salokcinnodrog

Maples are the particle I would go back to if I had the time to have a turnover…or the need for mass particle baiting. 
 
@OldBoy not at all. I love a good particle chat. I don’t tend to use them much anymore as I do very short session and mainly fish over boilie only or pellet for ease. I don’t get time to pre-bait nowadays! 

Respect!
Here's another one for you:
I was sat watching the water from my bivvy, and Sky and me saw a van move slowly along the bank to what I call 'second car park'.
A few minutes later my Messenger bleeps, with the message asking if thats me on the far bank followed by: "Thanks pal ill been down in abit mite fish to the right of you if aviable".
JR is dyslexic so I wasn't worried about his spelling, but 'asking' if its ok to set up in the swim to the right. Not that he needed to ask, the nearest swim either side is around 100metres away, but just a little courtesy.
That is the attitude of majority of the anglers on the syndicate.

Not at all. It's a decent topic.

Respect!
Here's another one for you:
I was sat watching the water from my bivvy, and Sky and me saw a van move slowly along the bank to what I call 'second car park'.
A few minutes later my Messenger bleeps, with the message asking if thats me on the far bank followed by: "Thanks pal ill been down in abit mite fish to the right of you if aviable".
JR is dyslexic so I wasn't worried about his spelling, but 'asking' if its ok to set up in the swim to the right. Not that he needed to ask, the nearest swim either side is around 100metres away, but just a little courtesy.
That is the attitude of majority of the anglers on the syndicate.

Another lovely animal!
Funny story about a hedgehog from years ago at Taverham Mills.
It was dark and I had to go for a pony so walked back to the lodge toilet, not bothering to switch my head torch on. As I came back to my swim I heard a crashing and clattering in the bushes. It was so loud I thought someone had fallen over and hurt themselves, rolling in the undergrowth, so I put my head torch on. It was a hedgehog with its head stuck in a sweetcorn tin.
 
I'm especially wary of hedgehogs fishing now, not sure whether Sky is trying to play or eat them, but I have had to remove one from her mouth that had rolled into a ball.
 
 

Makes the hedgehog I had to shoo out one night look pretty tame!

Awesome. I see them a lot, but v rare to get so close!

Sadly the video is too big to post on here, so this is my Facebook link.
Not your standard bivvy invader!
He was carefully picked up and returned to the long grass:
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1DYAgLuaDK/

Fox use 2.5mm Jack plug, Delkim was 3.5mm from memory.

water level well down! 

Not sure about that😂
I'm mid 50's if that qualifies, so yes probably. I've seen the change of carp fishing, or fishing as a whole. 
I don't mind the increase in comfort, a sunlounger that would collapse at the most inopportune moment... 
I do much prefer the modern bedchair, even modern bivvies, but I do feel that the prices have made it ridiculous. I still prefer an umbrella system, although I will admit to having used a few domes, and very nice too; Hutchy Apotheosis, Fox EasyDome 1 and 2.
I think it was Rod Hutchinson and Shakespeare who brought the domes onto the market, Cyprydome and the Apotheosis, quite probably the first switch from the camping market.
I caught up with a research video on YouTube this morning, there are only 2 independent reel manufacturers, (Daiwa and Shimano), every other brand is made pretty much made under the same factory roof, whether Okuma, Sonik, Nash, Penn or whoever. The same reel can be sold under multiple brands and names, and at various prices. 
 
 
 

Good morning all, 
so the last 3wks have flown by in a sleepy haze of sleepless nights, nappies, bottles and sterilising bottles, however yesterday wifey told me it was time to get the rods out! 
Trying to overcome my surprise, after all I hadn’t planned an overnight trip for many months into the future, why the free pass? My wife wanted a practice run of looking after the children alone for when I return to work next week, so I was banished to the lake! well you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth do you?? 
 
luckily, if you saw my “playing with bait” thread, you’ll see that I had a bag of bait tucked away in the freezer, so the gear was dragged from the shed, food and bait loaded and I was off to the Kent boarder to fish a lake I’ve christened “zombie sheep lake” 
I needed to pop into the tackle shop to pick up a few bits and while browsing the shelves, my eye wandered over the racks of bivvies all in a row… 
now my JRC STI 1 man bivvy has finally died a death after far too many years to count, indeed it had been coughing up blood for at least 10yrs and now I’m in my 40s, the thought of doing winter sessions under my trusty oval brolly and storm sides really didn’t appeal! 13yrs of Army service, sleeping under a poncho in a ditch had meant that I was pretty used to kipping in less than favourable conditions, but any fool can be uncomfortable can’t they? 
 
so I ended up going in for a few packs of hooks and pva bags and left with a JRC Defender bivvy… oops 
after a 20min detour to the bailiffs house to pick up a part of my carp porter barrow that I left behind on my last (blank) trip 6wks ago, I got to the lake about 1pm, happy to see that I had it all to myself. 
 
I barrowed my gear round to the point swim, as I can see and cast to a large portion of the lake, where there was a nice gentle breeze drifting in, and set up the gear. I rigged up a pair of Fox Horizon X4S TT 12ft rods with my Fox EOS 12000 Reels spooled with 12lb synchro XT mainline, to a length of Korda leadcore fished helicopter style, hook links being 10” fox cortex soft coated braid, fished to a size 6 ESP Clawhammer hook fished slip D style and a 1” length of shink tube, line-aligner style. Bait was my fishy boilie offering. 
 
breaking out the marker rod, I found a nice silty hump with 7.5ft of water over it, with the surrounding lakebed 9ft deep. It was plenty big enough for the 2 rods that I would be using, although what was obvious was the lack of water, it was at least 2ft down from its usual summer levels. As a result, the lake hadn’t been fishing well, but who cares! I’m out on the bank in the sun and a carp just came out up to the wrist of its tail only feet from my marker float bobbing about. 
 
i catapulted about 100-150 baits over the hump and cast both rods to their respective spots. One on a 7 bait stringer and one in a pva bag. Now obviously, a soft coated hooklinks 10 inches long aren’t ideal for for pva bag use, and I really couldn’t be bothered to faff about trying up soft coated braided links, so snipped off the corner of the large pva bag and threaded the hook link through the hole so the hook link dangled out the bottom. After filling it with 1 & 2mm pellets and crusher boilie, I sealed it all up, then nicked the hook into the bag opposite the lead. It looked a bit noddy, but it was worth a try! 
with the rods out, it was time to get the base camp set up! You can see how low the water it as that gravel shelf is usually under water! 
 
now it was time to break out the new bivvy!! 
I lovingly unpacked it from its bag, laid it all out, fanned out the poles and started clipping it all together, only to find that one of the poles was snapped! Nightmare! Despite all my bodging attempts, this bivvy was knacked, so in an absolute huff, I wrapped the bivvy back up, reeled in the rods and trudged back to the car to chuck the bivvy in and grab the oval brolly, no decadent abode for me tonight! 
returning to the swim, I redid the rods (again!)  and threw up the oval, still muttering to myself about the injustice of it all, a quick brew soon sorted me out though.  
 
the night soon drew in and the carp were getting more active and I retired to the carp cot around midnight confident on some action to christen the X4S rods that haven’t had a decent carp on as yet! 
 
at 1am, the left hand pva bag rod gave a flurry of bleeps, with the dinky esp bobbin tight to the Neville, so I struck and found myself into a plodding weight. After a pretty unspectacular fight, a carp was now nestled in the folds of my landing net. at 23lb, I was buzzing! The dodgy tied pva bag had done the job! 
 
with that working, another found it’s way back out there, and I got back to sleep. At 4am, the same rod absolutely flew, the Neville was screaming as I made my way to the rods, one shoe on one off. This one started beating me up from the get go, and after a spirited battle, a 21lb common hit the net, along with 20 tiny perch. with the pva bag working, I pressed repeat and got it back out there. As the sun was rising, I made another brew and watched the water as the sun came up (proper carpy that) once dawn had arrived, I climbed into the bag to get some kip, although it wasn’t to be, as the pva bag rod dropped slack. Winding down i soon felt the weight and soon had the carp boring down the margins, where it promptly beached itself! I couldn’t get it in the net, so gently guided it into deeper water where it rolled into the net first time. At 26lb, it was an immaculate common! (Check out the realtree MC Hammer pants!)  I redid the rod and had a celebratory cuppa, when 4 day anglers arrived, that was my sign to wrap up and head home, slightly earlier than planned, but I had my share, it was time to let the day guys enjoy this delightful little pool. 
swinging into the tackle shop on the way home, I exchanged the defective bivvy for another one, which is sound, so alls well that ends well. 

I was having the typical bivvy thoughts while fishing and made a major realisation.
In the days of a standard sleeping bag, it would fit onto a standard bedchair, from sunlounger to Lafuma, to original Fox bedchairs.
There were some decent cold weather sleeping bags, manufactured by cold weather sleeping bag specialists.
Tackle manufacturers got involved in the sleeping bag market, sleeping bags with pockets for the bedchair to hold the top and bottom on the chair, so it would not slide off.
Then came the gradual switch to 3 and 4 legged bedchairs and the now universal flat bed, and tackle manufacturers discovered a problem that they had created; with the position of the legs the pocket or flap holding the bedchair was now not suitable. Sleeping bags could rip, get caught up and tear.
Next innovation is the 'sleep system', bedchair and sleeping bag combined. It takes money away from other industries and puts it as a fishing essential.
The 'Realisation' is that this tackle innovation is to solve a problem that tackle manufacturers created for themselves and anglers.
Now having been outside at -12 in a sleeping bag, I would much rather be outside in a sleeping bag created for survival at those temperatures than a tackle manufacturers sleep system. 
Of the bedchairs I have had over the years, from Lafuma and springs, to Fox, Bison, Badger (heavy, but very comfortable) Saber, Chub and Solar, probably the most comfortable was the Bison, not a flatbed like the Chub and Solar.
Not just in bedchairs, but in tackle, rigs and ideas, are we going forward or backwards?
 

Can you share that YT video. That might be interesting to see.
I agree that I prefer the modern bedchair. Thankfully I missed out on the sunlounger heyday.
I've got a Trakker RLX flat 6 and I don't have any problem with the big snooze I've got on it. There's only 1 strap across the centre with a hood both top and bottom and no issues. I've even got one of the big trakker pillows on there with a strap around the head section, again with no issues. I don't think having 6 or 8 legs should cause problems to sleeping bags.
A sleep system may be able to reduce some weight, but I suspect for the biggest manufacturers it's there to turn it into a disposable item. You can't take the bag off to wash it. If the zip breaks, you've got to replace the whole top or complete bed. With a separate bedchair and bag, you can swap out parts as necessary.
As I suggested earlier, I wouldn't be surprised if a less honourable reel manufacturer tried to make it so the reel was sold with line and you couldn't replace it yourself. Anything to lock you in.
Look at the way tech and the car industry has gone. I don't doubt they are much more advanced and have a lot more advanced features, but I don't want a subscription for heated seats/headlight arrays or anything else and please stop snooping on what I'm watching on my TV thank you. That's just creepy!
Of a certain age? I'm in my early 50's. I wouldn't have ever thought that description would apply to me, at least not until I'd retired, but maybe we were brought up in a different world (I first came across the internet and email in 1993 when I started at Uni and the only GUI web browser was NCSA Mosaic running on Sun SPARC computers). I don't want to be beholden to the uber wealthy and tied into subscriptions for everything. It may cost me more initially, but I still buy CDs/Vinyl for music. I then have it for a lifetime. If we just allow it to happen then we'll loose everything we gained over the 20th century. The NHS, social security, extended lifespans etc. We've allowed our politicians to be influenced by those with money too much and that's on all sides.

Guessing you guys must be of a 'certain' age?
Without going on and on about the old days (late 80's and 90's) but remember when an Argus bed chair and blanket were fine, might have said this before on a HorseShoe thread tho!
Anyway, can see the way 'carp fishing' is or has gone now, it's big business for a lot of companies, I am not bothered about the latest super bedchair/bivvie/bait boat/rod/reel/ 
bait etc etc.....
Sadly I feel the pastime I really loved in the past is now for the social media generation, sign of the times I know.
As for me, now given up the use of boilies this season, I am doing purely a particle approach, have had a few and just feels nice to me to do something different for a change 👍

They're trying to create a captive market where you have to go to them.
Look at landing nets. You used to be able to easily get a handle and a net separately. These days about the only people doing a reasonable carp net without handle are NGT. As for handles, they should last a lifetime if you can find a decent one.
Everything is now being integrated For your convenience or to lock you in.
Eventually, I can see a time when reels will come with Line and you can't reload them without specialist equipment or other things like that.
You won't own anything and you'll be happy.
Sorry if I come across a cynical, but it's what's happening in many other industries. Just look at cars. When most people get a new car these days, they're not the purchaser, the pcp provider is, so if anything goes wrong the dealer won't speak to them. Late stage capitalism.

I was having the typical bivvy thoughts while fishing and made a major realisation.
In the days of a standard sleeping bag, it would fit onto a standard bedchair, from sunlounger to Lafuma, to original Fox bedchairs.
There were some decent cold weather sleeping bags, manufactured by cold weather sleeping bag specialists.
Tackle manufacturers got involved in the sleeping bag market, sleeping bags with pockets for the bedchair to hold the top and bottom on the chair, so it would not slide off.
Then came the gradual switch to 3 and 4 legged bedchairs and the now universal flat bed, and tackle manufacturers discovered a problem that they had created; with the position of the legs the pocket or flap holding the bedchair was now not suitable. Sleeping bags could rip, get caught up and tear.
Next innovation is the 'sleep system', bedchair and sleeping bag combined. It takes money away from other industries and puts it as a fishing essential.
The 'Realisation' is that this tackle innovation is to solve a problem that tackle manufacturers created for themselves and anglers.
Now having been outside at -12 in a sleeping bag, I would much rather be outside in a sleeping bag created for survival at those temperatures than a tackle manufacturers sleep system. 
Of the bedchairs I have had over the years, from Lafuma and springs, to Fox, Bison, Badger (heavy, but very comfortable) Saber, Chub and Solar, probably the most comfortable was the Bison, not a flatbed like the Chub and Solar.
Not just in bedchairs, but in tackle, rigs and ideas, are we going forward or backwards?
 

I spotted something odd in the edge at Bluebell and pulled out a Fox Bivvy and later spotted a landing net and handle in the reeds - gave both to my mate which he still uses now.
This was months after a big storm where people obviously lost tackle 😀

I almost always do this nowadays, albeit with a micro ring swivel. Even for chods. Dead easy.

I don't know whether it is amusement or annoyance, but one of the fish in the syndicate has picked up the name of a Darwin Award winner to its name or features.
Last year in June I had a really nice linear at 33lb, part of a 2 fish catch, with an 18lb mirror on an overnight session. Really nice fish, beautiful, and while I enjoyed catching it, returned it unnamed, and put pictures on our FB page.
Going through the captures this year, that Linear has put on 4lb and been given the additional moniker.
One of the grievances I suppose for me is I know how much stroke pulling this person did in the background, yet despite being friends with the fishery manager kept it hidden from him.
No rule breaking as such, but just sneaky...
 

A fair few ways to use rig rings on pop-up rigs:
Tie a rig ring onto the end of the hooklink material and then do  basic knotless knot. You have the pop-up close to the shank and bend of the hook.
 
Again, a knotless knot leaving your tag end, but thread the rig ring, tag end through the eye, and you have a basic D-rig.
 
I frequently slide a rig ring onto the shank, hookbead fixed on the shank opposite the barb to point. That can be used on various rigs; Ronnie's and Spinners, Reverse combi-rigs or plain and basic straight on the hooklink and counterbalance.

During the long blistering hot summer we've endured, I've had more joy with the camera than the rod on some waters! The shot with the rods were on zigs just under the surface and the dragon fly was on that Common for quite a while.

Yes , I guess I have , Yonny you wise old owl  .
I'll start of with a basic plastic screw , and maybe then upgrade to a small rig ring and attach  the pop up with floss  .
😃

If you have seen that with your own eyes, I think you've answered your own question!

Like @InteraX I don't like them.
I would prefer a bit of nylon or bait floss on the D or rig ring as I have found that bait screws can work free and drop the bait, no matter how much a swelled bait is supposed to grip better.
It takes a big plastic one to grip properly!
 
Incidentally, I save cut down used rig materials for that specific reason, to use create a hair or for mounting pop-ups. It doesn't matter whether it is monofilament, coated or uncoated braid. The only thing that doesn't lighter blob nicely is fluorocarbon.