salokcinnodrog

If the bream start, the tench then carp are often a few days behind. I think that was why my fishing was so quiet yesterday, the males shoaling up around the spawn areas instead of moving around the whole lake.

I tried using a Stonze on a small lake on a heli set-up, even over 30-40metres it swung in the air, you could see the direction changes. My larger 3 1/2- 4 1/2 oz Stonze have not even been used. Mike Wilson originally used Glass weights on Savay, he was concerned with the possibility of different metals, the swivel, the lead and hook creating an electrical field that repelled carp. I know he had great difficulties coming up with a glass that did not shatter on impact. I used to get 'rank' multifinish plaster and make weights out of it, always round ones with swivels as I had to work quickly to mould them by hand, but there must be a better way, a better material. I've used plasticine for small ledger weights for carp and chub in snaggy swims, normally rolled around the swivel mainline hooklink join.

Sorry I was a bit sharp, I have a tendency to say/post exactly as I think it. I agree with braid looping up, although I did find once it was wet I could rub mud or putty over it, the whole length, and it would sink. Short braid hooklinks loop up more than longer ones I think, but I tend to use braid in short lengths, normally a maximum 9inches anyway, mostly in PVA bags where I want the rig to be coiled, definitely not straight. I'm not sure about always fishing stiffer material on a helicopter lead set-up, this is where we have differing opinions, but it may be, because I prefer combi-rigs with a mono or fluoro stiff section on gravel, sand or clay, not silt, and always make them with a loop at the end, or use a ring swivel. If I can I prefer running leads with a slack line, however undertow can ruin that idea, so on the big fish water I end up fishing the tight line. This is where our opinions split apart again, as my big fish water has so many different features, from massive gravel bars, to weedbeds and silt patches, and I want the right rig for each as fish spend time on or in all of them. I could also find myself fishing another water over the causeway if the main water is crowded with anglers, hence plenty of rigs.

Loads of fly patterns have been brought into carp fishing. Think of the first, low water Salmon, albeit they did need trimming and soldering, then the B175 for the bent hook rigs. Without bending them I still like the B175 for pop-up rigs, and an extended shank with silicon (not shrink) tubing.

That looks like it should work very well, hope you do well with it. I've been saving my bread crusts recently for floater fishing, and using Bakers Meaty treats on the hook/hair. Good fun to have the bait lowered straight down from the rod tip to catch a carp.

An EU ruling is being planned or being discussed to ban lead weights, along with Simon Pomeroy (?), the boss of Pallatrax and Stonze making his views known in this country As much as I agree with some of what he has said regarding dropping lead weights, it has not helped that he was trying to give his own company an advantage, and Stonze can cast like a bag of spanners. Yes, you can cast them long distances, but you really need high test curve rods to cope with the overlarge size and non aerodynamic shape. @chillfactor and I have discussed this in the past, turning it into a joke with videos of toaster and sandwich maker casting. It has not been helped that manufacturers advocated dropping leads on the take; one certain tackle brand lake owner has or had rules in place that every lead must be dropped! There are alternatives in place, tungsten 'leads', but the cost of turning and shaping tungsten to make weights of identical sizes is prohibitive. I think there are very few tungsten weights around of more than 1ounce, almost every lead above 1.1ounce is made from lead.

Hopefully one day you will catch then. Different feeding situations, different lakes and lakebeds, even angling pressure may mean you need to change your rig(s), from hooklink material to rig length. I wouldn't fish a combi-rig over weed, whereas I would over gravel. In weed I will likely want a braided rig, whereas on gravel I might want a short stiff rig if I am feeding heavily. If all anglers are fishing rigs between 6-8inches, I might well want something longer or shorter.

Floating line, and the line rating 6/7 is what you want. You can confuse yourself as there are double tapers, weight forward, single taper. A single taper is thicker at one end, double taper is thicker in the middle along the length, and weight forward is the 'heavy end' is what you cast. You are probably best to get a double taper, and make sure that the reel has backing behind the flyline

For each 4 eggs put in say 10ml of Halibut Oil, and 20ml of Minamino. That way you don't have to worry about how much liquids to base mix, it comes right automatically

I would only use around 5-10ml of Halibut oil per 4 eggs. What I tend to do when making bait is work in 4 egg batches. Mix the eggs and liquids together, then add basemix until the dough consistency is right to roll. Going through a bait gun you want a softer mix than rolling with a bait table.

You can normally use a line one above or below the rod recommended. For floater fishing an intermediate or floating line, but with a floating hooklink. Hooklink choice, I like Drennan fly fishing hooklink mono, or Berkley XL. A few years ago Richard Gardner when he was regularly posting on here was doing quite a bit of fly fishing for carp, this was the thread he started. https://www.carp.com/topic/20139-richard-gardners-fly-fishing-for-carp/?tab=comments#comment-234942

Welcome to Carp.com. That is very basic, with the nuts will likely break down very quickly as water gets in, and is pretty much just attraction. The halibut oil level is too high. Drop the nuts, add 100g liver powder or fishmeal, maybe 100g Robin red reduce by 100g the semolina and soya flour and you will create a far better bait.

I honestly think that many flavours catch more anglers than fish, however there are some flavours that are genuine attractors or give a definite purpose. I have gone through both flavoured and unflavoured baits; some flavoured baits were not as effective as unflavoured baits, and some good unflavoured baits could be improved by adding a flavour or flavour and essential oil combination. Most of The better flavours to my mind come from natural products, the fruit ester, essential oil or dried and concentrated natural product. There are certain taste enhancers that give a definite edge to baits, Milk B+ was one, Nutrabaits followed this up with the Creamy Super Sweets, Cajoler and the Cajouser range. Sadly since Bill Cottam left I am not sure that things are all the same🙁🙄 I really would like to find it again, but years ago in a Bait * catalogue, I read about benefits of certain essential oils and their uses in the diet, and how they could work in baits. * I am positive it was one of the original Nutrabaits Bait catalogues, but no-one seems to have a copy of that year, or can't find that article, even Ken Townley or Bill Cottam.

As much as single sticks can be better if the swims are soft ground, mud, grass, even bark, some swims simply don't allow themselves to be fished with sticks as my bottom picture shows, and Commonly has said. A number of swims I fish are stagings like the bottom picture, or rock hard gravel on hardcore, so a pod is most definitely needed. You could on stagings resort to stage stands, but getting 4 or even 6 decent stage stands can be more expensive than buying a decent pod. I used to have a Cygnet pod myself, not a goalpost style, I did find them slightly unstable if the ground was not level, whereas the goalpost style was most definitely steadier, even if, as in my first post, the bottom picture, one side is higher as the staging isn't level. Another advantage to that low frame style is you can tie wrap to the chicken wire on the platform, or on the platform, with a cup hook screw to the wood; on softer ground a normal tent peg or two can be used to stabilise the pod to hold it in event of a take. The other thing I do like is a pod that can be used without the pod frame, but with banksticks and buzzer bars as Highy's bottom picture. On softer ground with the sticks level you create a firm stable set-up. Sorry for the photobomber, (😆😖 ) but you can see in this picture how stable 3 rods on those sticks and bars can be. I now own a Solar P1 pod, while it is a brilliant piece of kit, I actually end up having to use a pod almost all of the time, unless I do go to single sticks. Pods do have a disadvantage, getting your rod eye positioned just to the front of the alarm can be awkward. You are stuck as to a 'fixed' maximum length between front and rear bars. I had to put a (bright yellow😖😅 ) tie wrap on the butt of my RH rods to stop the rod sliding forward if the tips are low. On my Century NG's I had ball stops on the butts, which actually meant I did not need rear rod rests. The ball stop went into the thread hole, or with butt rests just behind the rest, so it was easy to prevent rod slip and still pick up the rod.

Currently I have been using single sticks as my rods are often pointed different directions. When I do fish a 2 rod water with my 3 rod pod I put the rods on the outer rests. In fact at times even on 3 rod waters if the swim is tight I might choose to only fish 2 rods.

Posts like this really make my day😀😉 You are welcome, glad we were able to help, now we would just like to see a few smiley photos😉😆

If you need to harden them use glycerine in the bait soak. Something I did long before the Kevin Nash baits was 'wash' my dried boilies in egg, with mixed in Betaine, then roll them in base mix. You could try mixing glycerine in with the egg, then rolling them in base mix. You should get a dissolving outer layer, with a harder inner boilie.

Do you drive? Reason I ask is that I used to go back to my car every day and charge my phone and ipad from my cigarette lighter. In some swims, I was actually been able to drive and park behind the swim.

It took me around 3months to get my pop-ups to sink, constantly replacing/refilling the bait soak. Using Glycerine as much as 50% of the soak they also became rock hard. You could possibly speed it up by the Expander pellet method? Might be worth a try... I do also long term soak bottom baits if I am fishing silty areas, or for quick pick-ups. Even gravel often has a layer of silt on top of it. Thinking back, my pb river carp came on long term soaked bottom baits, and that was only in the water for around 30minutes. I could have been lucky that they were around, but I think that the current took some of the 'flavour' downstream as my mate had seen them swim upstream past him, avoiding a gravel bar that was a usual feeding spot. Something else I do, with both bottom baits and pop-ups is glug and dry, glug and dry baits, but again unless you do it for a long time continuously (*continually(?), they will in case of pop-ups still float.

😆 I'm the owner of the Bialetti coffee maker and stove😉 No-one but me uses my stove. He did get me a present😉 When Andy and Dave stayed over we did go through 5 bottles of red wine, 6 250gram steaks and the trimmings for dinner as well

He's back fishing, we did a few day trips last week

Green lipped mussel is an ingredient at low level, you will only need around 100grams per kilo of base mix, same with yeast and liver. I actually prefer liquid yeast as a bait soak or in my eggs as the liquid content. You could try any of the liquids to see which works best in your bait. Molasses is ok, but does draw in abramis brama if there are any in your waters.

The milk protein I would be using is Rennet Casein which you have marked as 25% milk. From memory that was Jim Gibbinson's original milk. I would drop the quantity to 10-15% and add in Full Fat Soya Flour to take it back to your 100%. I must admit that working in percentage ratios in very easy when it transfers nicely to kilogrammes. The next part is getting your liquids into the bait, with the eggs you use. Based on a 4 egg mix I would suggest around 25ml of Krill protein hydrolysate, 25ml of Corn Steep Liquor liquid. You shouldn't need to add any flavours to it, but a very low level of n-butyric acid is a good additional attractor, beware it stinks of rancid cheese. You should be able to get the liquids from feedstim.com delivered to Italy

There was a thread on NGT tackle here: https://www.carp.com/topic/23709-ngt-tackle-anygood/ When it comes to reels until recently I would have said stick to Shimano, but in the last 4 or so years Shimano quality has gone downhill on a lot of reels. Instead of being built to last they are now built to fail... Some Shimano's are ok, not necessarily the top price range. ESP are good, some Penn's, some Daiwa. I would personally check out any reel thoroughly, build quality etc.

I hum and hah with NGT. I have some of their rod bands, neoprene and velcro. Ok, as with any pull tight stretch rod bands, they have 'mishaped' but still work. Some NGT stuff is bought from the same factories as bigger names, but at cost, cheaper specifications, or bulk purchase. I thought about NGT stage stands, but couldn't convince myself, they just didn't look or feel right, compared to Solar stage stands.