The MasterBlanker

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.

How times have changed, I swiftly realised all those years ago that although my Optonics were good there was a better player on the bank in the form of an Optinic modified by Del Romag. Sadly even though I coveted a set of Delkim modified Optonics more than was healthy I never got a set. Now as an adult I decided to put that right.

Delkim, due to patent issues, no longer modifies Optonics and indeed the Optonic brand has all but died, however they do make their own alarms. I decided that I had to have a some.

Delkims come in 3 flavours the ( in order of cost)

• EV+
• Standard Plus
• TXi Plus

I bought the middle of the range the Standard Plus, the main difference between the Standard plus and TXi is that the TXi have a built in transmitter for the wireless sounderbox where as the Standard Plus’s lack this and you have to buy the add on unit to give this functionality. If I was going to buy again I would stringly suggest buying the TXi’s as to buy the Standard plus  and then the micro transmitter is very expensive and in my eyes not worth it at all.

The 1st thing you notice about the Delkim  is its size, in a world with ATTX’s and Fox microns these alarms are really in the older school where size = reliability. That being said they do have rather satisfying feel about them and you get the impression that should a nuclear war break out the only thing to survive will be, rats, cockroaches, your solar pod and these.

Some of the nicest features are immediate as soon as you look at the alarm. From the front you can see the 2 position onn / off switch ( controlling master sensitivity) and the 3 large dials that control, sensitivity, volume and tone. There is also a coloured button that indicated the colour of the LED but also controls features such as LED brightness and night mode. It really is worth looking at the manual for these devices as there is a myriad of settings from night marking ( 2 presses)  to how to turn down the brightness of the LED’s ( 4 presses) all on that 1 button.

The unit also comes with a remote sounderbox, which apart from being slightly too thick to fit in a pocket works well and does not eat batteries at all. The sounder box only has and on / off, volume and initial settings button. The rest is controlled by the heads ie if you change the tone on the heads the tone emitted by the sounder also changes. One change I would make to this if I was redesigning it would be to make the receiver more like a “candy bar” phone and able to fit into a pocket. The current design is just a little bit too think but apart from that is fine.

So how do they work ? well surprisingly well. One massive advantage that they have over conventional bite alarms is that they do not rely on line passing over a wheel but on the subtle vibration of the line over a sensor mounded in the to of the alarm. This means that the alarm can be set of sensitive enough to detect the cough of a sparrow 200m away to only alerting of 6 inches of line is pulled off. On area where Delkims get a bad rap is that may users don’t know this and set them so sensitive that an angler merely breathing causes them to sound as if a full blooded run. Remember kids, that little piece of paper written by the spanish guy called ” Manuel” is there to guide you. Please for the sake of all of us turn down the sensitivity.

Due to the above the alarms are very well sealed and whilst not 100% water tight I have never had an issue and I have fished with them in all conditions from baking sun, to monsoon to -8 deg C and they always worked.

Overall they are not the cheapest of alarms but they ooze quality and I cant see myself replacing them any time soon. If you do buy a set however buy the TXi Plus as it is cheaper in the long run.

Happy fishing

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 !

It can turn this :

into this

Now I have a quick way of making instant boilie crumb on demand. An amusing side effect is that if it is cold and your fingers dont want to work very well, 10 mins with the krusha and they are toasty warm

Over all I really rate the product it is simple and very effective. Korda make 2 sizes, the one above is the larger model and I would suggest buying it rather than going for the smaller one as it will crush large and small quantities of bait with ease.

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.

So what are they like ? well I have not had chance to try them out in a carp fishing situation yet so this is not really a review but more of a 1st look but here are my initial impressions. 1stly the boilies are made in China under the direction of Marukyu Japan, I have no problems with chinese products but for those of you with an ecological side hey have been transported a long, long way to get into my grubby paws and I am not sure if the globalization of bait is a good idea. Certainly the raw ingredients for 99% of boilies are produced out side of the EU so perhaps making the boilies in the country of manufacture of the raw ingredients is a good idea ?

The Boilies I selected were the “Fruit formula, Shiso 14mm ABR1415″ with ABR standing for “advanced boilie formula”. Looking at the back of the packet the ingredients are listed as

Egg

Cereals

Polysaccharides

attractants

Casein

Flavouring

colouring

preservatives

Normally the ingredients list is in descending order by weight in the finished product, indicating that these boilies are very much cereal based and so probably not to the same standard as standard HNV bait. That being said at least they are honest about the ingredients, I suspect that many EU boilie makers have roughly the exact same ingredients and base them almost 100% of semolina flour.

So what do the boilies look like ?

You can see that they appear to have bird seed as a base with a lot of cereal flour which is evidenced by  the view from inside :

The texture appears to be fairly light and I would not be surprised if they are quite neutrally buoyant in the water, certainly I don’t suspect that I am going to win any distance competitions with my throwing stick but they will definitely not fly apart when given a bit of welly.

So how do they small / taste. Well though they have been listed as ” Fruit formula” on the packet they don’t seem to have any discernible odour of fruit, in fact the small can best be described as a subtle seaweed mixed with cream. Not over powering at all and a chance from most modern ready mades that are so strong you can small them at 20 paces. Taste wise my human taste buds really don’t seem to be able to detect anything apart from a slight bitter milk taste. However please note that a carp’s taste buds are completely different from mine and so they will perceive things differently.

Overall, an interesting 1st step into the bait world, they will not capture anglers with an inviting small ( mainly designed to lure in anglers rather than fish) however they do seem to be “fishy” that is they definitely seem to be something that I can imagine a carp getting its head down on hard. I will use them along side my normal bait for a few sessions and let you know how I get on.

Have you used this bait ? Have you used another form the same manufacturer ? what were you opinions ? Share them at the link at the bottom and post a comment.