greekskii

why dont you try using larger cork granules and hand rolling. Yes it takes longer but I have found cork dust/fine granule pop ups to be absolutely rubbish in the past. The buoyancy is not great at all. If you are only making them for personal use then the additional time hand rolling shouldn't matter too much. My only other thoughts are if you're resting the mix enough and giving it a chance to draw in the liquids.

Bait wise - start adding it now to the fishmeals. slowly change the ratio. start with 20% and gradually get higher 40, 60, 80%. Either go fully on to the winter bait or personally I like to keep at least 10-15% fishmeal. They'll still eat them. Also I would recommend the baileys over the bait, I have used it for a good few years now whenever im using nut or birdfood based baits. It'll work all year round. Buy the cheap stuff from Aldi or Lidl, it works the same. Also great in coffee on a winters day! Tactics - remember the fish wont be slowing down anytime soon, the weather isnt cold enough yet. Normally looking at late october/early november when they start really slowing down. All depends on the weather, we had a mild winter last year and they never really stopped for long. They'll be looking to pack on weight before winter so heavy baiting could pay off at the moment. Gear - The gas sleeves are actually worse, they'll keep the gas cold! I normally take mine out and tuck it at the bottom of my sleeping bag overnight. It's usually warm enough to work properly come morning. I also would say a small hot water bottle is essential! it'll keep you warm for ages and handy for cold feet when tucked in the bottom of a sleeping bag! Clothing - plenty of socks, changing in to dry socks has a big effect on your body temp and mentally too. Feet sweat in the heavy boots and no matter how good the socks are meant to be at wicking away moisture they'll inevitably be damp to some degree. Use the layering system to keep warm. It really helps if you have to barrow to swims and when setting up. As soon as you sweat youll be cold and its hard to keep warm.

Did it Friday night. It does take some getting used too. Not as easy in this heat either as I was half in half out the bag, head exposed to keep cool. The full moon made it tricky to sleep too as it wasn’t that dark at all. Cooler nights you just tuck up under the bag and you feel more sheltered and it’s darker. it’s a strange feeling but also a really nice one.

I’m out tonight. May well be pointless but I’m hoping that they’ll have an early morning feed. Luckily the swim I have been baiting is pretty well shaded from 3pm onwards.

I always seem to have a lack of enthusiasm around July/August time, whether its because I know its generally a quieter time for bites or there's just a lot of other things going on I dont know. Seems to hit me every year. Like a little lul, excited through winter for the spring and then get excited for the autumn around about now.

I almost did yesterday. Spent the best part of 6 hours pushing a barrow around and over fences. Found a few fish on the river then got boated out where they were. Got frustrated and went to leave for home. Stopped off at another club lake to see some mates fishing. Saw a fish show and dropped in the general area. Rod was only out 5mins before it rattled off. I was on the verge of going home. I had no enthusiasm and was a sweaty mess after all the walking but forced myself to fish, luckily it paid off. I’m lucky to have all the club night permits available due to being a bailiff so I have back up options. Well worth having something else in your locker.

Have done the same mate, fall in to the routine and just go "it'll all be fine, no worries" and then it costs you. Always worth spending 5 mins checking everything

It's all round, you'll find the smaller the company the larger the price increase due to lack of buying power. Home rollers will be hit hard as they cant order in bulk. As with everything the prices will go up, same with dry particle prices too. Think we will see people using less bait for sure.

These

A village called Komorow in Southern Poland, just West of Tarnow. There's a huge pit on the opposite side of the road which looks incredible to fish. I have done once on a trip when I was younger, just for silvers but I know some big catfish have been caught from it and pike too. Catch and release is becoming ever popular in Poland I have been told, a few places we went which were catch to eat are now catch and release and busier than ever.

Poland has got some serious untapped potential. I’d love to go out there for a few weeks and spend some time fishing a big pit near a village my auntie and her family come from.

You won’t prove anything doing this as you’ll never be able to say whether it was the spot or the mix that made the difference. One spot may be silt and the other gravel or clay or sand.. fish each spot effectively as you can. Bait up suitably for the spot and use a suitable rig.

Yes but it's on you to provide the information. If you choose not to take your hard or soft copy for whatever reason they can search your name but you need to prove it's actually you to avoid a fine. SO you'd need some form of ID to match it up with, just like pretty much everything else in the country. Onus is on the holder to prove they have one, not the EA to prove they havent. I suspect your club book, showing them your facebook profile or anything to prove it's you will do though tbh. I'm saying photo ID because that is the usual thing you provide to prove identity isnt it. There are other forms of photo ID that arent driving license or passport that are legally accepted by government, bus passes, citizen cards, etc.

because they access the national database from their phone/pad so they only need your name and address to check you have one. This does mean you need to carry a form of photo ID though

As I said, some people spend the same on bait for a weekend session and £45 isnt off putting then is it? £45 for three rods is only £15 a rod. You yourself said £10 a rod, so what's £5 extra considering its going towards improvements for angling? 5kg of boilies is about £45 from most brands. People think nothing of spending that every month or even more regularly, but an annual rod license is somehow too expensive? Enforcement officers are paid out the general pot, i know locally we have 1.5 FT to cover the catchment which equates to hardly anyone really. As said they'll target the likely haunts where they will catch people out, but still you get the chance to buy a license on the bank to save yourself a court date. Which btw, you would struggle to win on the basis you think its over priced. Personally I think some of the rod license monies could be diverted for extra staffing and some more hard line consequences of not having a rod license, take france or belgium for example where they'll confiscate your kit and dish out 1000+ euro fines.

couldn't agree any less. It's £45 a year for 3 rods, people spend more on food and bait for a weekend. What the money gets spent on has massive value to the environment and to fisheries too. Rod licence monies only go to the Fisheries team, they dont go anywhere else so every penny of income gets spent on improvements, it doesnt pay anyone wages. I do agree however that all river users should have to pay something. In an ideal world all fisheries and clubs would check your licence before selling you a ticket, but a centralised infrastructure would be so complex and expensive.

We did a little tour as I said, looking on google maps now we went round Coke's pit which is lovely, and the two big pits on the opposite side of the road, theres all sorts of water sports going on there and as country park. These two were very low stock but some cracking fish. Featured on a sticky or thinking anglers video, the crayfish man. Neigh bridge was the other one, opposite South Cerney Dabchick lake. Again a low stock lake but stunning fish. Sadly I have no idea how to join any of the above mentioned.

I went down to visit a mate pre lockdown and stopped a night on whitefriars with him before having a tour of a few of the other waters in the area. All depends on what you're looking for. Obviously whitefriars is a large low stock pit which can get VERY busy. We dropped in on the other lakes but they were also very busy so didnt walk them fully and headed off to other larger waters in the area. Looks like a busy club and that means it's likely to be good fishing and well maintained.

As much as it pains me to say as I’m all for a bargain, just bite the bullet and buy the stuff you need. Yes prices are high but things last or at least come with a warranty! You could be waiting forever for them to come down. in the last few weeks we have gone from moaning about £1.50 a litre diesel to thinking it’d be great if it went back down to that from £1.79 a litre. Business isn’t stupid, people are buying it at these prices so it’ll not get reduced unless people stop buying en masse. Even the second hand market follows this trend. only place for cheap kit now is heading to your local car boot and seeing what’s about. You might get lucky, more often than not you’ll not find anything decent.

Floater fishing is always a viable method. Plenty documented in the carp world of winter floater captures. bit of freelined crust in a nash bread bomb is always worth a go

Defo worth sneaking on for a few hours one night

Delivery certainly will!

The good hemp oil is good. I’ve used it in the past. If my memory serves me correctly the sticky hemp oil has a green tinge to it and you get a bit of “gunk” in the bottom. Whereas the good hemp doesn’t have either. Hence they are two different qualities entirely. Not sure if the fish will ever know the difference but for me personally the one produced for humans is cheaper. There’s a few more out there, pain to find on Google as you get hits for CBD oil mostly and they mainly are more expensive than sticky hemp oil tbh.

You can use them now. Use them sparingly. Might be worth getting yourself some peanut granules or crushed peanuts so you can fish over mainly crushed and a few whole, but like most tend to do with tigers. the dynamite jars are fairly pricey so you don’t want to be using a handful around each rod every time. I’ve got a few handfuls and some crushed in my baiting mix at the moment. Prepared myself I may add to keep costs down.

Personally I’d rather buy food grade than a less refined oil. Buy the best quality, which isn’t always the most expensive. Sticky just buy hemp oil in bulk and bottle it. with the demand for hemp products skyrocketing over the last 6/7 years I doubt a fishing company are buying in food grade hemp oil to re-sell to anglers, they probably aren’t going to be sold it by suppliers. You can barely get decent dry hemp without paying a premium now as it all goes to the “superfood” industry.