emmcee

There is one other way, weedkiller. I think roundup do one for some aquatic plants. Needs to be in leaf though. Leaf draws in the herbicide and takes it down to the roots. That way you can spray the offending leaves you want gone and it will leave you your spot.👍 Only downside is you'll get banned if caught, so 🤐🤫 😂

If you want to stop weed coming up then just keep baiting the spot as regular as possible. You make holes in weed with bait and you can most certainly stop it growing by baiting. If the spot is getting too big then you just slow up on the baiting so the weed has time to grow back. As for lily pads, like has been said, manual removal of the root tubers is the way. Failing that maybe baiting them might do the same as baiting in the weed.

Happy new year everyone. Good luck for the year and more importantly, good health and stay safe.

A fella I know absolutely hammered a lake that was full of crays. His tactic was simply fill it in with particle. And when I say fill it in I mean he was doing 15kg of dry particles every session. The particle being a blend of parti-blend, hemp and tigers. And as has been said his hookbaits were whittled down wooden balls to resemble tigers. On one of the lakes I fish there is a crayfish problem, not a severe one but enough to need to recast every 6-8hrs if boilie fishing. A big bucket of particle certainly slows them down.

Merry Christmas to you and everyone.

I honestly couldn't think of a bait from the main bait companies that contains wheatgerm (not that I know all the baits if coarse). And let's face it most if not all of the main stay baits are readily accepted by the carp. I know the koi industry use wheatgerm within some of their coldwater feed and yes it is an ingredient that is used to help digestion, especially in coldwater mixes. With the endless list of pre-digested and enzyme treated ingredients though the carp can break down bait very easily. The only baits they really struggle to break down are out and out milk protein baits (I know as I've used them. Add a bit of digestive enzyme to it though and it goes through them like a hot knife through butter).

What is your budget for this bait? You're not a million miles away from what could be a flier of a bait. 😉

I'd use wheatgerm in winter maybe but not in spring/summer which is when the op intends on using this bait.

Do you mean crushed hemp and tiger nut meal or are you grinding up prepared hemp and tigers?

You need a binder in the bait. Whey protein concentrate is the better option for this in my opinion but is expensive. As for robin orange I wouldn't entertain it. Robin red has changed over the years. Nowhere near as red as it used to be.

Also most ingredients used by bait firms are relatively fine as its 99% machine rolled and the machines can't handle coarse bait. If it is coarse then they would need too much binder that would in turn lock all the goodness in.

I think you'll find that nectar blend is an ingredient and not a base mix on it's own. Add other powders to it to formulate a base mix.

It is expensive in my opinion. His flavours are good though. Try premier baits, they normally throw in your oil with 10kg of base mix. Plenty of choice on their website and helpful when you call them. Their flavours are good to.

I see maggots have been mentioned, I've found they can be devastating at this time of year. My personal preference is for reds. I take a gallon of them and have caught some right whackers on them at this time of year. They can certainly buy you a bite if things slow up.

I'd say it depends on the venue you chose to fish during winter and weather conditions that you are fishing in. High stocked venue then I'd fish lead clips to semi tight lines and fish for liners if I can't find them. 12mm - 16mm baits and I wouldn't be afraid to give them some bait. On my syndicate water I used to go the opposite regarding bait size, 18mm - 24mm baits. The bigger baits for pre-baiting to hopefully stop the tufties scoffing them. I would have also been baiting a swim or 2 for a good few months by now with particle and boilie. Plumbing the spots every now and then will tell you if the fish are visiting the spot.

Love him or loathe him take a look at how Shelley does his chod set up. It's how I've always tied mine and set mine up and never had a problem with this way and never dropped the lead. The lead staying on is what enables the hook link to come off the leadcore/leader. If the lead is dropped then its harder for the leader to snag up and therefore the hooklink can't pull off.

Firstly I'd lead about the area where you pulled the bloodworm in from and hope to find "a spot" or better still "the spot". And also lead about other swims/areas you might intend on fishing into late autumn/ winter. Failing that I'd happily put a chod anywhere. I know the way I set it up is safe so have no issues casting it anywhere.

That's the gear, ive snapped bait drills on hookbaits glugged in this stuff.

Where do you live?

Depends if you are someone who hits the clip hard, if you are then you could snap your line or the clip. If not then the emblem spod reel is what I go for. Brilliant reels in my opinion

Personally I'd change over from an inline lead setup to a helicopter set up. You can then set the top bead to the depth you feel is adequate. A critically balanced hookbait or pop up for the rig.

You don't fish weedy waters then I'm guessing?

Exactly mate. I've had that argument before. Though it didnt work when I said Brazil's weren't nuts 🤣🤣. Still there is always a way around things😉

Way over thinking this in my opinion. If as you say in a later post the lead leaves a crater in the silt then being inquisitive creatures the Carp would be more than likely to investigate it than be wary of it. Chod rig all the way for me on that kind of lake. 4 or 5 oz lead so it plugs in the silt deep to set the hook firm. I used to fish a lake that, at one end where the gravel workings used to be the sandy/silt (more like sludge) was upto 3feet deep in places (I know this as I was stuck in it once in my chest waders, quite frightening if I'm honest). Plenty of anglers fished the area for little reward. You would see the big plumes of coloured water when the fish were there. My first time in there and I used Chod rigs on 6foot of lead core, 4oz leads on and caught half a dozen. 4oz lead in silt becomes a pound of lead or more, sets the hook, job done.

Do the fish have hard or soft mouths? If you get burred over hook points I'd say hard mouths, maybe they've toughened up due to feeding over gravel. What hook size are you using? I fished a lake many years ago, suffered hook pulls, burred points. Switched from my size 4 straight point hooks to beaked point hooks. After trials I ended up with size 10 beak points and if I recall only had 2 more hook pulls from over 100 fish.