salokcinnodrog

Please, carp do NOT have a stomach, I am positive because I know my biology, they have a continuous intestine which digests the food as it passes it through. The more they eat, the faster it goes through, so as fast as they swallow, it will come out the rear end, a continuous stream.

I can think of very few baits I used wheat germ or wheat gluten in. It breaks many baits down too quickly. Carp don't have stomachs, so ANY bait just gets pushed through anyway. As for the original recipe, mix and match, explore and learn, but don't be surprised if it turns out as a slush. You need dry ingredients, blending them up won't give you a 'flour' unless you really go for a long time and in the case of tigers, is a good way of killing your grinder. You can buy and use ground hemp, but again, it is not easy to use as it is oily.

I think the same. I found that we would only get night takes at certain times of the season; October to November, then early March to end of season, and on big full moons. Bite indication is important, you can't watch a float constantly at night, you need other indication, and free lining is a no no, too much chance of a dropback and deep hooking

I use an either a Korum Ruckbag or ESP Cool bag for food, gas and stove https://esp-carpgear.com/products/luggage/cool-bag/

Think they are self limiting numbers, very few silver fish seem to be in the lake.

I got an animal feed or ice scoop from work, copes with my very wet particle mixes, keeps my hands dry and prevents me spreading onto my rod and reel.

To heck with paying that. Go to Petsathome. https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/-7101417p--1

Tie an overhand knot in the leader, but don't pull tight. Thread your mainline through the knot, and then tie a grinner or uni knot around the leader, wet and pull both knots tight. As habit I lighter tag the ends. I've used this knot for years, both carp fishing and sea fishing.

Unfortunately the shortened form of Richard was being used as an insult, often with head, so it got added. I've just spent 5 nights on the bank, blanking, but despite some serious frosts didn't get cold. Daytime wear was combat trousers, boots, and a Regatta base layer on top half with a fleece, then a zip fleece top. If I got cold then I put my snood on, and overtrousers on. The sleeping bag is still the Morpheus Extreme 4, but with a sleeping bag cover. I didn't have to resort to the extreme of another jacket, or even my Army Norgie. Bruce who did 1 night was pretty similar although he was using his Norgie with a paratrooper smock jacket instead of the base layer

Being different to what others are doing can be a good edge. Bream can be a right pain, but the areas they feed on can be carp spots. The only thing I have found is bream tend to vacuum an area of the food, eating everything, including big boilies, tiger nuts etc. You end up using massive baits to avoid them. On Ardleigh, most nights if I had bream I wouldn't get carp, although there was one exception, strangely from the same swim John Wilson had a carp in the middle of a day's bream fishing. His was a mirror, mine was a common. That same swim did give me some good carp normally a night or 2 after prebaiting with groundbait and boilies. The day I baited was bream, 2 nights later the carp were there. I was using groundbait moulded around my lead 'Method style' rather than PVA bag.

I saw that on my Facebook feed. Really sad. One of the few angler's who has really left a legacy in the fishing world. RIP Marsh.

You can tie the same rig with various hook link materials, braid, coated braid, mono, stiff mono like Amnesia or fluorocarbon. Each material will behave differently and some stiffer materials like mono may 'lie funny' on certain lakebeds. I would pretty much only use mono or even fluorocarbon on clear, weed free areas of hard bottomed lakes, clay, sand or gravel. Even then, on gravel, it only takes a nick in the line and it could break. These hook links, to be honest don't lend themselves to going in a PVA bag. Braid can be used on pretty much any lakebeds, over weed, gravel, silt, anything. It is also nicely supple, so can be 'folded' into PVA bags. Coated braids I use a lot, you can strip a section near the hook for flexibility, a softer supple section, or use stiffer. Even in weed to some extent they are camouflaged, and look like weed stems. They are basically a cross between stiff and supple. If your rig is working, then stick with it, however I personally found on some or even most waters, the addition of tubing to lengthen the hook shank improves hooking, a line aligner can help even more.

A bait I was working on years ago for a food source was green, I found seagulls had problems seeing them after impact.

I know it is early, but I've been awake since 4 this morning, Fishing dinner: diced lamb and garlic over pasta stuffed with pesto and goats cheese with chopped tomatoes and mixed herbs. To be honest washing up is no problem, I put water and washing up liquid in the saucepan, and boil it, then tip that water into the tupperware my tomatoes and lamb were in and onto my plate. Wet wipe and clean.

Of those, I would be looking to the Century rods, or from having Terry Edmonds on my Facebook feed and his casting, the Shimano's. Or as I posted earlier, Rod Hutchinson Dream makers.

Century are probably the best, World Record holders in a number of weights for distance casting. Plus also a favourite on mainland Europe Rod Hutchinson Dream makers, a 13ft 3.5lb is available at around £200 by shopping around. Any long range rod is going to be stiff as a broomstick. Heck I used Century FMJ's, very heavy, very stiff but boy could they cast. Terry Edmonds, currently using Shimano has put leads a long way with their range, and they are probably in the bargain bucket price range.

I'm still trying to eat healthily on the bank, although I do drink far too much real coffee. Breakfast, a proper porridge and tonight's offering is couscous with stir fried lamb, onions, mushrooms, ginger, garlic, black pepper and coriander.

I'm of rather different views on flavours and essential oils, I found some very good combinations, and that iso-eugenol could improve the attraction of a number of baits. The obvious essential oil that got lots of note was a proper genuine full Black Pepper oil. Some baits were a whole lot better with the addition of flavours, The Biollix, not bad, but my Cinnamon EO with Peach Nutrafruit knocked it even better. Then we have Enervite Gold, with Julian Cundiff's favourite Strawberry and Cream Elite with Bergamot EO. Plain Enervite Gold with Multimino never caught as much as the flavoured version. Another combination I played with was Eucalyptus EO, Cherry Elite and 2drops of Iso-eugenol. As a bait it smelt like your chemist's sore throat remedy, it had its own Tune... Boy did it work! Taking some of these combinations and trying others, some complete pop-ups I bought, (some same flavours or similar from various manufacturers), not all were the same in terms off effectiveness. Nutrabaits Pineapple N-butyric (plain yellow) were as effective as Mainline Fluoro Yellow Pineapple. Dynamite's Fluoro Pineapple were not as good as Solars Pineapple, in terms of fish caught. My own Garlic Oil and Megaspice pop-ups have produced fish from various waters. I gave the recipe to a bait company, they hated making them, they stink, yet on a water just down the road from that company, locals couldn't get enough of them, they produced loads of fish, and now I make my own, continue to do so. Maybe I should come up with a catchier name and they'd sell... I go through my bait bag now and find I seem to have got a collection again: Monster Crab, KMG in base mix and Fluoro colours, a pale pink Raspberry and Black Pepper, little yellow Aniseed and Bunspice and my own Spiced Garlic (is that catchier?) Some are for merely using as top knot on a snowman bait, some as I heard a pale pink pop-up is a catcher on my lake, some to match the baiting and feeding and obviously one because I have complete faith in it.

The interesting one most definitely, but the head and shoulering can be on the way in to the food, or on the way out, I have seen both. For some reason on a few waters I fished, carp would always approach the spot from the left or right, always the same side at a particular time, go down on the food, then head and shoulder on the way out, before going around again. In one case, always swimming around an island from right to left. It didn't have to be an island swim though, the feeding in this manner occurred even in open water.

I use Solar Titanium (short arm) indicators. They can be used as swing arm indicators, tension arm or at no tension for slack line fishing. The link I have given is for Johnson Ross, so it may pay to shop around https://johnsonrosstackle.co.uk/solar-indicators/20152-solar-tackle-p1-titanium-indicator.html

Back on the pike trail, 4 today including a double take, biggest went 10lb I had 7 takes, 4 on ledgered mackeral head, 3 on smelt and landed 2 on each, but lost 3 fish as hooks pulled. I can only assume small fish that didn't take the bait deeply. All were lightly hooked

If I see fish show I will move onto them. Not all shows are obvious either; I have seen what I thought was a swirl, just a circular ripple, almost like feather going round three quarters of a circle, and caught from it. The head and shoulders, jumping are obvious, easily seen, but not all indicate carp feeding on a spot. I have seen fish head and shouldering, but the catching spot was 20metres to the left of it. I think the fish were digging into the silt, feeding, then coming up to clear their gills. Other times the dolphin type shows were carp moving onto a feeding area.

Years ago I had casting lessons over the field at Gainsborough Park in Ipswich with Roger Mortimer and John Holden. (Big Beach casters of old) While not in the Terry Edmonds league of now, and with rods not as materially advanced as now, they definitely improved my casting. I got to 125yards with 2.25lb Armalites, 4000 Aero gte Baitrunners, 8lb line, shock leaders and 3oz leads. When I switched to 15lb, 2.75lb Century SP's and original Aerlex's, with 3.5oz leads, longest cast at Nazeing was well over 130metres, closer to 140. I haven't really practiced since then, but try to keep all the fundamentals in line.

Exactly the same as I do summer, no difference in lead set-ups, rigs or bait, although I use less bait and hardly any particles if any at all. I nearly always fish with leads on run rings; I can fish them slack or tight line dependant on the water, I also prefer them over lead clips. The time I do put bait in is when I leave, during fishing I bait up only with stringers or mesh of boilies.

Many bait companies make decent base mixes, often the same as their ready made freezer or shelf life boilies, any one will work if you put it in the right place, where the fish feed. As much as a simple mix of semolina and soya flour works, usually only for a limited time. Its attraction is often only from the flavour or liquids used. The advantage of making your own from a bait company mix, is you can often improve it. Grange CSL, Active8 were good base mixes, as was Trigga, BFM, even Enervite, but they can be made better.