salokcinnodrog

I think I was first using shelf lifes back in the late 1980's, Richworths Tutti-frutti, Honey Yucatan, Salmon Supreme etc. They did produce best with just a stringer or as a single, but they are NOT food source baits at all, basically attractor baits. As kids, we could not afford to pile them in anyway, a bag had to last a few weeks! In the tail end of the 1980's I started making my own, Chappie dog food, Pond Pellets for koi, all ground down or mixed with semolina and Casein. The results of heavy baiting with them produced lots more but those baits would not keep fresh. I mentioned the Brian Skoyles article, 'The Four Day Approach', I can't remember whether it was a Nutrabaits 'Bait' annual, or Carpworld, but he would on longer sessions put a large amount of his food freezer baits in on arrival. On the fourth day the enzymes were kicking out attracting big time. I have used the approach myself, on Taverham when it had switched off and I hadn't been down for a few weeks. Quite literally on my fourth day as I was packing up the fish started coming, I had four in my last 30minutes, catch, recast, catch recast, other rod, catch recast until I did have to go. It was Trigga being sold as a shelf life that I think was the first food source bait, or it may have been Crafty Catcher King Prawn, either way, the instant attraction was better than freezer baits of the same recipe, albeit the shelf life did have a slight different make-up. Now as I said I have seen how shelf life baits are the same as freezer versions, and how they are stabilised, or preserved. The instant attraction is ongoing, the baits are usually hard, and do not break down as fast as freezer baits. The freezer version I still think is a better long term bait, despite using both in the same recipe, but that is most definitely not saying the shelf life won't.

I'm sat here by the lake with a thought or 2 running through my head. Shelf lifes are more instantly attractive than freezer baits, but freezer baits on day three seem to offer more natural attraction as the enzymes kick in or out. Years ago Brian Skoyles wrote an article about it, and Gary Bayes has mentioned the instant attraction of shelf lifes vs freezer. To me shelf lifes are better in small quantities, even food baits, a tiny percentage of the freebies mixed with freezer baits, or as a stringer of baits around the hookbait. The hookbait itself can be a shelfie, but you do not want massive amounts of shelf life freebies.

Just a query on that, you can fish a pop-up with free offerings around it. Put the whole lot in a bag or mesh and your hookbait will be right on top of your freebies. It is slightly more difficult with a stringer or boilie freebies only, but even then it is still possible. Not being difficult, but a pop-up fished close to the lakebed over or with a mesh bag of pellets or chops can be a very effective tactic😉

I honestly no longer have a preference, as I now catch (bog all usually😖😳😆) on most baits. For a while I seriously avoided pop-ups, couldn't catch on them to save my life, yet I had caught the first 20 from one lake on a pop-up. The next lake I fished I could not catch on a pop-up at all, every fish came on a bottom bait, either singles or doubles. On Ardleigh almost every fish came on a Snowman bait, the top bait being a bright pop-up with the bottom bait being my food source bait. I think there were a couple caught on pop-ups. A few sessions on Thwaite almost every fish to start with came on pop-ups, Scopex, Pineapple/N-butyric, Green Zing, Monster Crab and Squid and Octopus being the most productive. I then did a winter session, the first few days was pop-ups, where I started playing with my Garlic Spice recipe, then everything switched to my food source. As I went onto Brackens, it was snowman baits, food source topped with either S&O, MC, or my Garlic Spice, no takes came on individual pop-ups, no matter what I tried. I moved onto the South and Central, it has been Snowman set-ups on those three above, or individual Garlic Spice pop-ups, yet other pop-ups have produced nothing. Basically I will experiment until I find what works, I have no preference.

For The Suffolk/Essex Stour get a copy of Neal Waytes River Carping.

About 60yards on my Century 2.75 NG's. Still prefer those rods to my new ones, but they have now been promoted to pike fishing, slinging out big deadbaits on the reservoir or on the river. I put about 30 stringers in in one hit from Bridge on Brackens, 10minutes later the rod roared off with one of the lakes most wanted, the Two Tone Linear at high 20's.

Pva string is extremely useful, especially if you fish double hookbaits. Put two boilies close together on string can confuse carp as the string between does not dissolve. Put them in mesh and the baits can come apart. On Nazeing I caught loads of fish on blooming great stringers of up to 30 baits at a time, and even better it was tangle free on my Kryston braided hooklinks and combi-links

Think personally you need to learn to respect everyone😉 If it wasn't for anglers like Kevin Maddocks and Rod Hutchinson, Richard Walker you wouldn't have carp fishing as you know it now.

Would you like to take that to Kevin Maddocks? It is after all his picture from Carp Fever, you know, one of the first written books available to carp anglers, published first in 1981. The picture despite being out of focus clearly says 'bolt rig'😉🙄

The quote feature of this site does not malfunction, everyone else seems to know how to use it, and I know at least 2 of us know how to do multiple quotes, with our replies in between. Protonmail? Deanobaggio@protonmail.com, or dezanimeaux@protonmail, strange that😉

What tangles? I don't get them. As for run rings and bolt rigs, look at original Kevin Maddocks bolt rig pictures😉 Not the best image as I just took it straight from Carp Fever, but oh look, a running lead with an eye mounted bait❗️

Four blanks in two years, and two of those were when the lake froze on me, one was when I was having a 'mare and lost fish, and helicopter set-ups were banned, by the rules😉 Pendant or Inline leads only❗️

If I use a semi-fixed set-up, the best for hooking is an inline. I refuse to use a lead clip, they are a dangerous over-rated item of tackle that should not have been invented. I would go back to a John Roberts bead! The bomb on the end of the line is only safe if the lead DOES NOT get ejected in the event of a break-off. It is the weight of the lead that allows any bead to slide off, followed by the rig. As it happens I prefer to use a run ring, as a bolt rig, fished with a tight line. I was experimenting with lead set-ups in the water long before media got to do divers tests on how a lead works, indication etc.

Done tests? Yes! Has it also been published in articles? Yes. Ever heard of a gentleman called Dave Chilton? Check some of his articles or a couple of the Kryston DVD's out. He has most definitely researched it and published his findings.

My Earith syndicate had no rules banning prebaiting, so I did it, basically putting bait across the whole of the lake before I started fishing as a member, (joined, but 2 weeks prebaiting, learning and marker float it), and putting in my left over bait at the end of a session. If somebody fished one of my prebaited swims, good luck to them, I hope they caught. If I turned up and they were where I wanted to be, oh well, my tough luck, I'll have to go elsewhere. I did in fact tell people what swims, even what bait I was using, although I did hold back my slight tweaks😮😉 Somebody else could use Trigga, but I found my home rolled version produced a bit better, I had increased the attraction while keeping the long term food bait working. In terms of getting to the lake, I often arrived around midnight after work and set up in the dark for a two night session. I had to know 'my' spots, the marker float work to produce a map was invaluable.

Superglue weakens mono and also prevents the knot moving at all, increasing the risk of breaking😉 Far better to be 100% on getting knots right and testing them.

No, indication is very much reduced with helicopter set-ups. The fish has a large area to move in with no indication, even more if you have a bead up the line as per 'chod rig'. I have seen fish move as much as 30metres with absolutely no indication happening at the buzzer, and that was at a very short range. The fish moved in a perfect arc. I myself have lost fish when a single bleep in the middle of the night, no indicator rise or fall, yet the lead had been moved.

Nope, sorry, personal experience tells me otherwise. You NEED the lead on a helicopter for the rig to be able to slide off any leader or breakage. A bit of weed can jam any bead in place, and that on a leader can lead to tether rigs. I have seen it with my own eyes, as a bailiff I have had to remove fissh from snags where that happened. Even Keith Moors, who owns a lake in France has totally banned leaders for that reason. Next thing, an inline lead, it won't drop unless you let the pressure off, and playing a fish in and around weed, you must keep the pressure on. Add to that, with a breakage, the inline does not stay on the line, it can pull free off the tubing, and any line trailing is just the hooklink. As an aside, in the event of a break from excessive pressure on the line, it is the knot that gives, be that the hooklink swivel, or the leader knot. You only have 20years experience? Catch up mate😅😉, I'm closer to 40! Hooks definitely do open out on helicopter set-ups, the rig running up the line during the fight also increases the chances of snap-off. The pressure of not having a straight pull is what causes the hooks to open out, and has been written about in books and articles by various anglers, starting with Tim Paisley and the late, great Rod Hutchinson. Basically helicopter rigs are only good as a silt rig, or for extreme distance casting, but it must be remembered that indication is much reduced.

Firstly, the ingredients are quoted on the packaging, and floor staff will know, they have to mix it, or throw it into the cement mixer.😉😅 Cell is not that high in nutrition, an active feeding trigger, and I can think of many better baits that will work longer term. In fact I would rather go with a bag of Crafty Catcher King Prawn or Sea Salt and Crab ready mades than any Cell. Yes, it is easy to be negative about big brand ready mades, mostly moaning about the price at £11.99 a kilo, or some of us knowing about company ethics, and trying to avoid them. Right, I have cleaned and edited this thread up. Last night after working 53 hours in 4 days I was tired, so I hit the red button. I was fed up by abusive pm's after telling someone to cool down🙄 I may calm down and rescind it later if I can get back into a good mod. If a member is banned, their posts disappear, they are hidden. Mods can still read them, but not ordinary members. It is also possible for posts to be hidden if a member has their posts needing to be moderated for approval before posting.

It was down to the size of the eye of the hook in relation to the hooklink material which was best. Terry Hearn was using a thick hooklink material which would not go through a size 5/6 ESP hook, so he started using the Whipping knot.

Some tackle companies have most definitely encouraged bad practice, and it is that much! Nash lakes rules, must drop the lead, Korda advocating drop the lead on their lead clip. Magazines are as bad, an article advocating doing it, and the sheep, the 'lack thinking' follow it. It carries on, leadcore rigs that are essentially death traps, leaders that can't eject rig or lead in event of a break-off. I got into a big argument with a magazine over it, and that magazine editor did not want me to publish his reply. It lead to being slagged off in print in the magazine; apparently despite me sending experiment results, I did not get out and fish and was an armchair keyboard warrior, I got a heavy slagging off via Jim Shelley, and was blocked from his FB page (no great loss). Facebook media pics encourages people into fishing, much more now than dad's taking their children, two parent families are a minority... Respect for other anglers is a minority. Jump next door and spod it in, no quietly put baits in so as to cause little disturbance to fish or others around you. Drunken social carp angling is a big current fashion, compared to years ago the social match followed by drink in pub... Yes, there are decent youngsters around, but not many. Yes years ago, my mates and I would fish. If we messed around it was only our fishing we messed up, you didn't annoy anyone else, cos we didn't like the ticking off!

Baits work in conjunction with each other. A boilie with a low nutritional value may catch loads of fish, if the background feed is high nutrition, say a bed of pellets, or is providing other nutrition or attraction like particles, or even if the fish are in inquisitive mood. Equally if you are fishing just boilies, then an high nutritional balanced food bait may be best.

Part of the problem in fishing today is the media, or part tackle manufacturers advocating dangerous practices, unsafe fishing and too many modern anglers being sheep, following the setup recommended. Not enough anglers think for themselves. Rules are put in place for 'numpties', to cover the idiot factor, to keep owners or even other anglers happy, (often in the case of match vs carp anglers). If an owner thinks barbless hooks are better for fish then that is what they think, follow the rules. In most cases I think rules are in place for a very good reason. No leaders, no leadcore, no plastics, or minimum 15lb line, there is some reasoning behind them all. What winds me up is anglers who don't think rules apply to them. If you have a genuine gripe with a rule, as long as you can put your point across to the owner or bailiff why then he may consider it and go with your reasoning, ir give you a vaild 'no'.

Sorry helicopter rigs on weedy lakes are not the safest. The first point is that a bead, or ring swivel sliding up and down your mainline increases the risk or the line abrading and giving way, breaking. Leaders are a BIG no no anywhere near snags or weed. Playing a fish on a bomb on the end of the line set up gives a funny playing angle, and after personal experience I have seen hooks open out. Not all patterns are suitable. Weed collects on both the bead, the lead and the hook, and actually if you get a break off (especially with a leader), the fish could be trailing rig, leader and lead, as a bead can be jammed up by weed. You are far better to go back to inline leads in the event of a break off, only the hook collects the weed.

Rules are put in place to keep landowners, lake owners, clubs and fish safe and happy, so as such there are no silly rules. You may not agree with them, but they should be followed, although there is one on a well known tackle manufacturers lake that I find is a form of pollution, and is also a practice that must be stopped: 'all leads must be dropped on the take'. As such I will never fish that manufacturers lakes, I find the rule abhorrent, a disgusting practice. No plastics, brilliant rule.