ouchthathurt

In John Wilson’s carp fishing guide, (available on kindle) he describes F1’s as being a cross between crucians and king carp, the end result apparently produces a fully scaled fish with smaller barbules and a deeper body shape. They are also resistant to KHV and feed all year round.

My waders are extremely well hidden... there’s a wading ban on my water!!

We all have our own preferences mate, I love my fox torque rods and EOS 12000 reels, I can’t fault them, yesterday I managed to accidentally stick a 3oz on the far bank at 115yrds - I was looking at putting it at 90yrds but overcooked it somewhat!! Yet I’m not a fan of the fox alarms... except the micron minis, it’s purely a looks thing, I don’t like their shape!! As for the Exocet braid... I really couldn’t comment... I’ve never used it! I tend to buy braid that’s not “carpified” as it’s cheaper! I’ve got some nondescript black braid in 40lb on both spod and marker rod and it is pretty bulletproof, even if the black dye comes out all over my fingers when it’s wet 🙄RM gear I’ve not used, so no comment. Nash stuff, I’ve got one of their pods which is pretty good, their fang hooks are decent, Korda - I love their leadcore, especially the gravel one... I’m not so much a slave to a particular brand, I just buy what I need from whatever stable offers it, then I continue with whatever brand offers the best version of that product that suits my need best. I guess we are all like that really.

Of course they will need spraying them a nice carpy green/black...

I use fox torques and did think about corking the handles, you can buy DIY kits online where you slide the individual cork rings on and then sand them down.

Well the EOS 12000 from your favourite makers of fine quality Exocet braid 😁 are a brilliant reel, I’ve got a set and they are the best reels I’ve ever used. Otherwise I doubt there will be much in the way of differences with the sea model you’ve posted above, is the retrieve rate the same etc? They may be more resistant to salt corrosion and designed to cope with the harsher conditions of beach casting, but so long as the drag etc is still smooth and positive, they should be ok. I used to use Shakespeare and Ryobi “beach reels” for carping as they were generally cheaper! They did the job ok.

Some brilliant flavours there, I’d forgotten the maplecreme, secret agent and plum royale! 3 flavours I had real confidence in years ago. The zing flavours I’ve read a lot about and heard how good they were but I never had the chance to use them myself. I had to go to richworth then nutrabaits to get a ham flavour I was happy with, the premier one was ace, but All of these ham flavours are discontinued now. I managed to get a bottle from nutrabaits in their discontinued line.

I still have a bottle of richworth blue cheese flavour that dates back to 1997... it’s like old smelly feet! ive made baits without any flavours at all and have had results on it, I think the smells and tastes inherent in the base mixes and oils etc are strong enough for a carps taste or “smell” receptors to detect. Although an addition of flavour made me more confident. I usually cut the dosages of the flavour right down though these days, the recommended dosage of my current flavour is up to 5ml per 6 eggs, I use between 1.5-2ml per 6 eggs (dependant on egg size)

I used to drive my local tackle dealer mad by opening and smelling everything! “Matt! You’ve opened that damn monster crab again!!” god bless you Al! He’s still going strong after 25+yrs

BFM Cranberry richworth blue cheese hutchies monster crab honey Yukatan mulberry florentine nouvelle fizz shellfish B5 Premier aminos/peach melba premier smoked ham richworth boiled ham solar squid and octopus Nash monster pursuit Nash tangee-squid richworth tutti fruitti richworth strawberry jam hutchies mixed herbs bergamot oil pukka salmon Nash whiskey carp company fruit frenzy What baits can you remember from days gone by?

That was a brilliant bait! that’s what I miss about my local tackle shops, back in the day when everyone was making their own baits. Walking in and seeing all the different base mixes, additives, powders and flavours. The smells, opening bottles and trying to find “the one” that would do the job. My tackle shop used to have shelves of different bait ingredients, now there’s nothing. It’s not the same!

Essential baits shellfish B5? Mike Willmot?

Won’t go far wrong with BFM/cranberry - it’s a classic bait that’s stood the test of time

My waders are a good size larger then my shoe size, I tend to wear a pair of thin cotton socks under thick woollen socks and wanted the extra space. I like my waders to be a bit spacious so I can get them on and off quickly and easily.

I suppose it all comes down to what you find more aesthetically pleasing mate, I used to love cork handles, but I’ve swayed towards minimalistic duplon grips.

Very true mate, if we held a poll now about the best bait manufacturers right now, I’m sure that every major bait manufacturer would pop up. It’s all personal confidence, I have used premier base mixes religiously for years as when I was first getting into bait making, premier baits far out fished the mainline basemixes I was using. So I’ve used premier since then and I’ve caught so many on it that I wouldn’t dream of using anything else. This is not to say that mainline baits aren’t as good, their phenomenal success shows just how good a bait they are, my initial failings were probably down to my ineptitude at initial bait making! But regardless, as a result of my own experience, I rate premier over other baits, yet ironically, my pb 42lb common was caught on a mainline red plum pop up after I found myself without my usual homemade baits... go figure! I caught a target 37lb+ common after 4yrs of applying the bait to the water on maggots! (I had left the bait in the freezer at home by mistake.) The important thing is to find a bait that you’re confident in using - see what the going bait is on your water, ask locals, your tackle dealer etc, or as Elmo quite rightly says, talk to the bait manufacturers to see what they suggest. But once you’ve got a bait going, you catch on it, you build your confidence up and that part of the carp fishing jigsaw is solved to an extent. It’s all a learning process mate, but I try to simplify things to 3 main aspects. Bait, rigs/tactics and location. Walking onto a water wondering if your bait will work, will the rigs work, are you fishing in the right place... well if I’m worried about all of that, I can’t fish effectively. But I’m in the fortunate position where I can walk onto a water and I am confident - through years of experience that my bait will work, I know through the same experiences that my rigs will do their intended function, so I can put those aspects to one side and concentrate solely on location and the correct tactic for the given situation. I also look it as a campaign as opposed to lots of individual day sessions/overnighters. One or two blanks, especially at the beginning of the “campaign” doesn’t dent my confidence in baits or rigs as I know they have worked before, I just haven’t unlocked the key to that particular venue. If I need to tweak things then I look at other variables. If I’m blanking repeatedly, yet everyone else around me was hauling, then I would have to take note and take stock, when I fished hamworthy lake in 2002, I found that I was stringing blanks together when others were catching - I had my location all wrong, carp were in my swim, but my tactics were wrong. (I fished the margins a lot when a lot of fish came to pva bags in open water, changing to pva bags in open water and I started catching too) nowadays, if I’m not catching, I am confident that it’s not the bait, it’s probably down to me!

I make all my own bait mate, have done always, I’m still using the same fishmeal/robin red basemix, with shellfish sense appeals, salmon oil, betaine, same flavours and additives (with a few slight tweaks as the availability of ingredients have changed over the years - richworth flavour exchanged for same flavour but from nutrabaits stable as richworth became unavailable etc) I first developed this mix nigh on 20yrs ago and have stuck with it ever since, it’s worked everywhere I’ve taken it, I’ve got such supreme confidence in it, I don’t even think about bait when arriving at a venue, just concentrate fully on location and tactics suitable for the venue/swim choice/prevailing conditions etc knowing the bait, fished properly will do the the business. I have a small collection of fruity or meaty hi-vis pop ups if needed, and I roll my own cork ball pop ups that are identical to the bottom bait basemix, I just add more egg albumin to harden the mix up and air dry them in the airing cupboard for a few days to get them rock solid, then they last for ages. I only make up 30 odd pop ups at a time, enough to last 2-3 months. I’m so confident in my bait it doesn’t cross my mind that it won’t work, if I blank, it’s because I didn’t read the situation correctly or they just weren’t having it, not the bait. Keeps things simple for me.

I would usually go for a strongly flavoured pop up this time of year, mine are a washed out orange/pink colour, (not sure how they turned out like that, white Polaris basemix with robin red, Scottish salmon oil, frankfurter flavour and fluro pink dye and they came out orange/pink!) although my last session last week, all the bites were on fish meal/robin red bottom baits fished over 2/3kg of freebies. Fishing high flavoured fluro pop ups in isolation didn’t do a bite!

It was 4c when I walked the dog this morning, it’s around 8c at the moment but the sunshine is glorious! I’ve got another day session booked in for Friday, I’m hoping that now they’ve been moving around a lot more the last week or two, they continue to do so. I try not to look at the long range forecast too much, it just depresses me!

The clue is in the name really, chod stands for “cr**py horrible old detritus” according to Rob Maylin!

They appear to be crucians or crosses of some sort, I’d say goldfish/crucian crosses. The heads and body shapes are slightly off for true crucians, but they readily interbreed with goldfish. Difficult to say though, do they have barbules?

The basic set up of the chod/heli system or set up is the same mate, the “chod” aspect is the actual hooklink mate. It’s very short, used with a pop up. Check out some YouTube videos pal, they will make things a lot clearer. I use helicopter rigs almost exclusively, if fishing in weed, I just push the top bead up the leader to about 6-8” to allow the hooklink to slide up the leader which allows the hooklink to rest on the weed. Best thing is to work out what the bottom is made up of, if it’s weedy, try find a clear spot then use nice simple rigs. No need to over complicate things mate, especially if you’re just finding your feet. Simple rigs are the way forward, location of the fishes feeding areas is the most important, choose a decent bait that you have confidence in and stick to it, use pva bags if you have confidence in them as they can present well over many different bottoms, except thick weed in my experience. There’s lots of knowledgeable anglers on here, (I’ve been carping since 1993) and we will all try help you out!

Are you using it naked (I.E. running on the mainline) or tubing or a leader materiel (like leadcore)

Have you thought about getting a small castable weed rake and giving that a few drags on your chosen spots mate? That will tell you what the weed/bottom is like, or the fox grapnel marker leads would do.

Easier said than done! Lol! After bite is good, I tend to use piriton (chloremphenamine) if the topical stuff doesn’t calm it, it’s an antihistamine that can make you drowsy though at times.