elmoputney

Carl and Alex reservoir diaries may help, There is some useful stuff to be learned from quite a lot of videos korda masterclass and underwater series, Rob Hughes does some good informative vids, just type it into YouTube and get watching as much as you can mate, of course none of this is as useful as practice,practice, practice but it will give you a good start

Sorry if it helps I use Shropshire Gold bait must be something in the colour and the location 😂 I'm not buying anymore hookbaits until the next time I am really weak 😂

I think maybe @Carpbell_ll uses them tbh for his bait seems to ring a bell anyway

All good advice thanks, I am now sugar free in tea and coffee, been a week, I've actually gone down to a couple of cups a day rather than about 10+ which also seems to help,feel slightly less anxious and do seem to be sleeping OK so far,

It would be a nice time to have some luxury items to sell, if you don't need em anymore wouldn't be a bad time to sell, I did sell quite a few bits for the father In law last year, £275 for a youngs purist 2 centrepin reel,(was nice I wanted it really) a pair or of 2 rod vintage solar buzz bars got nearly 50 quid, madness, I will see how the bonus situation goes this month and see what else I can sell,😂 I really miss overtime now, the good old days where I could do a Sunday or 2 for the extra bits I need, like fishing reels and so on 😂

I do still have to save a bit tbh, but will consider it thanks that seems a decent price , I sort of gave up looking at 2nd hand diawa reels because they always seemed the same price as nearly new 😳

Thanks Will keep going don't worry, it needs to happen however long it takes 👍

You can get quite a bit in a bag, they are well worth the effort, I keep vowing to start using them again this year, they did work well when I did use them I just got lazy 😂 I've found they are best within an hour or two though, so you need to keep rechecking them, that is why I got lazy, gets quite boring making bags up all the time, 😳

Well week 2 weigh in hasn't gone at all to plan,I did really well all week apart from a papa John's Friday night, which probably wasn't the best idea,of all the takeaways pizza Is the worst , but we did a 5k walk yesterday to try and limit the damage, didn't work, stayed the same this week 😭 Real life may slow me down but it won't stop me, still going to keep trying, hopefully next week will be a big one to make up for it 👍 Anyone else making any positive steps at the moment?

Everything I own that is ridgemonkey is a good product to be fair to them, but I have to think about it usually as the price is high, I've got some fox stuff that is OK, some I really like (tadpole lead inserts) but I don't think the quality is as good as when I bought the old mini microns years ago, and exocet spod braid isn't fit for purpose(did I mention that😂) 😔 I don't tend to buy Nash stuff either due to the titan that was weak and fell apart although I would buy a bushwhacker maybe, Basically I try to buy the best thing that suits the budget, reel wise I didn't get on with sonik, I do like diawa as they re always reliable, the shimano aerlex spod has slightly turned me to the darkside though it is a nice reel to use 😂

Most reels are just matt black at the moment though, would be nice to have something different 😂

Lol thanks but no fox for me 😂 I think they are more or less the same tbh just the colours and probably sealed bearings like you say 👍 I also really like these sea reels 😳

I've started thinking about new reels and since my accidental aerlex purchase, I've started looking to the darkside a bit 😳I've started to quite like the look of these, but is it pervy to like the blue spool Sea version? Diawa seems to be in short supply at the moment and as a consequence no deals seem to be available on some of the ones I like, I spose I want a nice reel that will last, look pretty for no more than £100 - 150 a reel 👍

The bait I use doesn't have any flavour added , just the smell of the additives, I really like the smell of it, and the carp don't seem to mind it either 👍

Stick em in ebay someone will pay you for them old school flavours 😁

I am a fan of Cork 😳

Everyone could recommend a bait they are confident in, but that doesn't mean it will be right for you, most will catch if you put it in the right place but confidence only comes from results and for me, I am most confident when I have been prebaiting for a while, so that also brings cost into the equation, but one thing I will advise, talk to the bait companies you are interested in about what you want, or you are trying to achieve, if they are good they will be helpful and steer you towards the right bait for your situation,

Mark Holmes was good,always something to think about with him, I do like jules though, I like his consistency, I like his multi rig too lol, I haven't got to his interview yet, but he doesn't half catch em 👍

I know, that was what I was trying to say 😁

I personally wouldn't have all my eggs in one basket maybe use one smelly bait, one bright one and another one bright and smelly , you never know what will work on the day and bringing the changes could get you an extra bite, I've never found "the one" hookbait that works all the time, I have a few I am confident will work sometimes though 👍

I'm slowly getting through them again now on Jules episode at the moment, I did enjoy the mark Holmes one 👍

When you put it like that lol 😁 I guess it would be effective as long as they are competing and hungry 😳 I think this might be a good lesson though for some reason I always imagine fish doing exactly that and going down to suck in my rig, east as that 😁 might have to rethink that a bit 👍

I just think literally they would suck it in, struggle to blow it out due to the stiffness of the rig, tilt up and the lead would sink the hook home, I just think the lead comes into play as soon as the hook is in the fishes mouth and it gets pricked, it's not getting the time a boom section allows it before the lead does its job, Why are PVA bags so effective? , if the carp is quick enough there may be a big pile of pellets and a nice neat hookbait bundle,like you see in tank test videos,but usually the small fish will ruin that in seconds,personally I think the short hooklink has a lot to do with it,

A couple of people do things with elastic I've seen, Steve reynard has his hermit rig https://www.carpology.net/article/features/steve-renyard-bucking-the-trend/ There's the Nora rig https://gardnertackle.co.uk/2020/04/carp-fishing-bloomin-nora-part-2-adam-whittington/ I've never tried either but it may help whet your whistle 👍

I could also see a lot of disadvantages it would be a waste of time in a lot situations 😂 but in the right situation they would struggle to deal with it, you would need to drop the lead though I think, but it would just be that bit different to what they are used too, maybe even use a bag to slow it down in the water, I don't like bags with pop ups in as a rule but a blatent chod might be something else 😂