greekskii

Pretty sure Yonny has used the shrimp for as long as I can remember

Personal experience is years and years ago now so probably not much use. Tried the switch when first released and found it poor compared to fishmeals. a friend has done extremely well on the bug in recent years.

Obviously you’ve not seen the hookbaits yourself. None of them are bright colours, like fluoros. The coloured ones are pretty muted. The white is an off white, washed out pink, yellow is a dull yellow, even the orange isn’t fluoro and washes out pretty quick as orange always does. So depends on what your definition is of “bright” is. they’ve also sold hookbaits that are white, yellow and Red for years and years. Whatever grievance you have with SHB, you’ve not seen the hookbaits, used them nor know much about them despite what has been posted by SHB themselves. Kinda makes anything you’re saying moot tbh. zero credibility in trying to put people off using SHB. im sure you’ll be back here in a year under a different username or on the other forum saying the same things once again, all whilst the hookbaits are catching fish up and down the country all year round for thousands of anglers.

Pretty sure he’s gone in to some level of detail about the process and how long it takes. Also in to how the cure works on the baits and why. I thought I recognised your style and tone from the other forum. end of the day, you don’t think they are worth £22 a pot, plenty do. Personal choice eh. As I’ve said, can’t deny the baits catch plenty of fish and they are used by plenty of sponsored anglers on the sly, or more recently publicised that they use them. This speak volumes on its own when people that get free hookbaits chose to buy something different. plenty more expensive air balls out there that are nowhere near as effective based on catch reports. Massively publicised in mags and things, SHB is irregular social media and a paid for thread on a forum and has an incredible customer base. Again, that says a lot. Enjoy your fishing as you say, probably don’t focus on continually trying to discredit SHB. Especially when you obviously have no idea about what goes in to creating the baits 🤷🏻‍♂️

Still the only one mentioning the term “wonder bait” 😂 Tbh I’d rather pay £22 a pot of SHB, a food based base with cork chunks for buoyancy and whatever processes used to cure them, clearly effectively, than £45 for a pot of airballs like over at the baitroom. Depends what you class as a rip off or whatever agenda you have eh 🤷🏻‍♂️ I’ve caught plenty of carp on pepperami, I’ll still buy SHB because 1. They suit my fishing and 2. I have confidence in them getting me a bite if I put them somewhere in the area the fish are.

Can’t stop it. At least they’ll get a good hookbait to use instead of rubbish. But Mark doesn’t push his baits apart from the other forum and posting catch reports on socials. He doesn’t need to. The baits do the talking. Can’t deny how good they are in the right hands, even in Mediocre hands to be fair. Think you’re the only one classing them as a “wonder” bait though so keep your point going.

Over thinking imo. Crack on. Personally prefer bigger baits but I have used PJPU 13mm with size 4s in the past and caught, on a fairly tricky water too.

No one ever said it was? So not quite sure what your entire point is. also to answer point 2. The big common from a club pit has been caught on SHB multiple times over. It’s a club ticket. Plenty of day ticket and easily accessible venues amongst the catches. Can’t understand the point you are trying to make about venues tbh. Makes no odds on if they are effective or not. People might look at the fish and go “I’d love to catch that I’ll try get a ticket”. But no one goes “SHB is catching those fish, I’ll get a ticket so I can use it on that venue”

Yep that does it. Think it was crayfish meal so same thing. Very light ingredient! to be fair they good alternative ingredients to make pop ups with basemix! Take some testing on inclusion levels though.

Heard of 50kg pop ups that went on a trip to France with some mates once 😂😂 can’t remember which ingredient did it though.

I use SHB pretty much exclusively for pop ups nowadays. Caught plenty. Probably would have caught a proportion of those on another brands pop ups. Do I believe they’ve caught me fish that I may not have caught on a different hookbaits? I’d say maybe a few. But I’ll never know. Have I blanked on them? Yes. Down to the baits? Probably not, my decisions on location, rigs, baiting approach, etc at fault. you’ll catch a carp on a lego head in the right place. You’ll blank using an all singing all dancing hookbait in the wrong place. I’d choose SHB above any other pop up though. As Yonny said it’s a confidence thing. Plenty of options priced similarly with much less to them. I’ve looked at making my own, similar but obviously not comparable as I don’t know his process in and out. I’m talking cork chunk pop ups with a curing process of my own. Doable but I don’t have the time. IMO buy with confidence but they aren’t a miracle worker.

All part of the adventure mate! Satisfaction will be crazy when you start catching on it!

You’d be 2/3 way to my pop up combo then! I use banana, scopex and BP Oil. Think it’s a great combo. Also added fructose as a sweetener. I did think maybe adding fine ground black pepper powder to gives some flecks in the finished mix. Black pepper is great, I used to get mine from mother natures goodies but I don’t think it exists anymore. There’s a good place for EOs called oils4life which do 100% pures (also great bulk beard oils). I think the more you make, you’ll end up like me and move away from just the pop up mix, dye and flavours, you start to tinker with extra additives and things. Some nice toffee and vanilla powders out there which would compliment the scopex nicely.

I use a lot of AA products to be fair. Hydros or liquids mainly. Decent value on pellet too. I do rate them as a brand, been around for years and trusted by a lot of bait makers for ingredients. youd probably be better splitting some basemix with a pop up mix to get a better wafter tbh. you’ve still got the matching waters and pop ups to make too!!

Will say having used a couple of pop up mixes in the past, the best I found was BAF before they stopped selling it. AA would be my choice if I ever make any more though.

Anglian water have a huge one in the pipeline. But it’s not started yet so funding may disappear. Similar to the Cambridge relocation. can imagine whatever has happened is very major and something they won’t want to admit publicly. The storm excuse is a cop out imo. It happened around our way ages ago at Pitsford, dead rabbit in one of the chambers, had to shut off and drain, sterilise and refill the entire system. The intermittent water supply will be because they are pumping potable water from tankers in to the system, hence a bit of stop start as pressure fluctuates. The entire situation will cost them tens, in not hundreds of millions at least. One thing I will note, developers only pay for direct infrastructure. Bill money is meant to pay for the rest which is wildly unfeasible. Wouldn’t be surprised if they start getting charged for the site upgrades soon too. House prices might rocket or development slows though! btw I work in part of the industry so see the costs of things and whilst I can’t reveal much, a housing development of 3000 homes paying £1,200 a year won’t touch the sides on the upgrades or new works to deal with the flows.

Agree that investment has lacked but can’t say they don’t invest at all. I’m part of a £5billion portfolio…which does need an extra 2b to deliver fully. that’s over 5yrs. Most of that is to just keep up with either tightening regulations or demand from development. The underinvestment in the 80s/90s isn’t rectifiable now. Not quickly anyway. Even if the money was there, the workforce isn’t. It’s catch up and plasters to the tune of enormous sums of money. whatever’s happening with your water company is shocking. Be interesting to know exactly what the issue is. Must be major to be offline for so long!

Couple from my year to date for you all. One from my new ticket, one of 2 trips I actually got over there since July. Mountains of weed cleared from the swim!

Dynamite still going alright. Plenty of anglers on their books. Think in Europe they have a good following. Their new squid and black pepper seems to be doing alright to those using it locally to me.

Yonny beat me to it. Great natural liquid and preservative. Jammed with salt and salty fish extract and some sugar. Can’t go wrong. I have used it loads in the past, not so much anymore because I’m using liver hydro at the moment to complement the bait. You can use this stuff to create dips and glugs yourself due to its preservative properties. Add some powders of choice and give it a good shake, cut with a bit of water if necessary. Only annoying thing is the lid, I’d advise cutting the spout bit off. All this talk, I may have to add it back in to the mix!

Could always try eBay!

Personally I’d use it neat to soak in to them but I don’t do washed out type baits. I use enough for the boilies to soak in, but stay firm. Basically they just get heavier. This way you can still stick them out. elmo was right on ratios. Use the leftover water, frozen for next time or to add to pellet/spod mixes. I see so many anglers just tip it away. Crazy.

They’ve just put a video on social media of someone’s delks surviving a garage fire.

At least they paid £2 for a premium lead though.

The mk1 delkins are great. The new ones don’t have the water ingress issues being reported, just avoid the version in between. Mini microns are a good choice of alarm, the originals were pretty much indestructible.