salokcinnodrog

I prefer shrink tube myself as well. I have found silicon or plastic tubing can move, either direction, and I am positive I have lost fish because of it, with Carp-R-Us Gizmos and sea fishing Spinlinks. I first played with them back at Taverham in the 1990's and I recall losing a fish where silicon tubing moved. I have also seen someone else lose a big fish on quicklinks because of it. Hence my preference to stick with hooklink swivels. Even leads attached to run rings with quick links can come off! With Ronnie swivels, it may not be such a problem, because the hook is tight on the swivel crook, but it's not a chance I will take

Tigers go through the gut in humans, dogs and fish exactly as they were swallowed. If the tiger nut was crushed, chewed in the teeth, pieces come out. If they were swallowed whole, that is how they come out in the excrement. It may be fibre, but the actual legume itself is pretty much indigestible; hence why you do not want or need very many. In fact exactly the same as peanuts. The 'by-product' of tiger nut or peanut flour provides more useable nutrition.

From memory almost every spool to line ratio on the reel is usually well out, needing far more line than the amount printed. It may be because a breaking strain has so many different diameters. A 15lb line can be anything from 0.34 even 0.32, to 0.40mm, depending on brand! A properly rated 15lb line will be 0.34/ 0.35mm, anything above that will be 18 or even 20lb. (0.38/0.40mm) Personally I have not found more expensive lines to massively outperform cheaper budget brown Daiwa Sensor or Gardner Pro, (one exception sadly no longer around, original Shimano Catana). Gardner Pro is my first choice line now.

On occasions I use Ronnie or Spinner rigs I have the opening on the outside.

Fake baits are banned on some waters; cork balls, foam, plastic baits etc. In a pop-up however, is a grey area.

From memory, Delkim had to change the receiver frequencies as the government of the time changed the laws on what radio frequencies were available to the public. (increased availability) Older Delkim receivers could not match with newer model TXi's as the updated versions were in the new range. It may well be worth speaking to Delkim about which receivers are compatible, or going to a specialist who can deal with receivers and older frequencies

No match committee, it's a big fish syndicate.😉

I do use braid on my marker float rod, but to an Amnesia shock leader, and on my pike rods. For shock leader to Amnesia it is an overhand knot in the Amnesia, and a uni knot through and up something like here: https://magazine.anglingactive.co.uk/the-best-shockleader-knot-sea-fishing/ I do lighter blob the knots to stop slippage. Braid to braid is a pig, they can cut through each other, but again pike fishing my braid is tied to a swivel, which unless you tie straight through on your rods (spod) you can't do on fishing rods.

I still keep on thinking about plastics, but my syndicate bans all fake baits, including cork balls and foam, quite possibly because of the bird life.

I always play fish by back winding, so to me it is second nature to tighten the baitrunner spool and click the anti-reverse off. After a while You don't think about it, even after waking up at night to a take.

I use Shimano Beastmasters, but this is the current version, shop around for price: https://fish.shimano-eu.com/content/fish/eu/gb/en/homepage/Product-detail.P-BEASTMASTER_XB.html/ From Yonny's comment it seems Daiwa go up a price range, whereas with Shimano go budget or top range.

To be honest, boilie wise I stick with one bait all the way through the year. Ages ago on here I wrote up a list of bait ingredients on Now I don't know what the current EU regulations are regarding importing bait ingredients or base mixes into Sweden, but I can say honestly that CCMoore, Sticky baits and others all produce good base mixes. German or even Danish bait companies might work out better. To start with I would be fishing sweetcorn, chickpeas or other particle baits, then as you find out and bait more introduce boilies

I've used Drennan Super Specialist and Specimen hooks for floater fishing for years. The Specimen's are fine for open water and fish up to double figures, although you can land bigger fish if you go carefully. The Super Specialists are better for weedy or snaggy waters and bigger fish. I'm not particularly good with zig rigs, but have on occasion fished them on a particular water, where I used size 10 Solar 101's which was simply what I had available.

I think it was Steve who was a member on here had the big Graviers fish at a World Record weight, only to be beaten the same week by a Rainbow fish.

In theory, commons might be 'warmer' than mirrors with their complete scaling and moving about more. @levigsp might be the person to ask about that! I know on my lake, only 1 common has been caught since the start of March, every other fish on the bank has been a mirror. If you get into the equinox, certain fish seem to come out at specific times of the year or moon phases.

To be honest the questions might interlink. I know a number of match type waters ban 'successful' baits, be it pellet, boilie because 'such and such' won loads of matches doing his thing with that bait. As also mentioned it does serve to keep carp anglers off the lakes, which may be the biggest advantage of the bait ban, but without outright banning carp anglers. Most boilies now are nutritionally good, not all, but most. You could quite easily make up a boilie base mix, but use it as paste instead of boiling it. That way you have the nutrition and increased attraction. Mould it around a couple of grains of sweetcorn, Cork ball (use putty to weight it and create a pop-up), or even straight on the hook.

Always nice to receive thanks for advice and opinions. Something else that may be relevant is the lake bed, if much of it is silty, the fish that feed regularly over silt may possibly have softer mouths than gravel bottom feeders.

North America definitely has more commons than mirrors. Real leathers are a very rare beast indeed. In over 30years of fishing I have only ever caught 2 genuine totally nude carp.

A water I fish for carp to double figures, I still concentrate on fishing the float with sweetcorn and lift float. If you put in much groundbait, you get other species more than carp so I use loose fed sweetcorn. On occasion I do use pop-ups I don't put any, or very little, feed around them. In fact I almost fish them zig rig style, well off the bottom.

I must admit I would only be using Specialist or Avon style rods on a water like this, with 8lb line. Hook size sounds possibly a bit big, for me it would probably be a 14 or 12.

Are you looking fixed spool or even centre pin? I often use a centrepin for stalking, either freeline or with a lift float. If it is fixed spool you are after look at Shimano ST4000 Baitrunner

Spawn already? Not yet😉 Carp won't be ready for spawning until the water has been 18 degrees for at least a week, probably late May, early June. As for sacking or retaining fish, just for a few minutes while you sort the camera gear out, an hour at the most if you have someone come and take pics. This fish was retained while I ran half a mile to get another angler to do the pics. I can do my own self takes, but do prefer someone else to take pics as I think results are better.

As has been said, mostly waters that are match angler orientated, not wanting carp anglers. To be honest, it is not a problem, boilies are often inefficient, they catch less fish than most other baits. Sweetcorn, luncheon meat, pellets, paste, various particles all catch carp as well as other species.

Abu reels! The 6500 multipliers were what almost every beach angler wanted, either the rocket or the mag version. The Cardinals were another reel ahead of their time, and it is probably only the Shimano Baitrunner that pushed Abu out of favour. The Ultra cast Cardinals were the last Abu reels I had, loved them.

Same here. I would rather have a better quality bait that I know the fish will eat rather than a bait that they might eat. Even on big waters I have had carp take the 'food source' rather than the 'sweetie'. Bream will eat anything, they tend to 'vacuum feed' an area, eating everything, whereas carp can 'pick and choose'. With carp you may be far better baiting with small patches of bait, rather than creating a bed of groundbait, especially in open water. That is not to say a carpet of bait won't work, but it can be hit and miss. On Ardleigh and Alton heavy baiting with Vitalin produced far more bream than carp in open water. It worked for carp if it wasn't on a bream patrol route, but they could take a few days to find it.