FP1's review @ Hallcroft, Reed Pool.

In my opinion. It isn't the best time of year to try a pellet really especially with the last night frost! Even more so as i hate fishing them @ the best of times,but if its a hard time to catch then surely its time to try something new?

The FP1's are courtesy of http://www.talkangling.co.uk/ who at present are the only distributor of this brand.

Well when i received them i could instantly smell the aroma, thats before opening the packet! They come in several sizes, flavours and colours and are packed in very secure jars, capable of fitting the biggest of sausage fingers in them. The pellets are covered in oil, I'd imagine this helps the life time of the pellet and increases it as well as helping preserve flavour and adding to attractant once in the water.

You get a decent choice to suit!

They are in 4,6 or 8mm sizes, with 60ml of product per jar along with the top secret FP1 formula flavor incorporated into the oil based glug that is on the pellets.



Pink Monster - monster crab flavour
Natural Brown - fishmeal flavour
Mello Yellow - corn steeped scopex flavour
Candy White - sweet halibut flavour (Which i must say is my favourite).

The FP1 pellets are of the best quality ingredients and base mix wise. The texture is like something amongst the marsh mellow family and i myself have never really fished with anything like this, as i am a die hard paste man in the summer, but i was impressed! I couldn't see anyone having problems with this flying off on the strike or ship in, even with a finer gauge hook. All in all its a quality bait in my eyes so far and the price tag of £5.50 doesn't seem a lot considering it can keep for a long while and be used for many sessions. I also would be willing to bet that it would be very good for Commercial Carp and Silvers a like. I'd see it performing very well for Ide or even Roach up in the water.

So enough of the talk, to the fishing!

Well, as i didn't really know the bait, i chose to take it to a venue i know very well, Hallcroft. I chose the reed pool which i know very well and i chose peg 22. I wanted to set up 4 lines, 2 x Margin lines and 2 x 8m lines both with alternating Choppy and Caster and Fp1 lines.

For my Margin rig i chose my classic.....

Yes i know, i go on a bit. But these floats are underated.

Rig 1 (FP1) Margin - Colmic Goldie .2g 3.5lb - 2.2lb hook length (Powerline) to a Preston PR24 18. Fished 2 inch over depth just after the marginal shelf (3ft). Also found a very nice inlet of water coming from the canal pond.

Rig 2 (Worm) Margin - Colmic Goldie .2g 3.5lb - 2.2lb hook length (Powerline) to a a 16 Drennan Silver Pellet. Fished 3 inch over depth just after the marginal shelf (3ft).

Rig 3 (FP1) 8m - Preston PB22 .5g 3.5lb - 1.8lb hook length (Powerline) to a Preston PR24 18. Fished 3 inch over depth about a metre past the edge of the slop. Fished in around 5ft of water.

Rig 4 (Worm) 8m - Preston PB22 .5g 3.5lb - 1.8lb hook length (Powerline) to a Preston PR24 18. Fished 4 inch over depth about a metre past the edge of the slop. Fished in around 5ft of water.

All above were going to be fished with the Preston 11h elastic.

All lines were going to see the same amount of bait which was, very little. I decided to do everything negatively in order to have a good show and a fair fight between the two baits. I got everything sorted and just put a small cup of absolute chop on the worm lines with 30% caster. The FP1 however, i decided to go for my ground bait recipe, as i was treating this like a match, its no good targeting the carp, so i was fully intent on going for the Bream and Chub. I decided to make a few TINY balls of a sweet mix i made up to suit the sweetness of the Candy FP1 and just gave both the swims a tiny taste of it. Also with the margin rig intended on serving them some free dead reds just as an insurance policy.


The PR24 is an ideal hook if your not targeting anything to big...

I decided to start on the 8m line first with the worm rig. Nothing was really showing. I tend to only give it 15 minutes until i try another line when i am fishing for everything that swims, so that said, i went onto the margin worm rig, to which i didn't get a sign.

So were talking about an hour without a fish. I re topped up my worm swims and left to go onto the FP1, As i noticed there were a few swirl from the silvers. I put it in just to the right of the inflow of water....

I know what your thinking. Whats that T**t doing fishing the margins at this time of year, but you should always think out of the box. Proved time and time again the margins work all year. One of the best places in a lake to get silvers if the waters right.

Well i gave it a little longer, mainly because i was very confident in the white mello pellet, always thought white pellets were brilliant baits in the winter, just never really gave them much attention, but it worked....

The chub fight very well indeed for their size and if your not careful they'll still take you into the snags, the first fish of the day...

Not the biggest but it doesn't take a lot of these to nail a place in a match on those hard days. It didnt really take long for me to build up around 8lb of weight with these little beauties. I tried to stick to a feeding pattern of every 3rd fish with my small sweet ground bait balls. After 2 hours in the margin swim it went a little slow. After another feed of the sweet mix, I decided to go back on the 8m line with the worm. I was in pretty much straight away, but an absolute tiny chub. Nothing really showed after that, i had a couple of TINY knocks and even though my float was dotted down to a tiny speckle it wasn't a large enough bite to strike. I called it a day there and then on the 8m worm line i decided to concentrate my efforts on the Margin swim line, it had a good rest after re baits while i was on the Pellet line so when i was instantly into a chub i wasn't that surprised. It was a slightly longer wait for the bite on the worm and the fish sizes was very small. I decided to put in a little more bait and sit and wait a while as i knew the worm worked here and well. It only took a little longer for me to get the bigger chub but the wait was still a while per fish. It went dead for about 15 minutes but then my float shot under. Didn't have the thing on very long though as it went straight for the margins and snagged me. That's what you get for relaxing! After that my rig was mangled and i just decided to stick to the FP1 line.

The chub were still there despite the hour or so fishing the opposite margin. The best thing about chub is you can tell what they have been eating!

Obviously been having some of my sweet dead reds then!

Evaluation,

Well all in all it was a very good day. It was a good result for the FP1's on the day. Its hard to tell what would of been the better bait as i know i didn't really put all the effort in on the worm line today. For the FP1's, i do hold a lot of confidence in them, especially the white candy pellet. Time will tell how well they go on different venues etc. I'm certainly going to try them on my mid and up in the water lines throughout next year and i reckon I'll have very good results. It certainly helped me get the better quality chub out on a not so good day.

I'd say the FP1's account for 70% of my estimated 30lb weight of just chub. IF your in the market for a new bait, i would definitely try these.

If you wish to try the FP1's simply visit http://www.talkangling.co.uk/ and check the products section or simply Click Here.