Alternative pop-ups....

How many of you take loads of different pop-ups with you? considering i rarely use them, i've just had a look through my bag and i've got 12 different types. are they really needed? i've now got it down to 4 tubs, my main bait, a mixture of fruity ones, a fishy one and a spicy one.

does anyone believe that (for example) a change from a bag of pellets with a crab pop-up to one with a salmon pop up has ever caught them a fish that a re-cast with the same flavour wouldn't have?

[Oscar The Grouch]

Dave,
I sometimes change the pop-up in a bag, but its more to do with colour. Sometimes a bright white pop-up over bag of pellets, sometimes a dark brown pop up. One stands out, one is camouflaged.

I try to keep the amount down to a minimum, mainly from cost! expensive for what you actually get!!

[GrahamM]

Sometimes any kind of change is enough to do the trick, but just as often we fool ourselves into believing it when the change has had nothing to do with it. The trouble is, there's no practicable way of proving it one way or the other.

For instance, not long ago we were carping on a local lake and hadn't had a run between the two of us all night and most of the following day, when I changed to a pink fluoro pop-up and almost immediately caught a carp of about 16lb.

On several sessions after that, in similar conditions, we couldn't get a suck on the same bait, but caught a few on the baits that were being refused on the day the fluoro pop-up worked.

As I said, that doesn't prove a thing, but there are those who would claim the fluoro pop-up definitely made the difference on that first day. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't, there's no way of knowing.

Only over an extended period of using the same baits on the same water can you get an idea of their preferences in certain conditions.

And even then they'll do something that throws the theory out the window. But that's just what makes fishing as good as it is.

was it the change in bait, or just the fact that you recast?


Having said that, I've got about 30 different variations of pop-ups, so I'm a fine one to talk.....

i guess where i'm coming from is more to do with whether you think you would've caught if you'd had a bright orange pop-up on (unanswerable i guess).
what made you pick the pink one?
sometimes i think you can have too much choice (especially when you include naturals, meats, pellets. i sometimes even resort to boilies!) and it just complicates things. that "what if...." in the back of my mind.....

lol rik! it was seeing stu's hookbait bag a couple of years ago that got me thinking!

[GrahamM]

Rik, it could well have been due to re-casting and just coincidence that I chose to do so with a pink fluoro pop-up. I just don't know, which is exactly the point I was making.

Frothey, I had pink, white and orange, the pink just happened to be the first jar I picked up.

what does it matter what made you do it, if it caused you to catch then keep doing it.

[GrahamM]

It's a confidence thing most of the time. It gave us confidence to keep trying pink pop-ups anyway, even if they didn't work again! Ringing the changes never does any harm anyway, keeps you occupied when you can't think what else to do.

better to change the colour of your pop-up then going thru 10 different rigs and set ups and all the associated angst that follows any change....