greekskii

Use a brolly or shelter and have your back to the direction of play. You’ll avoid the golf balls that way.

Good to know that. Thought it would be the case. I think to reduce snakeyness a different kind of connector would help. As with poles, they fit in to each other with around 6inches of overlap to strengthen them. A lot more work but sanding down 6 inches on one side to fit inside the other pole may work. But then how secure is it, or if jammed in then how do you get it out.

As you say, drilling small holes down one side opposite to the side you inject the foam in should work. Maybe a trial and error thing though. What are the properties of expanding foam when it gets wet? Does it get heavy at all?

or, would it help using larger diameter conduit for some sections and a thinner one for the spoon? As a normal pole does? Potentially adding to the stability?

dont need to go crazy, just enough to get them coming back regularly. Shelflifes do take a while to break down of course but if eaten then not a problem.

personally I would use more bait to keep the fish feeding. 20 boilies could be gone in seconds with a big head of bream. even 200 would be. just my opinion of course but I think it would at least swing in your favour to bait up with considerably more. I was baiting under a tree on a river a few years back. due to the bream and chub I was putting in 20-25kg of maize in 3 times a week. I'd shimmy up the tree and have a look once finished and that maize looked like barely anything on the bottom. The bream and chub would clear most of it in minutes and the 24mm boilies would be moved around all over the place by the small chub trying to eat them.

Superb work BC. Looks good. As for stiffening it up, would it solve the problem bu just ensuring the entire length is filled with foam? At that length I think plastic will be a bit snakey, unless you connected them with some extended type of connectors to help hold them in place?

Is there a head of bream in there because they'll get rid of that quick. I'd be looking to put at minimum half a kilo of boilies on a spot for prebaiting, or bulking out a smaller number of baits with tiger nuts and other particles.

Yep. But it’s atomic chod wyre not amnesia.

A stiff multi rig. Only good for pop ups, although I dare say if you took away most of the putty (protects the knot) maybe it would suit a wafter if you swap the ring for a swivel.

I needing around 50m to reach what I need, across the lake due to casting room. Be an awful lot of pipe to carry about too. Very interested to see how you've got on and if it works as having a 20m baiting pole when you need it could be really handy!

Conduit will work. Drain pipe is heavier as it needs to be strong. If BC doesn’t find the time then come winter I will make something based on BC’s idea, conduit, expanding foam and glued in M/F connectors. I’ve realised my ambition to use it where I wanted too was just that, unless I made one 25m+ which just seems unreasonable. Back to the drawing board for that one.

what carp in a lake feeds on solely shelf life boilies though...that's where the tests, etc fall down. In a lake or river or canal those fish are eating more than one type of food, and can swim a lot more than a tanks length back and forth.

Why is this? They seem to not bother with frozen. I’d think it might be to do with the longer sessions they seem to do, spending weeks on the bank not days. Or because it’s not cost effective to bait up with 15-20kg of costly frozen baits whereas shelflifes are cheaper as they can be made from simple mixes? There seems to be a preference for hi attract baits over long term frozen baits in Europe.

its carried out on zebra fish? I think we all know shelf lifes are not as good for the fish as fresh/frozen... but what the A.T are spouting is outdated information that is unlikely relevant any more. Things have advanced phenomenally in 10 years since the link Hutch posted, it's outdated. We had to justify using research over 8 years old when doing our assignments because of how rapidly things advance. It's not that the articles are wrong, they were right back when carried out, but now they are irrelevant.

I do still question how companies preserve fishmeals and other meat based ingredients for such a long time though as they are very tricky to stabilise. Unless of course some of the claimed ingredients aren't in there in any quantity... If you look at big name - but not so commercial - bait companies, ABS, Premier, etc. they all produce a 'short term preserved' option, because getting a meat based ingredient to not go off ever is nigh on impossible when they are used in any quantity.

Yeah, the report was published in 2006....the actual experiment carried out much before this...in 2006 it states he was a respected professional in this field, yet the study was part of his 3rd year thesis, how long did it take him to become a respected professional, likely more than 10 years.

I had a couple ciders too. Not ice cold but went down a treat with the slightly burnt dinner!

Had one of the stockies about an hour ago. Didn’t break in to double figures. More chances will come, im just blessed to have the lake to myself on a stunning day. I thought it would be rammed.

Only one on the lake. Not quite sure what’s going on! just lost one of the rare commons from the lake too. Fresh lily growth meant I gave it the elbow a bit more than I should have and ping went the hook and burnt went my dinner! All round nightmare.

It sounds a busy lake too, I'd be making sure my lines were proper slack and everything as hidden as possible. As @yonny says, wafters are normally a killer tactic on the wary fish.

I’ve not ever thought about trying to find the stuff from elsewhere. Used the Korda stuff all my fishing. £3.50 for 50m. Not really expensive

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/500M-Braid-Saltwater-FISHING-LINE-SPECTRA-PE-DYNEEMA-547-YARDS-100-SUPER-STRONG/271570781499?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=570396241448&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649 This stuff does the job and for a fraction of the price. One word of warning is that the dye does wash out...I had orange hands the first time I used it!

I was going to get 24mm pop ups made up but then decided I'd just fish through them. Yep, done that twice now! but the other one was on a snowman

tell that to the hordes of small bream and tench I had on the country park fishing 18+15mm snowmen pop ups 3 inches off the deck with size 4s!! if they are ravenous then they will try their luck. But on average yeah, they do pick up the bigger fish and avoid the small stuff. Yeah, I have dropped down to 15mm pops for the estate and fish them tight as possible to the deck most of the time however after a bit of maths... 53 fish landed since June 16th, 2 on bread crust and 3 on snowman baits... leaves 48 on pop ups Total combined weight of these was 855.07lb with an average of 17.12lb approx. which sounds about right... 48 fish including 20 fish over 20lb, 5 of those being over 25lb, and one of those breaking the 30lb barrier. Coincidentally all the fish on snowman baits and off the surface were below 15lb... or maybe not? Luck does come in to it as I said above about the tench and bream! But I do think pop-ups, blatant high ones do pick off bigger fish most of the time. Main reason to use pop-ups is that 90% of those gravel spots you find will have a bit of something on them, silt, silkweed, etc. and it's why I use pop ups just over hook height, to keep the hook point clear of it all