salokcinnodrog

I played with Alivio rods years ago, they were better for slinging deadbaits out on the river than they were for carp fishing from memory. Not bad, but not the best. Put it this way, they were ok for budget or starter rods, but not as as upgrade. The Shimano 10000XTEA's, not bad, probably balanced with the Alivios. Daiwa and Shimano each have their devotees. Alarms, I would stick with the Att's. Spod rods, probably about the same. At the end, I hope the gear works for them.

I used to use a lot of boilie crumb, chops and boilie bits in my freebaits, winter and summer. Obviously you have the attraction the smaller bits provide, keeping smaller fish and carp picking them up. I rarely used any high oil pellets, switching to carp pellets only in the mix.

I have used various bivvies and brolly systems over the years, and the two with least condensation problems were the Rod Hutchinson Apotheosis and the Fox Easydome versions. (I don't like and haven't used the latest incarnation of the Easydome). My usual winter system is now a TFG Oval brolly with overwrap, which to be honest still gets condensation. Years ago I was on a 50inch Steadefast brolly and wrap. As Yonny has said, there is no gap between the brolly and the wrap, and even in winter, unless there is rain driving in, I don't usually shut the door. I have an original Gold Label Terry Eustace sleeping bag cover to stop drips onto the sleeping bag. I make sure I have a good sleeping bag and winter clothing to keep warm as I don't like and don't do bivvy heaters, or stoves inside the bivvy. You can help reduce condensation inside the brolly, a full groundsheet, with a decent layer underneath it. Dry grass, hay or straw, plenty of leaves under help, but admittedly they are not available on every lake. A few years ago someone left a double duvet at the lake, that made a good base under the groundsheet! I make sure the groundsheet is properly velcroed to the brolly skirts, and use my brolly bag, bivvy bag, even rod holdall to cover any gaps. Put the groundsheet down first, spread properly, then velcro (if your groundsheet has velcro) that to the brolly.

That line lay looks ok to me to be honest; I've definitely seen worse. The spool itself is probably narrower central diameter at the back than the front, leading to the what looks like forward tapering. I gave up on worrying about loading line on reels. I found the easiest method for me is to put the new line in a bucket of water, and wind it through the butt eye on the reel section only, slowly, reeling in between thumb and forefinger. DO NOT reel in fast, take your time. It does not always come off the line spool off the front, sometimes it unreels. It may appear to be twisting, but by going slowly you are pushing the twists up the line, where they unravel. Baitrunners by allowing line to come off the reel under tension create and cause twist, as does playing fish off the clutch.

Carp often have specific areas they hole up in winter, year after year. It could be silt beds, near gravel bars, natural foods like bloodworm beds, or even next to snags, decaying lily pads or rushes. It is most definitely not always the deepest water, I have seen them in rush beds with only just around 3feet of water above them. They were only visible if you got into the water right next to them, you couldn't see them from any swim, although you could cast to the edge of the rush bed, and catch. In winter I rarely fish with any particles, maybe some very over wet soaked Vitalin as groundbait and nearly all boilie as my feed, although sweetcorn can produce a fish or two. I also reduce my stringers; instead of 5-30 bait stringers, I go to only 1 or 2 (14mm) boilies on a stringer with a single hookbait. One rod nearly always has a hi-viz or hi-attract pop-up as the bait, and I recast this regularly, trying various spots and various baits. The obvious bright yellow Pineapple (in its various forms from different manufacturers) works sometimes, as do others, Monster Squid, Scopex, Plum or my own version pop-up Garlic and Megaspice, which I describe in the Bait Making section. I really don't know what it is, but that mix produces a lot of fish as an individual pop-up, or as part of a food bait mix. Even in winter, the food bait will often work. I have described in the past a session I had years ago on Thwaite. For the first two days the high attract pop-ups produced, then for the rest of the week all takes came to the food bait I had been feeding sparingly since the first day of the trip after no other prebaiting through the year. On Earith back all those years ago I found a swim that produced fish every trip, although because I was catching other people did start fishing it. A little digging around with the marker rod, I found a swim with similar topography at the other end of the island. I went on to catch from here as well. My pre-baiting on here was as I left every week after a two day trip. I put a kilogramme of boilies in as I was leaving. Every take came on my good source bait. Despite trying a few times, the high attract baits did not give a fish. I wish I had known about the Garlic Spice mix then! NOT all takes will come during the day. As much as fish may be caught during daylight, I found some fish still fed at night. I have caught a lot of fish at night, even in winter. My biggest common at the time, from Earith, was caught at around 1am in February. Saying that though, my best winter session 4 fish, over 4 days, just after a thaw, every fish came during daylight. The only reason I fished at night was the distance from home. Earith Winter February 25lb common:

That is exactly what I do. Put the front legs to the right setting and height and leave the back legs folded up.

Nice fish, nice write up.

I remember a Shaun Harrison article where he tipped some 'rancid' particle away, the fish and geese cleaned it up. Now personally, when it comes to my chicken corn, I actually prefer it slightly off, or left for a few days. I soak it for a few days before boiling it, then once boiled leave it for a couple of days. If it has been soaking, I would actually boil it as it stands!

Welcome to Carp.com

I'm positive that Halibut pellets are attractive, I have seen them sit uneaten in an area for a month or so, in fact I put pictures on here. It was in fact in an area that fish visited, until the excess of pellets, when they avoided the spot for ages after. The excess of pellets 'killed' the lakebed for a while. To some extent 'non-attractive' bait is tested, because of curiosity. Is it a possible food item? As the legend Rod Hutchinson said "if a stone is covered in flavour, is fished on a short hair and sucked in, then the chances are you will hook the fish". Some spots are 'natural food areas', some are 'baited food areas', some are both. Fish on areas that are 'baited food' areas may become wary on that spot, testing every bait, be it particle, pellet, boilie, or even groundbait. Fish feeding head down snuffling or troughing through groundbait may be sucking in just groundbait, not any boilie. You want a bait that gets fish feeding on everything, hence our experimentation with various additives, when to be honest, I have found nothing that matches liquidised worms and maggots. 'Natural' extracts?

My big worry is obvious. On a serious note with molasses, it is very attractive, high in sugar, carp and other species love it, but without checking I wouldn't know what pH level molasses is? It would probably mix very well with molehill soil and chopped worm

Without eggs? try this

Thing is with any bait, boilie or groundbait, you have to put it where the fish will eat it. My favourite groundbait for years was a very simple mix of chopped and liquidised worm, molehill soil and plain brown crumb, with maggots or worms on the hook. There is no point in adding anything else as the salt in proprietary groundbaits kills the worms, including the chopped pieces. I have tried various liquidised ingredients in boilies, squid, liver, maggots and worms. If you do use them, you don't want too much in there. A mix of squid, maggots, and liver with some semolina works, and going over into

To be honest it is not the teeth that are a problem with using forceps or long nosed pliers to unhook them. I don't like using a glove, so as I unhook them by putting my opposite hand and holding through the gills I catch my fingers on the gill rakers and end up with 'raker rash', which bleeds more than a tiny cut should. I

Must admit I don't have any problems with Mainline Polaris pop-up mix, but I don't often pierce my pop-ups I do normally tie them on. The alternative I have found is screwing them onto bait screws or threading Amnesia lighter tag melting the tag ends to seal them. I have had more problems with corkball pop-ups (and I have made my own with finely sieved base mix), small fish and crays will take the bait off the corkball, leaving you with nothing on the hair. It may also be I don't want overly buoyant pop-ups that lift up a hook, swivel and another swivel. I want mine pinned down on the hookshank and weight (olivettes or tungsten beads in shrink tube). My pop-ups are buoyant enough to lift a size 4 B175 or Solar 101