ouchthathurt

Welcome buddy

Welcome buddy

Takes all sorts Elmo!

One of my waters fishes it’s nuts off when the water flows over the banks. I might have to pop down early doors Sunday!

That’s was my mate! I posted that ages ago. His username was Lizardking on here going back years ago now, 2003-4. He did indeed jack it in and become a fluff chucker

Welcome to the forum pal

Welcome to the forum buddy and enjoy your retirement!

Funnily enough, I’ve started using solid bags again on a new days only water I’m playing around on. I’ve been using the fox system which works really well, can make lovely tight bags. I tied up a load with home made Polaris pop ups flavoured with a slight dash of cherry flavour and then soaked in different goos, one batch being orange goo and one in the red factor (I think it’s called) goo both bright coloured and smell lovely and fruity. One thing I noticed when leaving the pop ups in the ready made bags was that sitting in the pellet mix, the baits became dehydrated and shrank ever so slightly, which affected their buoyancy and as I was lassoing them on with floss, they would fall off! Hair rigging them solved this problem as well as over weighting the pop up to take in the effect of the dehydration of the baits. I never worried about the baits going off, when I had left over bait - I make all my own baits at home - I never refreeze baits - I used to either use them to prebait before heading for home, or I’d chuck them in a bucket of pellet. They would dry out, become rock hard but not go off. Then they would end up in my spod mix next session. ive found that if I make the bags up on the morning of the session, rigging and balancing each pop up before dropping the entire rig in some groundbait to dry it off, before making up the bags, they would be fine for a day or so but leaving them in the air tight bait bucket for a week or more, the pellet would dehydrate the pop up - not an issue per say if you overweight them, but then they will take in water once submerged, making them heavier which could lead to them being too overweighted, if that makes sense! if you’re planning on using a bottom bait, then this wouldn’t be a problem, the boilie would just dehydrate, shrink and harden off on the hair of left for a while in a pretied bag of pellet, which wouldn’t bother me unduly. Or you could tie up a load with a couple of drilled out larger pellets as hookbaits? Or a single 21mm halibut pellet? They won’t be effected sitting in a pva bag of pellets for ages! Obviously, drilled pellets won’t last long as a hookbait though, I’d only give them 30-40mins initially until I could get a bead on how quickly they were softening up and dissolving. When pellet fishing with pellet hookbaits years ago, (mid 90s) I’d take a jam jar, fill it with lake water, then bait a spare rig with pellet hookbaits, then drop it in the jar as I cast out, then when they softened up, I’d reel in and rebait! - very few pellet pecking roach in my jam jar though, so probably not very accurate!

Welcome buddy

Welcome buddy

Welcome to the forum buddy 👍

I never caught it unfortunately!

Cracking report mate, I’m glad to hear you had a great trip, the 40s can wait til next time! 👍

Well done for finally seeing the light! 😁 welcome to the forum mate and good luck on your hunt for your first carp.

I’ve been thinking about this bait splitting issue while rolling my own baits this morning, as a thought, have you tried rolling the paste around an existing “normal” sized bottom bait boilie to make them the size you want then boil them for 20-30secs (might need to play with this a bit) to just skin the paste? I’ve just made a batch of boilies, I made the mix too dry and it was a [censored] to roll! The addition of robin red and the use of fos-oil (as opposed to my usual salmon oil) seems to have made the mix greasier which doesn’t help! The fos-oil is a new addition, so I’ll switch back to salmon oil next time as I don’t get these issues.

I’ve done it a few times mate, sometimes the lakes all stitched up and the only places left you wouldn’t want to sling a rig in, good judgement sometimes means you leave it for another day pal. I’ve found that if I end up in an unfancied swim, not been happy with it, not done a carp in millennia, I’ve not felt confident, not fished to my best and blanked… I suppose I’ve defeated myself before I’ve started, fished like a Wally, expecting to blank - then do so, thus proving to myself it’s a waste of space swim in the first place… a self fulfilling prophesy you might say!

Full back sack and crack for a mankini mate! 😳

CT1 is good stuff, I used it to bond a pond liner inside a metal tank. Sticks like you know what to a blanket

They all count!

Great, thanks mate! I’ll give him a shout when I next need to replace my basemix supplies. The “regular” matrix is doing the business anyway, I could always add the RR separately if I felt I need it, but I’ve not noticed a difference in catch rates between the matrix and matrix RR. I firmly believe that a high quality basemix, fished well will always do the business. They get better the more you use them, Ive been feeding about 2-3kg every weekend (with the odd one missed) using about 1.5kg over 3 rods (including hookbaits and stringers) then depositing the rest in other known carpy haunts as I leave. it’s a small venue with very little in the way of nuisance fish (lots of little perch and a few big eels) with a respectable head of commons to 31lb, I can practically cast into every corner of the lake from the mid point swim, so ladling in 10kg every trip would be counterproductive I think.

Smallest fish in the lake!

Zombie sheep back to haunt me! managed to catch one though (carp not sheep - they’re too fast! 😳)

in fact I’m at zombie sheep lake right now! 😁😁

On the first night I ever fished it, never seen the place before, just took a punt on the ticket as it was cheap, £40 a year. it was a wild and windy night and I really wasn’t feeling it, the place was full of sheep, being located slap bang in the middle of a sheep farm. As it was getting dark, I saw a white mass floating in and coming to rest under the rod tips, sticking a torch on it, I saw it was a dead sheep! I retired to my carp cot in disgust, at dawn I was going home! Next morning I woke up and remembered the dead sheep, rolled over to face the lake and as I opened my eyes, there was a loud “baaaaa!” and there was a sheep staring at me through the bivvy door. I nearly jumped through the roof. The dead sheep had gone so I naturally assumed the sheep in the bivvy door must have been a zombie sheep come back from the dead… I didn’t return for 8 months then fell in love with the place, I call it that as it’s a small venue which is ignored by the majority, so I don’t reveal the real name of the place so it’s called zombie sheep lake!

Congratulations on the pb mate, lovely fish 👍