ouchthathurt

I’ve had sonik rods 12ft admittedly and I had the butt eye inserts drop out on 2, I’m using fox torque 12ft rods now and they are bulletproof, can’t fault the build quality at all. I did turn a 12ft into a 10ft by accident… I stood on the tip!

I just ordered my basemix from premier baits and the price remained the same. It was a month ago mind, I’m pretty sure I used to be able to get an Robin Red version of my base, but it wasn’t in the range this time round. (Unless I imagined it!)

Good luck mate

Woke up this morning on my new target for the year to find the carp fairy had visited in the night, I found a deeper and a spod bobbing about in the margins… the lad opposite had cast out both and snapped the braid! Both were returned to their rightful owner after his mate came round to collect them. 🙄

If using backleads, I tend to go for the lightest flying backleads I can get away with

here you go mate, for Felixstowe

Few to tempt you with nick 😉

The magical day is here once again, June 16th, two of my tickets kick off today, a small lake and the rivers are open, anyone out hitting the rivers? I’ve got one in mind with a good head of carp, but the tides look good for bass this weekend and the lake is newly open, but is likely to be rather busy so what to do…

Back in dear old Blighty, after sunning my buns with wifey in Malta, basking in 30c heat and snorkelling every day watching mullet, bream, moray eels et al… now packing the work bag, what a difference a day makes! The time away helped me realise that I’m in the wrong job!

I used Diawa cross cast 5000x reels, I’ve got 4 of them, 2 are on my boys rods, ones on a spod rod and one is a spare. They held up to my hamfisted efforts to knack them, I broke one when in a proper strop while snagged up, wrenching for a break, diawa replaced it no questions asked. My boy uses them with no issues at all. I’ve got the fox EOS 12000 reels and I absolutely love them.

Cracking read Newmarket, well done on getting a few!

I would probably start with, does spodding usually work on your water? On my waters, spodding can be the kiss of death yet many still come out and spod religiously, despite it rarely working. They chose the method before they even left home, not taking into account the prevailing conditions, etc. fishing the correct method on the day would be my advice, spodding and splitting swims can be both confusing and counter productive. Then again, it may work! You’ll won’t know unless you try, but don’t flog a dead horse mate.

Some of the mark pitchers fox the challenge vids on YouTube are filmed at east Delph lakes, they might give you an idea if nothing else

I’m all set up now, my first choice swim was taken, but after a walk about I noticed another productive swim was free, so I’m all set up in it now. Happy days! Good luck to all those out on the bank this weekend! 🤞🏼🤞🏼

Good luck on the overnighter mate, I’m off out on an overnighter tonight too. Straight from work

I prefer a soft through action rod for floater fishing, due to the light lines often used. I use an 11ft 2lb tc shimano aero specimen rod.

Looks good mate, hope you have a good session. I’m off out tonight for an overnighter with the boy.

The Polaris pop up mix I believe is supposed to be used as a stand alone mix. I mixed about 20-30% basemix in it before and it made wafters. My preferred pop ups are paste wrapped cork balls, but I’m looking for an in your face fruity pop up in this case. Polaris is easy enough to use, just one egg, plus your liquid flavours and oils. Then sprinkle in any powdered additive’s, give it a damn good whisk, then add the Polaris a bit at a time while mixing until you get a tacky dough. Roll into baits, boil for 2mins and air dry for a few days. I stuck the cherry flavour and foss-oil in with the egg, added egg albumin and cream palatant whisked it up then spooned the pop up mix in and kneaded it up. Stuck it in the boilie gun, onto the roller and into the pan, jobs a good un. Knocked up 50-60 pop ups in about 30min

Ah yes, well as an update, I left both batches outside to air dry and forgot them until 10pm last night. The neighbourhood cat found them and helped herself to a few! (Serves me right) from what’s missing, she much preferred the 2ml flavour batch! @Carpbell_ll I don’t add any basemix mate, last time I did that, the pop ups all sank! Made decent wafters, but that’s not what I’m trying to achieve in this case.

A good point Hutch, as you can see from the pic above, they started a nice pink, on boiling they turned much paler, (as to be expected) but I’ll glass test one to see how they react. I couldn’t get any bait dyes from my local tackle shop this time round, he had sold out.

Well I’ve knocked up 2 batches now, one with 2ml of flavour to one egg, the other with 5ml. The deep cherry red of the flavour mixed with the Polaris makes a lovely pale washed out pink.

I am looking at the river rother and hexden channel in Kent and my dad has a cabin cruiser on the Thames so it would be rude not to have a go on there too! I decided it would be quick to make up a second batch and see what I think on those…

That’s just it, I’ve always gone for a low dosage, no more than 1ml per egg max, but a few flavours have suggested to increase it in pop ups. The mulberry florentine flavour I had would say a couple of ml per six eggs, or up to 10ml per egg for a pop up mix! As I usually make “match the hatch” cork ball pop ups, the dosages stay the same as the hookbaits, no more that 4-5ml per 6 eggs. So 3/4-1ml for a pop up mix of 1 egg. the mainline cherry flavour smells amazing, but 2ml, mixed with the additives, plus a splash of fos-oil at 5ml per 1 egg, they have the faint smell of play dough! I’m using the Polaris pop up mix, which I wouldn’t use over my usual freebies, as they are on a robin red/fish meal basemix with smoked ham flavour, but I’m after a nice smelly stand alone pop up I can fish as a single, aiming to use it on the rivers this year, hence a nice fruity “sweetie” type flavour, rather than a good bait that can take a bit longer to get going, I could have just brought a tub of pop ups I suppose, but I’ve not brought a readymade bait in over a decade, much prefer making everything myself!

I’ve just brought some bits to make some hi attract pop ups, picked up the mainline cherry juice response flavour, question is what dosage to use? It’s recommended 5ml per 500g of base, as I’m using Polaris pop up mix with 1 egg, I’ve used 2.5ml and they smell ok, what’s the max ml per egg would people go to?

Have you looked to see if you can pick up another cheap spare spool off fleabay?