salokcinnodrog

First thing is that some fishmeal baits are absolutely brilliant, on most waters, although at certain times and on runs waters other baits may prove their woth. Long term fishmeal baits include Nutrabaits Big Fish Mix, Trigga, and more, but it is getting the best out of them that not everyone understands. On 'overstocked' waters, high attract non fishmeal baits can be better for the angler doing quick trips, yet as a long term bait fishmeal baits can produce more. In summer, higher carbohydrate, birdfood baits with a quick leakage can produce more, the first nutritional requirement is energy, carbohydrates and fats. Protein for growth is not the first need! The fishmeals will produce, but not as first choice. There are alternatives, meat meals, chicken, liver, beef which will work long term. My choice for a long term bait is most definitely a fishmeal.

Ici to B Pit, to Suffolk Water Park, to River Gipping by a committee member, from one side of the weir to the other and then onto Snake. Wandering mirror, it had human movement, none of the moves were by itself!

Gipping in Suffolk. We had a few out from various stretches, although the 28 pictured was the biggest, then sadly it got poached, not by Eastern Europeans, but by local fishery owners wanting instant fish. Dippy the 40lb + Mirror went from the Gipping to Snake Pit 25miles away. The Stour on the border also has some very good fish in it.

Hampton Court area used to produce good fish😉 Carp have been caught as far downstream as the London Docks. River carp? I suppose I should go find some more...

A 1 egg mix makes around 80 baits, so I actually have 160 in total, half of each. Of each mix I have done a few in 20mm compared to the other 15mm😉 If the crays are active I will use most of them.

Just made a years supply of pop-ups with the secret ingredients😉 Two 1 egg mixes, 1 blue and 1 red, cork dust base mix, RH Megaspice, Versele Laga Garlic Oil, and glycerol to preserve them once dried out

Lake escapee I do believe though!

2.75😉 Daiwa, Korum or Shimano

50+! One helleur of a fish...😖😅😉

To be honest, I do try to avoid Fox and Nash as much as I possibly can. Nash because I do not like his ethics, too much tackle returned faulty or broken when I was working in tackle shop, and Fox not always the best with the same issues of faulty gear. There are also far better cheaper items out there by other manufacturers in most cases.

Nash luggage robust? All of the stuff I have had has fallen to pieces, on occasions under warranty. The customer service and after sales was appalling. It took a letter to CarpWorld publicising it to get my rucksack replaced after 3months. Rucksacks you are far better getting a military Bergen! Mine is battered, bruised and still going, on its second life. I also dislike the ethics of Nash and some of his quietly forgotten past history including Catchum, (his way into the bait industry via Rod Hutchinson), I dislike a tackle manufacturer advocating dropping leads on his fishery (!) and his carefully chosen published biography which I think is a little short of honesty. I think The only good item of Nash tackle I have had was a Nash Outlaw Hurricane bivvy, that is in fact still in good enough condition to use, which I picked oop on t'bay for £10 by looking for spelling mitsakes😮😉😆🐟 Fox on the other hand customer service was always spot on.

Selling a 'job lot' of tackle like that is to me annoying and worrying in a number of ways. Is it hot, stolen or not quite right? Has someone stuck the lot on a credit card, realised they couldn't afford it, and stuck it up for sale? Is it our fashion victim realising that fishing is not for them and selling the lot Someone who just thinks they need the new must have? Lots of questions under that little list!

Black Mirror and all that. You are aware there was a total fish kill due to deoxygenation? It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, no club, but permission to fish could be gained by those who knew how. Most Black Mirror captures were actually by those who had gained permission, but to publicise them claimed they had 'guested' the water.

Any bait company I won't use is based on personal reasons, ethics etc. I can honestly recommend bait companies I have used, Nutrabaits, Solar, Crafty Catcher, Rod Hutchinson etc. In fact I have been round the factory that rolled boilies for Rod Hutchinson, Nash Baits, various tackle shop specials. That factory is that of Crafty Catcher, they make or made bait for various companies. I have been round the factory of Starmer Baits. We are getting to the stage of ingredients being printed on packaging, Mainline do it, Crafty Catcher, Nutrabaits, Solar. Nutrabaits were the first, in fact Bill Cottam used it as a selling point. I think some of the animosity Gaz mentions is down to cost, yet many anglers don't understand retail, and the difference between going direct to a bait company, a one man band or a bait company selling retail only. You have a bait company that in the tackle shop sells boilies at £11 a kilo. A retail trade. From bait company to tackle shop is rarely direct, there is often a middleman, wholesaler or agent. All of them need to make money, the bait company sells to agent at £5 a kilo, the agent sells to tackle shop at £8 a kilo, the tackle shop sells to angler at £11. The bait company needs to pay its staff for rolling, needs to buy ingredients, to pay for electricity. The wholesale agent needs to pay for transport, staff etc. The tackle shop staff, carriage. The theory is that the bait should only be sold at £6 CAN NOT equate, it can't be done, not while having retail stores. A bait company that sells direct can sell a bait at £6 a kilo. Your one man band that sells you bait may do it for £4.50 or less. He is probably not including his labour, just covering the cost of ingredients. Big companies can buy ingredients in larger amounts, therefore sometimes getting better prices on ingredients, not in all cases. Some ingredients due to shelf life, you do not want to buy in large quantities. Fishmeal has quite a short shelf life, yet due to the fishing 'seasons' quality changes over the year. Some bait companies buy ingredients from animal feed suppliers; fishmeals, birdfoods, and other animal feeds. Some bait companies like Dynamite are selling a kilo of 'budget' shelf lifes for £6.99, yet their genuine food range premium boilies are £10. What does that say to you? A few years ago Nash Bait made the claim about one of its baits being stabilised for a shelf life version, compared to the freezer version. This is quite simply in my view down to being dipped in glycerol sugar syrup. Here is something else to consider, any bait you put a flavour in, the chances are that flavour is a preservative in its own right.

This is an old study though. I do know of a commercial French water that suffered fish deaths that were likely caused by high levels of preservatives in the predominant bait used, supplied on their own water that the bait company sponsored or owned. However as a water that received high quantities of boilies, quite possibly overstocked the fish could have been bait reliant. However since that study, most bait companies have totally changed the way they make shelf life baits. The sodium and potassium salt based preservatives have mostly been removed. Numbers of shelf life baits now contain exactly the same base as the freezer version. The preservation process is air drying, then giving a glycerol sugar syrup bath, then a dry.

I used to fish Hellesdon Mill in Norfolk. Almost every trip I got my licence checked! I reckon I have probably been checked about half my age over the years, so around 24 times😮😆

I use the same bait all the way through, often a fishmeal. I start the season on a bait and go with it all the way through. Since 2000 it has been a fishmeal bait. The only thing I do is reduce how much I feed. This is on my season ticket water that I do fish all season. I think the theory comes from anglers going onto new waters or day only lakes where a birdfood boilie may be more 'instantly' attractive compared to the fishmeal. Birdfood boilies usually have a higher leakage and flavours leak out quicker providing more instant attraction. Even birdfood boilies can be a long term bait, I used Enervite and Enervite Gold successfully long term, as well as my own home made baits. On day ticket or runs waters I may use a birdfood bait, but even then I have found a good fishmeal will work. A few years ago I fished a water near me for a 5 day trip between Christmas and New Year, for the first two days the attractor pop-ups produced fish, then the carp switched onto the long term fishmeal bait I had been baiting with since the start of the session.

A day ticket water local to me got to the stage of one of the bailiffs being a local dealer, and some anglers who weren't involved being robbed for their tackle. Police were regularly at the lake sorting issues out! I know a lot of anglers on my season ticket lakes like a little puff, and again now the Lea Valley rangers are stamping down on it, along with Eastern Europeans using the venue as a picnic and swimming site, leaving their litter behind. My local park lake, it used to be a place where I could let my kids fish by themselves, then the 'puffers' started turning up and kids had tackle stolen. Now on both the Lea Valley and the park I would not fish without my dog. I would not let my children go on their own. Greekski mentioned bailiffs. In East Anglia, it was one full time bailiff covering Suffolk and Norfolk, then he retired. I have not yet seen his replacement. I say Norfolk, you consider the Western edge of Norfolk is fenland, butting onto Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, then you have the Suffolk and Norfolk Broads many of which are boat access only. I used to get two reminders for my licence, now it is just one, and I saved the cost of two licences with the three rod job. Clubs are also in decline; waters being lost to day tickets or syndicates, lack of membership numbers. That puts children off, not all can afford day ticket money every week. I used to buy my son his club ticket once a year, not a problem, yet paying £10 every week for what was £50 a season... The waters themselves, my local club had specimen roach, tench, bream and perch. Now those fish are few and far between. Another issue is travel to waters. I used to walk or cycle to my waters, 7mile cycle ride at times, a walk of a couple of miles. You can't do that with carp gear, and due to my ex and my estrangement, or even work I could not take my children every weekend. Saying all that, Alton Water has started fishing well again, for roach and other fish, including the occasional carp.

I am so glad that it is not just me who uses that term 'fugly'.

I laugh at these people who say they haven't had their licence checked in years, for 5 years on the trot I was checked at least once a year on various waters. In Suffolk on the Park Lake when I still had Post Office receipt, then in Dobbs Weir and around a month later at Nazeing. Is fishing in decline? I think to some extent carp fishing is, thank goodness, maybe partly due to the older genuine anglers getting fed up of the current bull of the carp record, which I think before long will not exist due to the legal imports, what weight a fish is stocked at, grown on, basically the Big Rig scenario or even a dubious import like Oak Lodge and the catfish record. It was silly for a record to go from 50lb to 108lb, someone was bound to take notice! Is that licence sales or licence money? One carp angler buys a 3 rod licence now, instead of two 2 rod licences, which counters both the decline in licence sales and money. I think other 'disciplines' are on the increase, I for example now do more fishing for other species than I used to. From 1992 to 2010, I pretty much fished only for carp. Yet now I am back chasing roach, pike and other species. However as a whole there are fewer younger anglers coming into fishing. The joys of X-box, PS4 etc, take them away from an outdoor life, as does the fewer male parents (in most cases) taking their sons (and daughters) fishing. In addition to that, there is still a 'push' towards carp fishing, yet a youngster blanks and the kit does a trip into the cupboard never to cone out again. If they were catching fish, like roach and perch then they would want to continue going. Don't forget children under 12 don't have to pay for a rod licence at all. I also bet bet a few 3 rod set-ups include the 'sons rod'...

I have goodness knows how many rigs tied up in my rig bins, most on a simple knotless knotted hooklink with a line aligner, although there are some with a sliding ring on the hookshank. My pop-up rigs are on Ronnie, D-rigs or occasionally 360 rigs. I do not faff about with rigs, I use what works for me. As much as a knotless knot is good, there are times it needs a line aligner or kicker. What a lot of people don't realise is that by changing the hooklink material you can totally change a rigs behaviour and hooking ability. The other thing is that since the invention of the hair when it was originally tied around an inch long then being extended it has become shorter again, almost being shank mounted. Changing hair and rig length makes a difference! While Ronnie rigs are the current fashion, there will come a time when it stops being so effective, maybe because sucking and blowing by the carp means the bait becomes marked, or is simply unable to be sucked in with hook following.

I have been lifting the fish from the water in the net since the 1980's. Either by sliding the handle back until I can grip and lift the arms, or by popping the net out of the spreader block. Ali Hamidi winds me up with his open mouth before brain is in ignition, and this is another one, although he has gotten part right, and that is the fish must be at the bottom of the net, and the lead clip, hook eye must be clear of the mesh. It is why fine mesh was invented, so tackle and fins don't get caught in it! In fact, watch him on his programmes, The Big Fish etc, and guess what he does, lifts it out of the water in the net. Or even Monster Carp, The German. I am sure that fish was netted, lifted out then unsprung before being put back in the water and towed to the bank. Add to that, if anglers did what he is suggesting, we would find a large number of fish escaping the scales altogether...

Real Spomb for me every time. I won't put any money towards the Nash marketed Dot Spod as I put as little money his way as possible.

The obvious answer is walk and locate, watch and learn. I mentioned last year on a thread how carp didn't show on a water, they do, I just wasn't up early enough! In the end I was having to wake up before first light to see them. If you can get down with a marker rod then have a play and find features. Feature wise, remember it is autumn, coming up to winter. If there are any weedbeds, then they can be good winter spots. Fake pink corn, is extremely unlikely to be the key. It is more likely the carp was being inquisitive! Bait, keep trickling in a few boilies, a decent food bait, but don't forget sweetcorn. Sweetcorn is a particle that often does work all the way through. I would save one out of three rods (if it is a three rod allowed) specifically for trying different baits. If it is two, I would be playing with one rod for various baits, and using the other on my baited area.

I think Nash are a unique thread to themselves. I have swapped Solar and Fox indicator bits around from memory, but wouldn't buy Nash as I couldn't find anything matching thread