Tag: review

Delkim Standard Plus long term review

It has been a long time since I used a Heron style alarm, and recently ( whilst clearing through the loft) i found one of my old bite alarms. I marvelled at the technology that we used to use which in those days was, in effect, little more than a bent wire, a resistor, LED and buzzer. How things have changed. When I was a kid I remember opening a Christmas present one year to find a pair of Optonic bite alarms and being so proud and certain that I was going to catch more fish, alas it was not to be 🙂 the alarms don’t catch the fish the angler does. Still try telling that to an 11 year old.
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Korda Krusha review

It has been a while since I did a review and so I thought I would take a quick look at an item of tackle that has really made my fishing easier, the korda krusha. Many of you may know that I love PVA bags almost every time I cast there is a bag or pva stick on the end as not only does it increase attraction it also protects your hook point and ensures that you hook is not masked by weed or chod.

Due to the above I really love making up stick mixes but disliked crumbing boilies. Whilst you can fish a stick mix that is completely different to your boilie I do like to ensure that there is a healthy amount of crumbled boilie in the stick as well. Depending on how hard your boilies are this can be done with your fingers but after 10-15 boilies you hands will quickly tire. In the past I used to prepare in the kitchen the night before with the blender but this can be problematic as you never know how much boilie crumb you might need.

Enter the Krusha !
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Marukyu Boilies 1st look

Those of you that know me personally know that I am a bit of a tackle tart, and by bit I mean a lot 🙂 so when I spied these Marukyu boilies in my local tackle shop I just had to get them to have a try. Normally I am very single minded in my boilie taste being that for the last few years I have been using CCmoore Meteor for almost all of my carp fishing. However there has been a great deal of stirring about these boilies on the forums and with that in mind I thought I would give them a try.
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Nash Trax All terrain Evo – 1st look

Well new fishing locations need new kit and as I had just bought myself a car I was determined to get the one thing I had always wanted.. a barrow. Following some advice from some friends I decided to pop down to Harefield Tackle and found that it was only 5 mins drive from my house. When I got there I was med by friendly staff who not only showed me some new places to fish but also showed me their barrow range.  The shop stocks barrows by Chub, Nash and Daiwa  and after checking all of them I found that the new Nash Trax ALL Terrain Evo was just the ticket.

After getting it home and setting up all my gear on it I can say that it only just fits, I was considering the smaller one and am now really glad that I didn’t and opted for the largest one they do.
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Kelly Kettle review

The humble kettle, I don’t know one carp angler who regularly night fishes without one however I bet that 99% of the time they are the basic kind that run on top of the gas or petrol stove. A while ago I was introduced to the kelly kettle made by the Kelly Kettle Company in County Mayo, Ireland by my wife after I asked her to get me a kettle that didnt need gas. After some googling she managed to find a distributor of these kettles and the rest is history. Please note that if you like to cook inside your bivvy this is not the kettle for you. As there is an open flame you want to keep the kettle at least 2 yards away from the bivvy and rods.
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Review – PB Braid Pliers

I bought the above cutters on the recommendation of a mate who owns a tackle shop in Holland. He was madly enthusing about them to a customer standing in front of me and in the demonstration he picked up a section of 4lb braid ( thinner than cotton) and was happily snipping off 1 and 2 mm sections. After seeing this I decided that I had to have a pair and I have to say they are just that good. If you want a pair scissors that will cut almost anything ( including the shank of a hook apparently – though I have never tried) and then go back to cutting fine braid, these are for you. Normally when a really successful product appears on the market other tackle manufacturers are quick to leap on the band waggon and product their own version. Strangely PB products are still the only manufacturer that supplies this kind of cutter.

Verdict – buy them I have had them for 1 season and they are still as sharp as when I bought them. They can go from snipping wire traces to snipping fine braid and never miss a beat. Buy a set for each tacklebox they are that good.

Review – Fox Horizon SFD rods

Well some of you may know that I was unhappy with my rods, don’t get me wrong they were fine rods but 2 3/4 lb tc middle / tip action rods were not actually cutting it where I was fishing. I have lightweight rods in my stalking kit so I decided that to go with my new Fox 12k reels ( well not so new now) what better than a set of Fox rods. I had the advantage of a “try before you buy” when I met up with Mark for a quick session earlier in the year and I was very impressed. So armed with this knowledge I bought myself a 3 some of rods off of the Internet.

When the rods arrived it was like Xmas and I couldn’t wait to get on the bank with them, I popped out to Bosbaan for a quick session in August. Well I was noting but impressed. As you can not loose feed in the lake I tend to fish with largish PVA bags or sticks. This used to present an issue to my previous rods as they lacked the backbone to really punch out a 3 Oz lead and bag. Not so with the Fox rods, they load up nice and slow and release all that power exactly where you want them. Some of the casts in the lake are 85-90 yards and with a big bag it is a difficult cast. Sure, anyone can punch a single hook bait out to 150 yards but add a bag and you really sort out the pack. Continue reading “Review – Fox Horizon SFD rods”

Fox Coretex Review

Over the years I have been through the whole range of material to make hook links from. When I started carping on the distant past we used mono and then quickly progressed to black Dacron which as I was fishing a clay pit must have really stood out against the bottom. Strange that in the 20 odd years since I started carp fishing that we have effectively gone back to mono with the surge in the usage of flurocarbon ( for which I myself am guilty). Anyway recently after having issues with other hook link materials from another manufacturer a friend suggested that I try cortex. I dutifully bought a spool from my local tackle shop and had a play.

beginners013

As you can see it comes on a rather handy spool that is comprised of 2 plastic halves. This has the effect of sandwiching the cortex as it comes off the spool making over runs a thing of the past. On the rear of the spool ( not shown above)  there is a cut out that allows you to see how much of the product remains on the spool, handy to check before a foray to  the tackle shop. Continue reading “Fox Coretex Review”