I got bought a Zippo one last Christmas and compared to any of the electric ones I've used it beats them hands down.

Can't go wrong with the little hand warming pouches you can find in home bargains or the pound shop though!

Trakker suit for me all the way. great value for money and super warm!

So intrigued by whether these Ali express ones work well. I've got a powapacs atom at the moment but wouldn't mind some smaller!

I've had a tempest 150 for 2 years now and fish all year round. Its plenty big enough for all situations, I have treated myself to most of the additional extras and have to say the inner dome was fantastic when I used it in France at a rat riddled lake and the extension has been awesome during the hotter months providing some additional shelter on a lake that doesn't have much cover.

All in all, I would say the tempest is the best bivvy I've ever had!

In reply to Post #2
Thanks for the advice, which rods you would recommend?

Last Christmas i was fortunate enough to upgrade some of my gear before going away to France and at the time had a price limit on what i could afford rod and reel wise. In the end i settled for a set of Shimano Tx5 12ft 3.5lb Intensity rods and the Shimano Power Aero 14000 XTB reels.

Having owned these for a year now I cant say im in love with the rods but they have done me ok, certainly on my syndicate where i will fish at a maximum of 120 yards but the majority of the time between 70-100 yards.

Now here comes my polava, i recently won a competition on the carp gear giveaway site....yes i know extremely lucky....and as part of this win I won a set of Daiwa Basia Custom DCR6 reels. I would like to get a feel for what other people think about these reels compared to what i have already but also if I were to change rods again what people would recommend? So far a couple of friends have recommend i sell my current setup, go with the Basias and buy myself some infinity df x45s.

I welcome all opinions! Thanks Guys!

In reply to Post #11
ive been using the wychwood ones for sometime due to the cost and i think i would of been able to pay for 2 shimanos or diawas with the amount of crack offs ive had because the bail arm has a mind of its own.

In reply to Post #9
Some really useful replies here, doesnt seem like there is all too much difference between the 2, sounds like its based on personal opinion.

Still got my eyes on the shimano

In reply to Post #667
Newbie here, been checking out the forum for a while.

If anyone has any good lake recommendations around the bristol area im all ears!

Joined in the hope that someone can help me decide which spod reel to go for.

Ive been looking at either the Diawa Emblem or the Shimano Ultegra XTD Spod......Im being drawn to the Shimano because i use the Shimano XTB reels on my rods and my rods themselves are shimano rods. This might just be me being a tackle tart so I thought i would seek advice from others before making the purchase.

Whats your experience of either spod reel?
Upon choosing the correct spod reel what braid would you choose?

Thanks in advance