salokcinnodrog

In the land that time forgot, 😖 back in the 1990's, I used helicopter rigs quite extensively, and came across a number of problems, one of which was losing fish to hook pulls. Outurned eyed hooks like current chod hooks was not the answer with pop-ups, the cure was go to inturned eyed hooks like B175's, (or bent hook rigs, now banned) and or stop fishing helicopter set-ups if we used bottom or critically balanced baits. On most occasions I work on a simple premise: If I am losing fish to hook pulls, or the hook is right at the edge of the mouth, lengthen the hair. If I am hooking in the cheek, or the back of the mouth, the hair is too long. If hooked dead centre perfect. If not hooking anything, no runs, fishing in the wrong place. However, regarding hooking, by increasing the amount of free bait by the hookbait, more boilies, more particles or groundbait, can act in the same way as lengthening the hair...

Try bacon and egg in a brioche bun...

I suppose in terms of this year I half succeeded against the odds, catching 20lb carp and pike from Alton water despite Anglian Water keeping it closed for 6weeks longer than lockdown, although losing my ticket after a couple of Eastern Europeans cast over my rods 2 days on the trot and me pointing out very strongly they were in the wrong, was not part of my plans. A month on The Wensum after spotting 2 big barbel in an unknown area, but failing dismally in the low flow. Then onto the new syndicate in September, which I am still trying to learn. I have had a few pike out from there on a prebaiting trip... Goal for next year as always is to enjoy my fishing, catch a few and maybe a Personal Best. That goal is becoming harder over the ages, not because fish over 33lb don't exist, obviously they do, but because I prefer to catch genuine grown on fish from British fish farm heritage rather than stocked at 40lb plus.

Believe it or not, one of the least useable proteins for carp, unless as @emmcee says, you add an additional enzyme. (Bengers anyone?) Personally I think that as carp are omnivorous, able to eat both vegetable and meat matter (within constraints), a meat or fish protein is the best at supplying all the essential amino acids, although there is one non meat and strictly speaking, not vegetable, that contains every essential amino acid.

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