastmaster, Aerlex do, so no need to spend more, I would actually ignore the Ultegras! In the £90-125 range look at the Penn reels, they do feel heavy duty. Of course if you want Shimano, go back to early Big Pits, Aerlex's, Biomasters, BBLC, or Big Blue, and the early 4000/4500 6010/8010 Aero GTE's.

This is getting interesting from my viewpoint as one of our syndicate managers thinks that the carp might have spawned out of sight of the angler's on the lake last week in a different area from usual. Last year at this time, the weed was a lot thicker up near the island and shallows. I was fishing there last week and kept a close eye on them for 2 days until they disappeared, so I moved into slightly deeper water where I thought my presence had pushed them. The manager thinks that they spawned halfway along the lake in the rushes that this time last year was dry land. An area that was out of sight as the point island obscures my view and that of the other angler present. (Heavily fished this syndicate lake, only 2 on midweek...😂 😉) Today Bruce and I walked all the way round and seen fish in a couple of areas that they haven't been in for months, that they don't return to usually until after spawning. So do you shut the lake or not, not knowing how or whether they have spawned or not?

I am a rig ring with a doubled length of dental floss or Kryston Samson hair braid pulled through the bait and lighter blobbed. I have tried micro swivels, but I think the extra weight cuts down movement by weighting down the tiny or trimmed down pop-up. That is a personal view. I have tried bait screws or black screw eye pins and found baits can soften up enough to pull off, especially if bird life is a pain...

That's a good result 👍

I like my rump steak blue, and sirloin rare. Rump should never need a sauce, it is the tastiest, even though the cheapest🤪, yet sirloin (or the other more expensive steak cuts) might need a sauce with them as they are drier. I always have a bag of dried pasta in my food bag; after boiling it I can prepare the vegetables and meat. Couple of weeks ago I did a carbonara, admittedly bacon, with ready grated parmigiano, dried basil and the egg with tagliatelle. My lunches recently have been chocolate brioche dunked in my black coffee. I am still on porridge and coffee for breakfast.

Mine came through last week, I do love his artwork. He has appeared on BBC Countryfile (as has my syndicate😉) Mine are all saved in my wallet, but i'm looking to get them framed, along with a few other pics I've taken.

I think that until spawning is out of the way boilies are often the last thing carp are wanting to eat, even more so or especially on richer natural lakes. I do like a mix of small items in my background feed, Vitalin, crumbled and crushed boilies with a few small pellets, even (fresh) molehill soil, which is often rich in wormy goodness. I think it was @JordanNW who asked about PVA mix, my mix is on here I use it as my baited patch and for my bag or mesh mix.

@yonny, yes and no. I work in the hospitality industry, we don't want to turn customers away, but I am not having any of my staff harassed, abused because of a rude (often drunk) customer. We have to turn the customer away, refuse service, yet it means we have lost money. @greekskii was actually replying at the same time as me, and I agree all fisheries should check your licence, especially day ticket commercial waters. Any business that sells a service I would think is registered or licensed. It would be quite possible to register day ticket fisheries. In the fishery doing the licence checking, it would save bailiffs needing to visit the fishery.

It is actually legal for any business to refuse service if they believe that there is valid reason. So a shop, restaurant or pub may refuse service to a rude customer. A fishery is exactly the same, they can refuse to let an angler fish if they believe that he or she does not have a licence. That in the current climate is stupidity. Our friends who decide to take fish for dinner.

I think I posted on the same question a few months ago, but it could be longer... I have switched to the same rod for both, so occasionally even old dogs do learn something. 50lb Angry Fish braid, I have a run ring running on the shockleader, with my lead link attached to a Breakaway Spinlink Clip, at the end of the leader is an oval ring attached to a ball bearing swivel. When I'm leading or using the marker float, the marker goes on the oval ring, and lead on the spinlink. When I spod or Spomb, I remove float and lead and clip the spinlink to the ball bearing swivel. I'll try to put pics up, but signal in the swim I'm in is awful. Just to get any Internet access to check my emails I've had to go up the other end of the lake. Hitting the clip with braid can 'flatten' the Spomb so it doesn't always open, so at shorter range you may need to lob it.

PROPER REELS! I would get them serviced over buying new current models. If you do decide to go new, of all the current Shimano range have a play with the current Beastmasters, but shop around for price. I think they are much better than anything over the £85 price range, including the Ultegras. That's from working in a tackle shop. https://fish.shimano-eu.com/content/fish/eu/gb/en/homepage/Product-detail.P-BEASTMASTER_XB.html/

Saute potatoes, with onion, mushroom, baby corn and a rare rump steak for tonight.

Nigewoodcock isn't banned😉 Just not posting😒

I used to do that to test my PVA as well, mesh, bags and string. I also test them in the margins in both summer and winter. Not all PVA is the same, there are some good brands, some 'ok' brands and some that just stick them in a hot wash in the machine and they still won't dissolve... I stick to particular brands of PVA wherever possible because I have tested them. Kryston bags and string, definitely good, along with mesh by Gardner and ESP. However after an incident with Nash PVA bags 10+ years ago that did go through a 40⁰ wash without dissolving, I won't touch that brand. We also have the joys of direct Internet sales, so if you use a supplier on ebay, check and test it, and I would recommend, even if you use the same seller, test every purchase. I know some batches will come from different manufacturers, look and feel the same, but taste different and have different dissolve times.

You haven't fished a water full of natural food where you have to wean them off it and onto your bait then. Sometimes the only way to do this is pile in the small stuff with boilies mixed in, and hope they will take the boilies.

I've been thinking this over since my last post, and obviously the carp are feeding on the smaller feed items. If I bait up with them when I arrive; Vitalin, crushed boilies, maybe maggots, breadcrumb they will be feeding on them, so fish the Naturalz Wafter over it, and when I leave bait up with a bit more Vitalin and whole boilies to get them onto bigger baits on the spot.

A barbel or specialist rod is a very good floater rod

I can give you an add to this: Start off with a basic hair rig and adapt and play with it. I mention the perfect hooking point, middle of the bottom lip. If you are losing fish to hook hookpulls during the fight at the start, are hooking them at the very front of the mouth, the hair is not long enough. When the basic hair rig stops catching move onto the next development, the sliding or extending hair, or add a line aligner. As @yonny says, a bottom bait rig, and a pop-up rig it really is that simple. I don't fish zigs, so I can't comment on their effectiveness. How effective your rig is can be changed by what and how you feed. A rig with a short hair can be good for fishing over particles or groundbait, yet over boilies may be very ineffective. A rig with a long hair may be great for boilies, yet awful for fishing over particles; the long haired bait may be blown in and out with no hooking, or alternatively cause bite-offs.

A coated braid, in this case Kryston Snakebite, line aligned with a short section around 10mm stripped back on a size6 Solar 101 hook, sliding ring on the hookshank, with a 4lb mono hair and a meshed mishape boilie. The rig ring means I can alter the hair length, in this case I found this gap was exactly right on the harder chalk lakebed.