Mike’s Diary
River success...
Posted in Mike’s Diary on 07th April 2010Work and family commitments soon took over though and the close season work parties at my Springwood fishery meant that apart from a few day sessions on a Devon estate lake, I didn’t get the chance to concentrate on my fishing for another six weeks, but I couldn’t wait for the arrival of June 16th and a spot of river fishing. The new bait development has been picking up pace and after a few final tweaks, myself and Lee were confident that everything about it was absolutely spot
on - we weren’t wrong!
Despite the new bait going well it had a lot to live up to because the B5 had done so remarkably well on the river during the past 2-years, including a hat-trick of thirties, which was unheard of before on the river. Based on our usual high food value philosophy, the new bait was introduced regularly for 3-weeks leading up to the season and it soon became obvious that they wanted more and it was very pleasing to see that the bait was holding them in our chosen spots ready for ‘the off’ – perfect!
Most of the carp were feeding very close to the edge amongst the soft marginal blanket weed where the bream were spawning and it soon became apparent that they were mopping up the eggs, as well as foraging on the big black water snails that colonise here. The bait was a nice free snack, but a nutritious one at that!
Now I don’t want to go into too much detail here because I’m compiling lots of fresh material for my follow up book to Carp Life due out next year, but the season has got off to an absolute flyer with a very consistent amount of action together with some fantastic river carp, including a number of big commons, mirrors and leathers.
Incidentally, I’ve been using the new Covert range of terminal tackle from Gardner, including their new Mugga hooks and the hook holds have been quite amazing. I’ve also had a few calls from anglers enquiring what reels those ‘small silver things’ are in my shots! Well they’re the Caldia 4000 reels from Daiwa and are simply brilliant for short to medium range work. I’ve been and ‘old school’ user of Cardinal 55’s since the 70’s but I’ve now finally found a reel that supersedes them in every department!
Shelf life boilie advantages
Our Essential resident 'Globetrotter' Merv Pennell with one of his many big carp caught on our range of Shelf life boilies. Merv, amongst so many other anglers, openly admits that our shelf life range offer a massive edge over 'standard' shelf life boilies and would not use anything else.
Of course the big advantage about the use of shelf life boilies can be summed up in just one word – convenience! And this is the key word you need to bear in mind. Good quality freezer baits are fantastic for that long term baiting campaign, yet can be problematic for extended UK sessions and of course when fishing on the continent.
So would we recommend substituting freezer baits with shelf life boilies for long term bait application? In short, no we wouldn’t! Simply because this will not offer any advantages at all, however, we can honestly say that for those trips outside the UK or even those extended sessions within the UK where it would be difficult to keep freezer baits fresh, this highly successfull range of shelf life boilies tick all the boxes - and more!
So many anglers strongly believe these are the best quality shelf life boilie available ANYWHERE in the world! Confidence and convenience, such key words for success.
Top Tips
1) Avoid cheap and cheerful shelf life boilies like the plague. I can think of few things worse to ruin your chances of success than poor quality boilies that have been ‘over-flavoured’ to mask preservative odours!
2) If the manufacturer states there are no preservatives in them, ask him to tell the truth!
3) Beware of semi-soft shelf life boilies. These are likely to be overloaded with preservatives. We tend to rely on reduced moisture levels, which in turn creates a 'tougher' bait, but with far less preservative.
