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I’ve got an old 15ft Shimano Powerloop float rod that was very tip heavy and so I stuck a 3oz lead into the end of the butt. I’ve still got it. It helped with the balance but it couldn’t fix the terrible hooklink snapping action ! Terry Eustace told me a hilarious story years ago about how he...

I was 'selling' at the RDAA open day yesterday. I shifted 4 rods, a couple of reels and loads of bits. One of the rods I was slightly sad to see go as it had caught lots of my big fish - but I dont use it - so why keep it. I had a count up about 3 years ago because I had no idea how many rods...

Have you tried contacting Jack Perks ?

Lovely fish, well done. P.S. Really big bream are impressive fish IMHO.

I doubt I’ve caught 62 barbel in my entire life……

I caught 2 more yesterday. Monsters of about 3.5 and 4lb. Only memorable because they were landed on a whip whilst roach fishing……

If you are not in a hurry, I would look for some old Harrison rods. Ballista/GTI rods come up for sale regularly and they can be very cheap. Any of those in 2lb, 2.25 or even 2.5 would be fine. Even Chimeras (my favourite) can be had at knockdown prices. I’ve got some 12ft 2.5’s that are nice...

5 tench to 5lb and a 23lb mirror in a 2 hour session yesterday afternoon. I’m blanking on the river - so it was just a bit of r&r and a check that the bait works…..

I used to use a TE Big Tench for eel fishing - deceptively powerful rods. Back in the day top carp anglers used 1lb - 1.25 rods with 15lb Sylcast for snag fishing. They could land anything.

That’s a little unfair. He talks about balance and family life in the Q&A section at the end. I’ve met a few anglers over the years who really are blinkered and it is fish at all costs.

I think you have got it right. The white surface ‘sugars’ are very attractive to fish - as per Brendan’s Mullins’ example and early Richworth frozen baits. The latter worked best when they were white and about 3 days out of the freezer. My frozen/thawed stuff was actually mouldy (as in...

I once had a freezer failure affect a significant quantity of bait. I re-froze it hoping that it hadn’t gone off; and then I tested a small quantity on some easy carp. I actually watched their reaction and they would NOT eat it - so that made throwing away the rest of it much easier.

Couldn’t agree more. An incredible fish falling to a top eel angler.

Several people I know use similar rods for specialist roach Stillwater feeder fishing. If you can cope with 12 ft I could sell you either a Drennan super feeder or a Tricast medium LR (long range - they are joking!) feeder. Both are nice chub rods. Both have multiple quivers.

I was involved in testing a prototype bait last Winter and the supplier had a devil of a job programming his machine to not overcook the bait. We wanted it soft and ended up with about a 45 second boil - the shortest possible. Ideally we wanted it softer still but the machine couldn’t do that…..

Tiger line is really good - but very expensive.

That’s a different topic all together….frozen against shelf life as in preserved. I’m talking about the faff of making your own against commercially available (frozen) bait. These days I favour the lazy approach as mentioned in post 4 at the very start of this thread. I mucked about with Dave...

If you roll the sausages and then cook those whole; it saves even more time and you can then cut them up/slice to suit on the day. There is also even more uncooked surface area so even more leak off….. Also thin sausages (eg 8mm) cut and fished as long, thin baits work brilliantly...

Apologies for the offence. What I actually said was <edit> - an admittedly abstruse reference to somebody overly concerned about the onset of old age and things going ‘soft’. If I’d written <edit> - then I need a good telling off. FWIW the original comment about those Century blanks changing...

Another vote for the TA quiver - a very well thought out bit of kit and it really is light. I use a Saber small rucksack (blatant copy of the TA one) and that is a good product too - but it is small.