greekskii

I've heard a lot of bad things about the recent technium batches

It's not all about size of fish, how snaggy is the lake? how much weed? is there mussel beds? is there many gravel bars that could cause cut offs. I fish 15lb for most occasions because I dont know whether i'll be putting the rod in open water or next to a snag. It keeps my options open. I'd never fish anything lighter to snags because you want the abrasion resistance and extra diameter.

tbh mate I have like 9million swivels already, not on the look out. Bank tackle does the job for me now at a good price. plus you can order bulk. Like salokcinnodrog said before, I use fox drop off kits, that only fit fox swivels, as they use size 7 for all of their stuff, including leads. I dont buy their leads, I just manipulate the swivel so it fits how I want it to. These big brands try not to be universal to force you to buy their bits and bobs, nothing a set of pliers wont do though.

People pay for the convenience of it. I could spend half an hour looking for cheap Matt finish swivels that are actually strong for a cheap price. In bulk probably too. Or I can buy some carp taxed ones within a minute of getting on the internet. However I can find non Matt ones within minutes with 100 costing a few quid. I use them for my marker floats and randomly fixing various things. Wouldn't use them for actual fishing as I don't have a clue if they'll cope.

eBay. You'll find 6 cans for around £20

Bulin T4 for sure. Best £25 I spent. Delivered from somewhere in Asia in 5 working days an all

If it's been tested and you can see that certification then it's fine

Not music but I'm not sure if anyone has discovered the magic sponge podcasts. If you are in to your football these are well worth listening to. I'm in tears of laughter every time. Rob Beckett, jimmy bullard and a couple more. Special guests a plenty. John sitton, graham stack, David Bentley and David noble are incredible episodes

personally i'd go sonik over greys, just because Greys tend to change their range often, so you might find yourself without spares if you need them, whereas the dominator X is new to sonik so spares aplenty for the next few years. My sonik Sk3 rods have been battered and abused and still have life left, although I will upgrade to Gravity X at some point. From what I gather Greys customer service is not great, whereas when i've dealt with Sonik for a new tip section it was with me the next day and only heard good thing. Best idea is to get your hands on both of them at a tackle shop and see which suits.

XXX is the one to go with, although Live System catches its share, steer clear of the other two. Nowhere near as good. Most of the guys I know that work for them, as soon as the Pacific Tuna hype train was over, went straight back to XXX... says it all.

I have played with it last year and had similar. A 30lber gave me 3 bleeps on my delks (at 4+ setting) and that was all. Next I knew I had hooked a fish was when my other two rods ripped off as it ploughed through my lines. Long, stressful fight later I managed to land it in the pitch black and freezing conditions. Few other odd occurrences. Can't beat the running rig IMO unless you need to use the heli for deep silt or weed.

use an anti tangle sleeve? your much less likely to get tangles the closer your beads are to the lead, it just sits like a lead clip arrangement. In the situation you've explained, i'd just go with a running rig, inline lead, lead clip setup as the need for the helicopter arrangement isn't there.

You'll notice of course. It's .5mm thicker almost. I'd say off the bat there will be a difference in casting, knot tying, how much muck clings to it, visibility to the fish.

I think you're right cyborx. I saw a post on a local selling page where a guy wanted to have all nash stuff for some reason and was swapping out his kit for nash stuff with others. Not too sure why. Maybe he wants to pretend he is sponsored by them or something?

not surprised! Was tempted but have things of greater importance to spend £20 on... hooks mainly!

A bear in winter hibernation weighs more than an active bear. Basically what yonny said is the answer. They pile on weight before winter and then are very sedentary and don't burn it off. It is used slowly over winter to keep them going and then to produce eggs before winter is out. Yes. There is less growth in winter. This can be seen when reading scales for age data. There are tighter bands where there is less growth (winter) and more spaced out bands during growth period (summer). So you can work out an age based on how many winters the fish has been alive. The banding on the scales would likely be more prominent when the winters are harsh and the summers are very warm too. There would likely be rapid growth in the summer months and hardly any over winter, as is the case normally but this would be above average and below average.

New edges hooks are very poor. Very soft and blunt as they hit the water. I loved the arma points. Bought a few of the edges hooks and binned them. Steer clear.

Tench tend to bury themselves in silt over the winter too. Strange but they'll go deep under it. I was on a fish farm netting a drained pond, I was told to never step on the same footprint because the tench would hide in them. Every year it was fully drained and emptied of fish. Once refilled there would be the odd tench appear like some sort of miracle.

Doesn't help I've only fished for about 3hrs in February and that's it! Be doing nights again though from March and starting to bait. Might get lucky or at least close to the challenge!

No mate. Been ill all week after trying to sit it out last weekend. Got a stag do next weekend so don't want to risk the illness returning. Looks ideal today too

Not a chance mate. It won't happen naturally and it won't happen unnaturally. Not to the extent it has in these countries. Luckily carp like to eat their own eggs. Hence the lack of recruitment in the estate lake for instance. Because carp are mainly stocked in numbers there is control over what goes where and when. The rivers and canals aren't stocked. Just enclosed waterbodies. Youll never see hordes of carp destroying a river in this country.

More likely like any animal, when there is overpopulation they learn to accept others. This is due to their being a good food source. Less need to compete. Reduce their ranges or allow others to also claim it as territory. Already in the valley you have 6/7 otters in a 15-20 mile radius. And do gooders rehabbing them and releasing them back in to the wild does not help. These more tame animals learn to live side by side other otters. Disaster for the future.

Had a rat in my bivvy after the otter went through my swim just before new year... it also never returned after that kill

yep, we had one on the estate killed with little eaten. 2 weeks later just the teeth left. fox, rats, birds of prey.

The fish think they are, I reckon to a degree they are safer. all those underwater highways in the weedbeds. I'm talking 7-8ft of canadian. Proper dense. sure they can find routes and hideaways. Never totally safe but these fish dont have the instincts associated with this predator. Maybe in time fish will have learnt the evasion methods and less will be getting killed? who knows.