salokcinnodrog

If I go mail order for anything I will only use them and The Tackle Box

After a weld broke on my Sonik SK-Tec chair mid session I had to buy a new one online. Poetic justice in a way as I didn't like how the locking legs didn't... CH04 Solar SP C-Tech Recliner Chair Low-with arms CLEARANCE DEAL £99.99, they were around £180. I know its a low chair, but needs must and other than a normal deck type chair which I will get for taking to the beach, the Solar is the best available. Johnson Ross got the order around 15.00 hours Friday, and delivery has already been quoted by Fed-ex as between 08.20 and 12.20 Monday! That is some service.

Obviously I got the distances myself, but used Google Earth to get the actual satellite shot.

I might split the thread about feature finding. This was Google Earthed

I finish my antibiotics today, so that's good. The hospital has sent me a follow-up appointment to discuss tonsils out for next month. I've managed to actually stay awake for a whole day. I had been getting up, breakfast, ablutions, walk Sky and fall asleep, lunch, take Sky out, fall asleep, dinner and take Sky out bed then a rough night's sleep. Fishing this week, although cursing at how quickly the weed has come up. On Sunday, only a few weeded over spots, within 3 days the surface is covered by blanket weed and any that breaks free drifts into the lines. I'm going to have to go out in chesties to clear some of it. Not fun as the water level is still high. On a positive note I have seen the big uncaught common that I would put at big 40's, and I managed to retrieve the line and rig that the pike bit through a couple of weeks ago, still with bait attached, but negative is that I haven't caught this trip.

I suppose that in a way I am always looking for the right presentation for the fish over how I am fishing/feeding, then once I have got it, stick with it on that water. On Nazeing Brackens, the snowman worked from session one with those massive stringers, and you would be looking to be on gravel. When the first fish is a 30, you tend to keep on it. Nazeing South and Central was snowman baits partly because of crayfish. A wooden ball soaked in so much glug it sank, and a pop-up then meshed and tied on top. If I was to hit the gravel instead of just off it, I would at least have a hookbait of some kind, and I caught a few fish to 33lb that the pop-up had been clawed and chewed. Certain areas of Alton are rock hard, possibly old buildings (!) or structures, even bridge piling, and the double bottom bait was on the harder bottom, whereas the pop-up was over softer areas. The snowman produced near the culvert, the old road across, and in the bays. Earith it may have been I had introduced and prebaited so much Trigga, an out of the bag bait was best. Bruce who fished with me probably caught more, on the same tactics, but not as many 20's, and he caught when I had one of my rare blanks on there. (I did lose a couple that trip) I tried pop-ups on a few sessions and blanked, yet the bottom baits caught, so I frequently went back to all 3 on single or double 15mm boulies. Something else that may have relevance is that over massive beds of groundbait and particles that I fished on Ardleigh, South/Central and the culvert and bay areas of Alton the snowman was just sucked in, yet on the syndicate, I have had to resort to 2x 6mm pop-ups or a single trimmed 12mm on a Multi-rig. The snowman has produced, but not over large beds of bait, and the pop-up doesn't produce as many but does the occasional bonus fish out of nowhere.

Kamasan B170, B400 are barbless, probably in fly anglers section or via flea bay, it's then just a case of looking for a barbless equivalent to the Solar's.

I'm trying to think about my fish over the years, and funnily enough I reckon that I'm on a 33/33/33% ratio of pop-ups, bottom baits and snowman baits for all my fish. Earith I could not buy a bite on pop-ups, it was all bottom baits, Ardleigh and Nazeing South/Central and Brackens it was snowman, including what is my largest carp, and Alton Water was a mix of snowman, pop-ups and bottom baits. A number of fish from Alton came on 2x 18mm bottom bait boilies on the hair over Vitalin. Really weird that either that rod would produce or the single pop-up, rarely both. Yet in other areas over Vitalin and particles I'd catch on snowman rigs. I'd frequently be fishing all 3 presentations until I got what they wanted to take.

Thing with Haith's, they were probably the first mail order bird food store for aviary birds and pigeons. Then us anglers discovered them. In terms of quality, I have never bought any bad products, but as with everything cost is high compared to other animal feed suppliers. I still do get occasional bits from Haiths, but I do get birdfood from Gladwells or if I only want a small bag of a kilo or so, the supermarket**. Gladwells do a mail order service as well as the shops they have an online order page (https://gladwellspet.co.uk/), so with the link you can have a looksee online or if there is a local shop to you go in in person. ** I put the asterisks in because I have noticed that some supermarket packaging has had things printed on them like 'packaged for Sainsbury's by Haiths'.

I have no pretensions or ideas as to its name. I started playing around ages ago and came up with this to totally confuse the fish on the edge of weed and silt. Since then I saw John Claridge use something similar in an article and online.

Or @elmoputney can beat me to it with a good picture. Lots of choices for pigeon and chicken feeds

Pigeon conditioner is full of aniseed, it is used to 'detoxify' after racing and as a 'trapping' mix. You can get Chicken mix, chicken corn or chicken conditioner which is aniseed free, or Wild bird seed. My advice is to head into the, local animal feed suppliers and have a look around, it's obviously carriage free. If you can't, I'll try to give you a decent link.

Found it. It is held up by the pop-up in water, so the curve link is not quite so severe as it looks. The boom is a doubled over length of Smakeskin, and the pop-up weights are free running. The hooklink section goes through the swivel exactly like a 360. Yes, it is on a helicopter set up, Solar Unleaded needle knotted to the mainline, and I had cast it to around 115metres, just under the outer branches of a tree on the island where I'd seen a few fish, so it's tangle free. The fish I had runs from, absolutely nailed. You could quite easily swap the boom section material.

The theory of carefully putting chest waders on before striking the run goes right out of the window when you actually get a run. The number of times that I've stepped into my trainers on waking up to a run without thinking, struck then realised I need chesties to play the fish, so play twister trying to sort myself out...

Mirrors my thinking. I have a magnetic bivvy light which is enough to read by, tie rigs or make PVA accoutrements, and the headlight is usually hanging from the sounder box if I need it.

That looks like a good idea! I have the same problem even in daytime due to the dodgy hip. Folding the chest section down they fall over when you put them hoping that you can step straight into them. The number of times I have overstepped in wellington boots, suddenly getting a boot full of water, or sat in chesties and sweated my gonads off then having difficulties if I need a pee.

The strange thing is I didn't know how ill I was. I know that sounds stupid, but on Boxing Day I had the sore throat from hell a few days after a cold, then within a week or so it was gone, I just felt constantly tired for a few weeks, occasional cold symptoms, sniffles, slight sore throat nothing major though. In April I had to go up to A&E, 24 hours after seeing the GP, with the quinsy, which is an abscess in the tonsils, in the throat. While I was there, it burst, which the ENT doctor thought had 'cured' it as the infection was no longer in the tonsil. I finished a course of antibiotics a week later. Then this week, it came back again, from nothing to full on struggling to breathe as my throat was almost completely closed up within 18hours from Saturday morning to Sunday. The general lethargy from Christmas to now is quite likely a minor 'blood poisoning' as the abscess obviously is an infection I was fighting.

No they don't, although the matching led is bright. I've never needed a bivvy light when my alarms go off, and half the time I don't even bother with a bivvy light at all. About the only thing I use a light at night for is to read, or actually unhooking and weighing. I play fish in the dark and that includes netting them.

I'd agree with most, except No.5. The best tool is, as described in the armed forces, the mark 1 eyeball. No matter how often we rely on technology the human eye is often or usually much better. Technology can go wrong when you most need it, or not give the full picture. Now bear in mind that I used to be a bait boat user, so could do the quiet drop in of rig and bait; at Taverham I caught loads of fish by putting my rigs in by boat, but the first 20 I caught from the lake came to a bait cast in. A number of waters, bait boats are banned, so I had to do the casting myself. Or the watching the water, without my eyes (and binoculars) I wouldn't have seen a number of fish showing. February fishing after a thaw at Nazeing, I saw a show in 'the wrong area', not the usual winter area. Over 4 days I had 4 fish on my left hand rod, 26, 20, 26, and the prettiest of the lot a 17lb mirror. Casting accuracy had to be spot on, they all came to one rod, and the middle rod fished within metres produced nothing. I'm still intrigued what you class as big as to some extent my values have changed, or are even variable. At Bromeswell lakes I was chuffed to nuts to catch a double figure mirror, yet at Nazeing Central, I was disappointed with a fish of the same weight. Even now I'm almost disappointed with a double figure carp from my syndicate, I want to catch fish over 20lb, and even better when they are originals or the Cavenham stocking (long story). You can only catch what is there, a big fish in a 'match' lake might be 15lb, yet in a 'carp fishery' that is a small fish.

I used something like that, actually a mix of a Multi-rig, Hinge and a 360 with Gardner Stiff Link. The boom section was Kryston Snakeskin, but instead of the hinge or multi section being tied to the mini swivel, it went through the ring doubled over with a counterweight held in place under the swivel with the link being knotted and lighter tagged. It produced a couple of uncaught fish from spots by the edge of the weed with bright pink pop-ups early season. I'll try to find a pic, but John Claridge was using something similar.

I go against the grain as per usual, I won't use an out-turned eye on rigs, you are pulling away from the point, basically opening the hook out. My pop-up rigs tend to be on straight shank hooks, Solar 101's, whether multi-rigs, D-rigs or sliding ring on the shank. I might use a curved shank Mugga on a Ronnie rig

I really don't need to be spending another night in hospital attached to an intravenous drip receiving antibiotics, painkillers and steroids after having a quinsy lanced. 6months into the year and I have been ill for 4 of them...

Yes and no. I'll try to walk you through my view of naked Chod or Helicopter setups, over around 25-30years of fishing. If you have a break-off with a helicopter setup, it is usually above the lead, and the rig. The rig must be able to pass over any stop knot and any bead to come off the broken line. By having the lead fixed in place, on a quicklink it can do so, you DO NOT want to drop the lead. Problems with naked chods and helicopters are using a swivel straight to the mainline, they get scratched and can eventually scratch and break the naked mainline, so that swivel needs to be on a proper helicopter bead, in simple terms a dumbell shape bead, or you need to use a stronger leader or tubing. Which brings us back to the rig needs to come off the top end, and the leads needs to be fixed.

Over to you:

I would say a tackle shop gift voucher. Most anglers, fishing tackle is very personal to them. I have a brand aversion to a couple of manufacturers after shoddy tackle and personal ethics, and brand loyalty to others. There are a couple of exceptions, my eldest daughter as a Christmas present bought me a Moka Pot Bialetti coffee maker. It is my fishing coffee maker. My younger two as a Fathers Day gift around 15years ago bought me a camping cutlery set and a thermal mug, both of which are still in use.