ouchthathurt

Many thanks mate, they became a bit of an obsession! Now pike have taken over 🙄

I’ve just got some stocking fillers for the boy, got a kg of candy nut crunch readymades for a fiver, a pair of fox mini microns for £30 with batteries, half a dozen ESP ready tied hair rigs - mates rates, half a dozen leads, a spool of esp line that should get him going.

I only live a 5min drive from the coast, I’ve got a great bass beach 10mins away, a harbour, shingle beaches, a pier, lots of options. I’m extremely fortunate in that respect. the bass I’ve taken so far

Not a Christmas list for me, but my boy wants a carp set up he can use back home, as he can only carp fish while he’s with me. He has to travel by bus/walking etc, so I just got him a pair of Leeda rouge 9ft 2.75 tc carp rods and a pair of 6000 shimano baitrunners 2nd hand for £40, they are immaculate and I’m secretly thinking of keeping them for myself!

I’m hoping to get out tomorrow for a few hours piking, so long as this mild spell helps and the lake isn’t frozen!

The first ever boilies I brought were a company called “freebies bait products” they did a savoury bait that smelt of bacon. Next were richworth tutti fruitti, strawberry jam and banana ester boilies. They also did a ginger boilie that was pretty good. My first basemix was carp company fruit frenzy basemix with RH mixed herbs flavour, with salmon oil and fruit factor 6 (if I remember correctly) I remember getting the mainline grange basemix too. Then I moved onto premier aminos GLM basemix in 97 and haven’t looked back. Still using premier aminos and/or matrix to this day.

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!