ouchthathurt

Merry Christmas and a happy New year to you all.

Sorry, yeah! The no trace beads! Thanks mate. I agree with the above comments about not dropping the lead on a helicopter set up. I want the weight of the lead to assist with separation of the leader and Hooklink in the event of a crack off.

I've been using leadcore since the late 90s and I am 100% confident that I am using it safely. I don't agree with stupid lengths of the stuff, nor do I agree that a leadcore leader with a leadclip is a safe option either. I only ever use leadcore or any leader material as a helicopter set up. I also use the helisafe beads and a ring swivel with a large bore so it will pass off the leader if required. I always want my leader and Hooklinks to be able to separate in the event of a snap off, which is why I don't agree with leadclips, it may discharge the lead, but the Hooklinks and leadcore leaders are still attached. As for barbless hooks, I never use them. A water I fish at the moment has a leadcore ban, the bailiff told me we do not need leadcore as it's "not even snaggy" eh??? Use leadcore only in heavy snags? Hmmm... Perhaps not. I use leaded tubing at this venue here if needed, although I would rather have my leadcore. Another water banned leadcore, but allows lead free leaders... They don't mind the use of a braided leader, but ban the internal lead wire... Can't work that one out myself, they allow you to drop the lead on the take (in a snag free pond) yet don't want the internal lead wire in leadcore entering the water column!

Hot chocolate all the way... Can't drink alcohol anymore, not a coffee fan and I got sick of constant teas in the Army.

If anyone wants to get behind a military charity, can I suggest SSAFA? After the breakdown of my marriage due to PTSD, and having approached a GP for help and being told that I would have to go on a 6-12 month waiting list for initial assessment (a timeframe doubled by the GP then "forgetting" to do the referral - 6 months waiting for an appt that was not gonna arrive) I was found by my parents and brought back to Sussex. They asked H4H for help twice but I was never seen by them. In desperation, (as I was a total mess, been hospitalised twice with pancreatitis due to self medicating with Stella and vodka - been tee total since 2016 - and having had my father find me removing my tow rope form the boot of my car - ideal noose after all) they contacted SSAFA or the soldiers sailors air force association. They spoke to a SSAFA rep who interviewed me the following day, (he was ex parachute regt) he immediately realised I was a danger to myself and referred me to a clinical psychologist privately of which they paid the fees, the day after the referral was sent, (a sunday) the rep collected me from my parents house and drove me to see the psychologist at her own home. I was formally diagnosed with severe untreated PTSD and referred for immediate treatment. I started counselling on the Tuesday. It took a while, but I got there. I even returned to the ambulance service, something I couldn't have done prior to SSAFA's intervention. On the last day of my treatment, the counsellor told me that it was "the first day of the new life" I left, drove to Wales to collect my boys, returned to Sussex and took my boys to a local holiday park 15mins from my house (nothing too taxing - got an awesome carp lake!!) walked into the restaurant and got chatting to a very attractive blonde girl, (terrified she would tell me to get lost - but as a test of confidence it was pretty scary!) After 3yrs and 3 months together the same blonde and I will be getting married next year... There is light at the end of the tunnel. Seeing my son catch his first fish, teaching my other son how to ride a bike, my youngest son catching a PB 28lb+ mirror... A thousand little things that I could have missed had SSAFA not stepped in, along with family friends children and my partner, I thought I was pretty strong, being a blood splattered war fighting medic, but my reluctance to ask for help nearly cost me everything. The fight in getting better was tough, but screw it, don't let the bad uns win! I mean, miss this? No way!

I'm sorry to hear of your losses gents, you have my condolences and best wishes. I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2015 after 13yrs army service and working on the ambulances. I've been on this forum for many years and always like to keep an eye on it, as for posting replies, I get that, I worry about negative reactions to things I post, a hang up of the PTSD I suppose, but I have yet to really see any negative feedback. Yes you may get disagreements, or questions about any points I've raised, but nothing more than healthy debate, respectfully said. No one knows everything, my interpretation of a chosen subject may be totally different to another's interpretation, based on our respective viewpoints and experience, but stimulating debate is good for us all! welcome to the forum mate and get stuck in!

Fair point! Lol! From what I gather, worms are particularly good at releasing free amino acids into the water column, chopped worm especially - although when you cut a worm it's hardly pumping fluid out everywhere is it? While it can be tricky to prove that these additions can be of use, indeed the argument for amino acid use in boiled baits has been going on in bait making circles for ages, some believe that the amino acids help the bait break down protein within the bait making the bait appear more digestible, carp require certain amino acids to aid digestion that they source from their food, so including these in your bait should make it more attractive. Whereas others argue that the boiling process denatures the amino acids, making them worthless. Different amino acids require different temperature ranges to work, so the chances of these conditions being met are slim, it doesn't make it easy to know what to do! I add calcium in my baits pre-spawning as calcium is needed in spawn formation, I use salt for the reasons in regards to osmosis I've already stated. I use a bait I've formulated over 15yrs that I'm convinced gives me an edge over other anglers. Yet on my current water, a lad matched my catch rate one session using readymades. I fished for an upper 30 common for years using my own baits yet caught her at 37+ on maggots. I caught my 42+ pb on a readymade pop up and a fluke cast I chucked into no man's land the first night on the lake. I still make and use my own bait with added nutrients, amino acids, salt etc as I believe they make a difference. I have seen better results in doing so but is it the bait? Or is it the case of confidence breeding success which leads to further success? As I trust my bait 100%, is it the cause of any captures or is it that I can fish better not worrying about the bait and concentrate on location and other variables? I believe that my bait is attractive, they eat it and I hope and think it's providing the carp with a good spread of protein, nutrients, vitamins, minerals, fats etc so it will be hopefully doing them some good. In the way that other animals (and humans) subconsciously crave and seek out foods containing elements the body is missing, carp will instinctively know that a food source has elements it needs and can't find in nature as easily as presented nicely in a little round package. If a carp finds a nice bed of mixed foodstuffs, it will eat it of its hungry enough, these different baits eaten together may even provide a mix of all the different nutrients that it's looking for, but I believe the reason why a good nutritional bait works so well, long term is because it has a good spread of all the required nutrients, whereas something like a readymade is like a sweet - nice smell, lovely taste, could eat a bag or a handful, but you would soon want a nice decent meal with meat veg and spuds. (Protein, vitamins, minerals, fats, carbs and fibre) I concede your point that it's speculation, if grounded in scientific research and theory, the carp won't let on, but it's certainly food for thought (excuse the poor pun) and if it gets people thinking then we all can learn from everyone else.

I'm afraid it's a little of both... A worm omelette was once knocked up by an oppo on an escape and evasion course... I can't be sure where the eggs came from (to this day I pray from a duck...) It was pretty minging just muddy eggy mush. I decided against finishing that particular delicacy! when this dude sharpened a stick to try spear a frog I thought he had gone a bit native, it was almost a relief getting captured by the infantry lads, even if I got to wear a fetching sandbag and be ridiculed about the size of my manhood (to be fair it was freezing!) and stand spread eagled up against a wall for a while. Come to think about it, I'm not sure if the Hunter force were infantry or the local BDSM club!! They seem to have similar practices (so ive, ahem, heard!)

You haven't lived until you've had a worm omlette...

Rock salt (any salt) is a good attractor as all fish need to replace salts lost through osmosis. Carp are always losing vital salts required for metabolism and isotonic balance (like humans that require approx 1.2-3g of salt a day to replace what we lose) as the salt is absorbed into the carps surrounding environment. If you have two fluids, like in the case of a carp, the surrounding water and their blood stream the two fluids will always try to balance out (trying to simplify this!) So a fluid with higher salt concentration like the carps blood will lose salt to the surrounding water. This is why saltwater eels change and look different to freshwater eels, they are the same fish, but when entering salt water, their skin thickens, the slime thickens and other changes happen to minimise this osmosis - balancing - otherwise the high concentration of salt in the sea would travel over into the bloodstream and cause excessive salt build up in the eels bloodstream leading to organ failure and death. The carp will find salt attractive as it's an essential ingredient in their basic mineral needs for health yet it's a tricky element to find in their natural environment for the most part. amino acids are an essential ingredient required to break down protein chains to make them digestible. Worms are said to be high in amino acids. Carp are thought to be able to detect these acids in tiny concentrations, it's a fascinating subject, but only the carp really know, and not one carp will talk - even under torture! They enjoy waterboarding for some reason... The use of compost or soil as a groundbait has potential, after all soil is a recognised groundbait for perch - one handful of soil holds a high number of organisms etc than the population of the UK - soil is a living entity. Even the clouding or darkening of the water (if clear) will act as an attraction as carp may believe it's caused by other feeding fish and investigate. It's a new smell, something different, the curiosity factor may be of bigger benefit than any Ph change. I'm not sure you would be able to affect a noticeable difference in PH as it would soon be absorbed into the water column. It might need a large amount of soil to make a difference? I don't know, whether the acid and alkali would just mix so the difference is negligible... Yet carp can supposedly detect minute changes and particles so the negligent change of PH in an area may be all you need...

These are the rolling guns I've been using, they last for ages! I'm about to replace the one I have as it's finally worn out. I knock up several kilos on a weekly basis, I always keep a Kg or two in the freezer so I've got bait if a chance for a bankside visit appears, plus I try keep a Kg or two going into the lake on a weekly basis, even if I'm not fishing, just to keep the carp interested in my bait and eating it risk free. I use a small gardener rolling table, i find that if I have a little measuring guide, then I just gun out all the mix into sausages that are cut to the right length using my measuring guide, then I place two sausages in the rolling table with a large enough gap between them so they don't get mashed together through the rolling action. Give them a quick going over with the table, tip them out into an old plastic Tupperware box then another two sausages etc etc until all my pre prepared sausages are used up. then refill the gun, measure out and cut the sausages and repeat. Doing it this way, rather than measuring out the sausage, then rolling, then measuring out another sausage then rolling... Etc was usually quicker. Either way, the rolling table is much faster than the old method of rolling each individual boilie by hand!!

Well done fella, nice result!

It was an old accepted method of making bait, rolling them as normal, then placing them in a paper bag and air drying them in the airing cupboard until they go hard. I tried it, but to be honest, I didn't see much difference between them and boiled baits. I used to put them on cocktail sticks before putting them in the airing cupboard so when they were ready, i would pull the cocktail stick out and be left with a hole through the middle for the hair. I found that all I was doing was dehydrating the baits, so once in the lake, they re-adsorbed the lake water and softened up - there's a thought, a bait with the appearance of a washed out boilie! other ways I tried was to increase the egg albumin levels and boil for 30secs just to skin them, (experimentation is necessary dependant on base mix) so the middle of the bait was still a paste. or put the baits in a steamer to skin them, this can produce the skinned paste effect that may suit your needs.

If looking for a high attract fruity pop up, then I use main line Polaris pop up mix, bit of egg albumin (egg white powder from a supermarket baking isle) a red bait dye (in small quantities to give me a pale pink colour) premier peach flavour. To be honest, as I use the same base mix and attractor/flavour/additives combination when rolling my own bait all year round, I tend to just stick with that, making up a one egg mix of my usual base mix, adding egg albumin and wrapping the paste around a cork ball. I personally don't see the need to swap over to a high attract pop up in the colder months. I've fed the carp all year on my usual bait recipe, so why change? It's an accepted food source and they will pick it up if they find it in winter. Last winter, I continued to fish over large beds of boilies just as I did through late summer and autumn, as they just kept eating it. I'm sure that because the food source was available, even when the lake was half frozen, the carp were still active and cleaning up beds of bait. The energy source was there, so they were able to expend energy to feed. The amount of bait a carp can consume in a single sitting is linked directly to the dissolved oxygen levels in the water, like all animals, we need an increase of oxygenated blood to our digestive system when eating, a carp as we know, gets its O2 from the surrounding water, in winter, the lakes often have a much higher level of oxygen, dissolved into the water, often to the point of oxygen saturation, as opposed to summer, when the warmer temperature causes O2 to escape the water into the surrounding air. So winter carp can consume a reasonable amount of bait in the winter. Of course, being cold blooded will slow them up, but if they can find a constant food source, then provided they can replenish lost energy with a decent bait, they are more likely to remain active. I've seen it enough times, it gets cold, less anglers are out, less bait goes in, the carp can't find the energy source to sustain their current level of activity so they slow down to conserve what energy they do have, they move less, therefore using less energy, therefore don't need to feed as often. I have seen this technique work better on smaller waters where they are more likely to come across my baiting, then larger venues, but it's worth considering.

I've been using the aminos basemixes for longer than I can care to remember, I used to buy robin red separately and add it myself, then Tony pointed out that I could just buy aminos RR with the red already added... Hmmmm... Felt a bit silly at that point! Spending more money to make a base they already sold! Just knocked up another load of bait this afternoon, aminos RR, with their awesome salmon oil and cream stimulant additive, plus a few extra bits and bobs, betaine, shellfish sense appeals, smoked ham flavour, egg albumin, and salt. With a dash of red dye to really make the bait a nice bold red. I use the same bait all year round and it keeps catching wherever I take it, what more could you ask? I do sometimes think I should update it, but then again, why? It's been going into my venues for years, the catches haven't dropped off and when I feed them, they will demolish it, so why fix what isn't broken?

Thought of the day? I didn't seem to notice a summer this year...

I often use larger leads than the "accepted" norm - for instance, at the moment I'm using 3.5-4oz leads routinely. I have chosen the lead size to suit the angling situation that I'm in. my last water was tiny, approx an acre, a lovely dinky estate type lake, with a good head of carp to 35lb where the angling was up close and personal. A lead on their head was the kids of death. So I would often use leads of 2.5oz. These were flicked into the margins or lowered under the rod tips. I wanted a lead with enough mass to ensure the hook set properly on bolting, yet minimise disturbance when casting. However I did find towards the end that the carp were used to dealing with leads in the standard 2-3oz range and were often getting away with it. So I went up to the larger 3.5-4oz range but flicking them into the bankside foilage above the spot and lower them in by hand. That upped my catch rate as they weren't used to seeing those leads or dealing with them. Another little trick I used to do was when the carp were stacked up in the narrows (the lake was triangular in shape) they would be in the narrow bay in numbers, the narrows were covered by 2swims that didn't really produce, even if the carp were in the narrows as the water was shallow and placing a bait in the narrows just spooked them out into the main body every time. I would fish the swims to the mouth of the narrows, placing baits quietly along the patrol routes they used to travel in and out of the narrows, then purposefully cast a bare lead into the narrows which made the carp drift off out of the narrows, along their patrol routes and over my baits... Caught every time! My current water is a largish deep windswept pit that suffers from undertow dependant on wind strength. I find the bigger leads help me feel for a drop in the deep water, as well as in the wind and undertow - as well as being larger, it's easier to keep a direct line to the lead without moving the lead or allowing the undertow to pull the lead off the spot.

I've been using premier baits for nearly 20yrs, I've never seen the need to change. I use them for all my basemixes, oils, additives etc. I use a different flavour company though, purely as premier don't do the flavour that I have been using for the last 14yrs for my baits. I roll all my own baits and pop ups, and have nothing but praise for Tony and the guys at premier.

I've used maggots quite a bit last winter and had a cracking few sessions on them. I found that it was best to split them into smaller quantities as a lot of maggots all wriggling together creates warmth that caused sweating. Keeping those that were not for immediate use in airtight bags with the air squeezed out put them into suspended animation and keeping them in a cool bag allowed them to be stored for a week session quite comfortably. When exposed to air, they soon woke up again. To be honest, I always had better success using a small pva bag of maggots and a magaligner rig rather than spombing the granny out of it. Most pva bags will take several handfuls of maggots easily which when placed on known feeding areas, produced bites far more regularly than a huge carpet of germs. Usually, for a 2night session 2-3pints were ample. I had carp to 37lb+ on pva bagged maggots and a magaligner/medusa rig arrangement.

Couldn't put it better myself mate. Pitting our wits and experience against a living creature that is capable of its own process of thought and learning by association. This sport never stands still after all. I've moved onto a new venue, several rivers and drainage dykes all meeting at an EA pumping station, and it's like starting from scratch, the buzz of walking the river banks, wondering where the hell to start is awesome.

Well experience comes from trial and error, I have rigs that i am happy with, I reached this conclusion as a result of going through the trial and error phase in my formative years as a new carper years ago. Simple thing was there wasn't really anything in the way of dedicated carp mags that were available when I was trialling things, I remember early issues of carpworld coming out and devouring those, but other than that, if I wanted to indulge in rig information, it was reading books or talking to other anglers on the bank. I used to have junior anglers who would ask me to teach them rig tying, and why not? I learned how to tie a hair rig from an older carper who showed me on the bank. I also get confidence from choosing the correct venue, I have two club books that I fish. One lake fishes better in the summer when the other is choked with weed, yet in the winter when the first pit dies a death and the carp seem to vanish off the face of the earth, the second pit is now far less weedier and the fishing is coming into its own. It fishes well right through the winter and into spring. Knowing where to target and when is also key to catching regularly.

My next river target!

Confidence is a funny thing really, and I have found that the more you learn the more things appear that can eat into your confidence... If I could give an example of what I mean... when I first started carp fishing in the mid 90s, I used to fish a local water and go down with a couple of mismatched fibreglass carp rods and a couple of scrappy mismatched reels, precariously balanced on a couple of bent and wobbly wire rod rests with hair grips pushed into painted corks for bobbins. Hooklinks were whatever the reel line was, terminal tackle was a few random bombs, swivels, beads from my sea tackle box and hooks being drennan super specialist hooks. All arranged in a running rig. Bait was flour, water and vanilla food flavouring mixed together and baked in the oven! I would bury a hook in this baked "thing" and toss it out into the pond. In my happy "ignorance" I sat in supreme confidence and caught my share of carp. roll on the times and I still go to this pond of my youth, with my youngest son carp fishing, so do I set him up with baked dough on hairless hooks and mono running rigs? No! He uses tubing, lead clips, coated braid and boilies... Why not the dough balls? Because I wouldn't be confident in catching, yet logically there's no reason why it wouldn't work. I used to use a primitive zig arrangement using bread crust - popped up 2-3ft from the bottom and caught lots of carp, yet now my confidence in zigs is zero. Why is this? Simple, my fishing hasn't used zigs for years and as such, I am not experienced in their use. When I've chucked a zig out on a slow day, it's not produced - damaging my confidence in it, yet in reality it was the angling situation or the angler at fault, not the method. yet my confidence comes from my experience, I've fished some difficult waters over the years, lakes, rivers, canals, ponds, inland seas (all UK waters) and can now happily sit on a difficult water waiting for weeks for a bite, knowing it is part and parcel of this type of water. I have developed a bait over very many years, using the same base mix since 1996 with the same flavouring, additives, etc. I make my own baits, and now I have so much confidence in my bait, it's not a consideration for me. It works, it's never let me down, it catches and has lasted the test of time. What more do I want? Rigs are the same, I use the same basic rigs, tweaking them to suit the situation, I don't look at the mags, don't get hooked up on the latest wonder rigs, I just use what has worked for me, so it's another thing I don't need to worry about. I have rigs to go to if need be, but why complicate things needlessly? For me, it's cutting down the variables. If I know my baits and rigs are going to work, then I don't need to worry about them. I can therefore put those considerations to one side knowing they will work, so I can concentrate on location and the task in hand of looking and locating carp. Once that is cracked, I can plan the way to fish the swim, knowing my baits and rigs will do the business. If I'm trotting up a string of blanks, then I can cast my mind back over years of success using the baits and rigs, so I know that they work, rather than having the latest bait or wonder rig on the end that I've only used for 5mins, which will eat away at me, is it the bait? Is it the rig? Is it just that I'm fishing a water that only does a few bites a month to a syndicate of a dozen carpers and I need to keep the effort up to get a result? Confidence for me is making my own baits, using rigs that I know works and working on the most important aspect in my mind... Find the fish in the first place!

Fair enough mate, I've been using premier aminos for 20yrs now, used to add robin red myself, now just order premier aminos RR base mix off the premier website. I've got complete and absolute confidence in it. It costs £55 per 15kg (£67 with VAT + postage) and will last you months if you only make bait once a week. Buying in bulk may be cheaper pal.

It is the bad times that make the good times good mate!