yonny

You can tell on the bank who's using the shrimp. It stinks of shrimp that's just about to go off. Or something else I'll not mention lol.

It's a hardy fishmeal. Hard enough to apply with the stick but not rock hard. On paper it's not my kind of bait. It is (imo) over-flavoured and it contains oyster shell which I don't rate in a standard bait. But my results have been that good I just couldn't use anything else. It has birdfoods in it as well as fishmeals. It's not all that to look at but just goes to show what looks good to us is not always what matters.

FYI - the egg albumin goes into your mix at 10%. A handy tip, stolen from a very well respected cork ball pop up makers guide on another forum: Soak the cork balls in egg white. Not yolk (the white is the gluey bit). Allow them to go dark, soak the egg white for at least twelve hours in the fridge. Do not swim them in egg white, just a light coating. You want them damp, but not soaked in egg white, so do not flood them. When they are damp, sprinkle egg albumen over them in a bowl, until they all have a light covering. Stir them around with a spoon. The cork balls will end up with a glaze of egg albumen, and egg white. When you put your paste around the cork ball, the moisture from your paste, will reactivate your glue. The paste will be welded to the cork ball. You will find, that you pick it off in little bits, instead of it just falling off when they are cooked. It also helps with mixes that are hard to roll in a cork ball form.

Oztent.

I once saw a mole swim which I thought was strange. I was searching for carp with my mate and we came into this swim and this little creature had just left the margin. We couldn't work out what it was at first but those massive claws gave it away. It swam right out into the middle of the pit and gulls started dive bombing it so it came back. I actually called the mrs there and then (she's got a masters in zoology) to make sure I wasn't going mental. She told me that all mammals can swim which was news to me. Either way, there is something about a mole swimming that still makes me chuckle to this day.

Please tell me it was some bloke having a kip?😂

Awesome, well done mate.

That's brilliant @emmcee😂

Three times the weight of its competitors. It's a NO from me.

I had not. They actually interest me. I've been saying for a few years now how we need to see a new technology in bite alarms i.e. not a roller (that can freeze) or delk. Looks like this may be it? That said, the tech does look similar to a delk which is heavily patented, will be interesting to see how that pans out. It is a SAVAGE market to break into, I wish the guy the best of luck.

Trent Shrimp is the best bait I've ever used. I got onto it a few years ago after I left a different bait company. I'd been playing around with B5 in the interim and was struggling. My first session on the Shrimp I caught my target common and never looked back after that. It's caught very well everywhere I've taken it.

The one man compact version is 30kg with all the extras. Absolutely ridiculous😂

It's absolutely brilliant👍

You need to add egg albumin buddy, it's essential. It toughens the mix up. Without it they don't last long at all before the mix wants to come away from the cork.

No comment lol.

I have an SJ9 in a large, fits me just right mate. You should be fine. Me too. Pricey but incredibly light and very warm. Their Sleeka salopettes are amazing for anyone interested. A real game changer in winter. Like walking around in a sleeping bag. Top notch.

Imo lots of guys think they're doing something different when they're not. It's a fact that on most waters you have guys spombing, guys using sticks, and guys using cattys etc etc, every single day of the week. To be truly different you need to get funky, do something that genuinely isn't being done by anyone else. If you're lucky enough to figure something out and it works you need to keep it VERY quiet i.e. tell no-one. And certainly not post about it on an open forum lol. Exactly mate. Every man and his dog is using glugs and liquids, it's no edge. Imo there is almost nothing you can buy from a bait firm that can give you a genuine edge over most other anglers. You need to look past the bait firms, past the angling firms altogether - because there are things out there that will give you that edge. He's still my hero lol.

Yeah I recall that. Doing things differently is always good, no doubt, but doing it well is more important imo. An angler doing something very simple really well will out-fish an angler doing something very funky badly. If you keep an eye on the top rod on your water I can almost guarantee they're not doing anything ground breaking. Rather they're just doing what they do really well. If I'm fishing a pressured water i.e. a proper circuit water I do have a couple of tricks up my sleeve to keep things different but nine times out of 10 if you can get on the fish the simplest tactics will do the job imo.

I think North Face are overpriced. I had some of their lined trousers, they were decent but cost a fortune, more than $100 from the States (and this was several years ago when it was still cheap to buy in the US). I replaced them last year with some Craghopper Kiwi's which cost 25 quid and they're actually better imo. Smufter, the SJ3 will do everything you want and more. I see the Sleeka Elite is on sale at the moment if you want to save a few £££E£.

That's the key mate. Change when there is a need to change. A lot of anglers change for the sake of it, there's no point imo. When you observe something that indicates a need to change, that's when it's time to get funky. I don't use glugs when I'm pre-baiting. The beauty of pre-baiting is that you can condition the carp to eat whatever is easiest for you to use. Assuming you've found somewhere the carp are prepared to feed you can use whatever you want be that something that's easy (boilies) or something that's cheap (corn, pellet etc). I can see no point is conditioning them to eat something that's both expensive and more time consuming.

I don't think glugs have anything to do with whether a bait will be taken by a carp. For me the role of glugs is to boost attraction i.e. help the carp find your bait. A bait that is only taken once glugged is a bait that should be binned imo. I agree they're not essential and I don't use any of them as much as I used to. Any old half decent bait in the right place will catch miles more than the finest heavily glugged bait in the wrong place.

Don't rule out the original hydro - liquid liver. One of my faves.

I think some glugs are a complete waste of time i.e. glycerine with flavour added. Hydro's I rate big time. Oils I don't use. It's clear that carp like to eat food with oils applied but there is that school of thought that carp don't have the receptors to detect oil until it's literally being eaten. I already have confidence the carp will eat my bait once found with or without oil. My main concern is providing the attraction to help them find my bait in the first place. Some say that oils lift particles of your bait and chosen attractors up through the water column which provides that attraction but imo there is a risk that oils can potentially 'lock-up' a bait, preventing your attractors (e.g. hydro's) from being released, making your bait less effective. What I can say is this: since I stopped using oil a few years ago my results have not suffered.

At least if you don't use a marker no-one can tell how bad your accuracy is 😂

What kind of net is it? It sounds like it's a problem with the mesh rather than the net itself so you might just be better off replacing that.