LATEST ADDITIONS

The days of shelf-life baits being bullet-hard balls of nothing more than artificial flavours and very little goodness are well and truly behind us. In recent years, several companies have upped their game with their shelf-life baits but all have done so alongside their existing frozen ranges. Sonubaits has gone one step further in launching only a shelf-life boilie. With Code Red being its first foray into the carp-boilie market some would say this is a gamble.

Six new varieties have been added to the already comprehensive line-up of Goo ‘flavours’, namely Coconut Cream Bait Smoke, Squid Supreme Bait Smoke, Caramel Supreme Bait Smoke, Spicy Squid Power Smoke, Garlic Glaze Power Smoke and Garlic Supreme Bait Smoke. Some of these smell absolutely sublime, to our noses at least. I’m not at all convinced that baits ‘smell’ to carp anything like they do to us, so something like the Caramel Supreme (which I cannot stop sniffing) will undoubtedly catch as many anglers as carp, but to be fair there are plenty of baits out there that I could say the very same thing about. In fact, this could apply to the majority of non-fishmeal-based baits.

I was delighted to receive three spools of IQ2 because, having seen it on a couple of the Korda films and in various magazine features, I’d never actually used it. I’m not the most successful rig tyer but I got on okay with it once I set about making a few up. I copied the Danny Fairbrass IQ rig and after a few tries I seemed to master it. I did struggle a bit with the thicker-breaking-strain version but that’s probably more down to me than the line.

• A stiff, clear hook-link material• Ideal for stiff rigs and chod sections• 20m spools in 20lb and 25lb breaking strains For more details go to:Web: www. atomictackle. co. ukPrice: £5.