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Winding down - angling as one gets older and frailer. Having caught shark, marlin, and sturgeon over 300 lb, and several hundred species from places as diverse as the Amazon Basin, the Australian outback, the Southern Ocean, the Caribbean coral flats and the streams of the American Divide. It is with some disbelief that I find age, muscle weakness and increasingly severe angina drastically limiting where I can fish. I have always loved catching wild fish in wild places, which has had me fishing in all seven oceans, and six of the seven continents. (went to the seventh – Antarcti

All, One day, Little Johnny saw his grandpa smoking his cigarettes. Little Johnny asked, “Grandpa, can I smoke some of your cigarettes?” His grandpa replied, “Can your pen!s reach your a$shole?” “No”, said Little Johnny. His grandpa replied, “Then you’re not old enough.” The next day, Little Johnny saw his grandpa drinking beer. He asked, “Grandpa, can I drink some of your beer?” His grandpa replied, “Can your pen!s reach your a$shole?” “No” said Little Johhny. “Then you’re not old enough.” his grandpa replied. The

16/08 a couple of weeks ago obliterating my PB caught 3 Chub. And this one on the same boilie lol

I've met him ! A minor club official with delusions of grandeur. Didn't have any I.D. on him but demanded to see my club card and licence. I told him to go climb a tree. Re the salties... The only other occasion where wildlife stopped me fishing was on the Oykel Fly fishing for Salmon , wading a rapid, above a deep pool, and was attacked by midges. I was not being bitten much, but two eyes full of midges meant I couldn.t see - in a fast current in midstream. Chucking handfuls of river water into my eyes was all I could do and the midges came back as soon as I stopped the i

Show off! I had a close call with a toad once

I guess this a sign of the times and many of us will look back at the golden years fondly. I'm surprised any magazine is surviving at the moment. I can't remember the last time I went out and bought one. For many years, they've become an impulse, one-off type affair for many of us. It's sad, really. Magazines and comics defined my youth!

Chris, Steve - I have a draft for another book, following on from A.V. My indoor hobby, now that tackle making and fly-tying are beyond my tremor-racked hands, is postal history, especially rail-related postal history ("The Night Mail crossing the border " etc ) - it does not leave much time for book production - since retiring I have often wondered how I ever found time to go to work !

Amazon bloody answers! On ebay you can ask the seller a question about their wares directly (and hold them to it should they lie) On Amazon it really pisses me off idiots answer for the sake of it! IE how long is the longest spanner in set x Answer 10cm (good answer) Answer 100mm (good answer) Answer 3 15/16ths (good answer but 4" ok) Answer about 3" (wrong answer) Answer i dont know i dont own one (pointless answer ) Answer i sent mine back and bought xxxxx (areshole) Whats wrong with people if you dont ****ing know why answer ! ****ing b

I would have preffered if she asked if i wanted some Bush

strangest thing? Returning from Chicago this morning the hostess ask me if "I wanted some headphones"? - I said yes OF COURSE- - but how did you know my name was PHONE pHONE

Except in a river or stream Regarding the information about the wind i have come to realise Millenials dont have a sense of consequence, you see them on youtube falling foul of obvious pitfalls any 'normal' adult will predict so everything has to be explained and most likely every time it's published because when you live on a phone there is no need to remember anything, its a wonder some remember to breathe !

You want excitement? Try barramundi fishing with 10 to 14 ft crocs eyeing you as a potential meal

Sea Angler used to quote 45,000 readers and there were 3 sea fishing magazines. Now there is Sea Angler and possibly one other but I haven't seen it for ages and someone says that Sea Angler now only prints 5,000 copies and the Editor is now self employed, not sure how true this info is though. It suffered the same fate as others. Constantly regurgitating old stories, blatantly biased towards its advertisers and not having anyone on it's staff that could identify sea fish so wrongly giving prizes to the wrong fish. I'm almost tempted to bring out another magazine to put it out of it's slow l

Back in the day there were reporting stations in angling shops across the country. We'd fish at the weekend & if we caught anything worthwhile we'd rush to our local shop in order to make our report, hoping that it would appear in our chosen paper the following weekend. Anglers would then rush to the newsagent on Friday to scour locations or check results before deciding where to fish at the weekend. Beyond that we had innovative writing from the likes of Richard Walker or perhaps more retrospective writing from from Bernard Venables. The 50's, 60's and 70's were truly the golden years of

I turned 51 recently. I have had the best year of my life,ignore all these old farts and enjoy yourself. Live and live disgracefully I say !

BoldBear tge actual same boilie just gave it a squirt of booster liquid ,it somehow stayed put so I thought why not Fishing off our narrowboat and it tore off upstream I managed to get it back near the boat moved the other rod out of the way and splash knocked my landing net over the side whilst doing that,then I saw it in the head torch and panic set in ...luckily had a big gye landing net I use when lure fishing and GF leant over to net it with that proper comedy of errors but I’m still buzzing now ,,,not going to beat that in a hurry Thames fish

KEITH, It is truly an embarrassment how quickly we get out of touch as we age. In fact, I would bet I haven't spent 3 hours in the last three years with an angler committed to EURO style carp fishing. I have never even seen a Delkim TXI Bite Alarm. Truth is I know nothing of their effectiveness. At one time I was a superb freeline sight angler - - - let's see -- - - how about 1973 Phone

I knew a Doreen once. Her knees were in good shape. She fell to her knees surprisingly often

You can buy lakeland stuff on Amazon ,titter!

Hi Chris, I'm the CSAS fisheries officer, and the barbel that were stocked a year or two ago were much bigger than the one pictured (that's assuming your Speedia is the same size as mine!) so this one is most likely naturally spawned. Glad you're enjoying fishing there, wish more people did.

Leeds City Council have recently taken on 2 bus loads of asylum seekers & installed them all into the Holiday Inn in Oulton. Shortly after which a car was stolen AND houses were burgled & only clothes & shoes were taken!! On the other hand, I'm struggling to claim a bean after 45 years of un interrupted employment and contributions. Yep, I'm not on my own in this & not claiming to be the only victim. But - "CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME!!" (Maybe not Charity - but recognition) Back in the day I paid the equivalent of a man's weekly wage just in stoppages!!!

I just copy to forum on postimage and then share. I hold my finger on the post on here and it pops up post image which I press and it comes up when I post my reply....normally that is, but, for some reason it's suddenly stopped working. I had a great session today, caught nine barbel with a couple which I would say were over ten pounds quite easily. I had a nice chub, and a few small chub also. I lost another foul hooked barbel and lost one after it slipped back out of the laanding net and as it bolted away my rod tip was only lever with the water and my line cut off about

Even eBay is not perfect: I wanted a left handed , (or universal) potato peeler with a ceramic blade. I found one that looked like a left handed blade but couldn't be sure from the pics - I emailed the seller and asked them. Their response was:- "Haven't got a clue mate", mine was, "Well I won't bother buying it then mate!" As it happens, I eventually got one from Amazon.

You need the world's largest carnivorous plant - a blackberry. They catch sheep

An outside greenhouse lol Surprisingly easy to find nowadays even in supermarkets long gone is the specialist collector only lable they had 50 years ago I always hankered for a bug eating plant collection but my initial venus fly trap died of exhaustion with the kids triggering it closed as soon as it reopened

After losing a post about four-fifths done I produce a version off-line, then copy and paste it in. Saves an awful lot of frustration. Now to see about putting piccys in,

It is booming TO MUCH SO my favourite venue use to have 3 or 4 of us between 36 pegs on an 18 acre lake. Its been a struggle to even get on it at a weekend this season as every man and his dog has taken the sport back up. Its not an easy water made even harder by the amount of pressure its suddenly receiving. I think there may be an awful lot of bait now just rotting on the bottom since they all think you need to throw in 5 kilos of boilies daily as per the carp mags . I predict in a years time or less there will be a lot of second hand tackle available on flea bay etc.

BoldBear, Wow!! the pond takes me back to life at a slower pace. Not so far from my home USED to be several well manicured rather formal estate ponds (by invitation only and somewhat "proper" attire). LONG gone now, progress is what I'm told. Your pond reminds me of them. There was just NO way to hurry and become frustrated. Usually involved lunch and a break (guess you would say tea) in the afternoon PHOTOS TURNED OUT GREAT. Chesters1, Rarely were carp of any size allowed to remain in these ponds. One, I remember had either fancy goldfish or perhaps they were koi (?) Pho

I had a short session yesterday afternoon doing a little waggler fishing on a local club water with my son. It was a nice change to be fishing out of the wind; which has been incessant over the past couple of days; and we were catching lots and lots of smallish Roach, plus a few small Carp plus a nice surprise Tench on a nice warm evening. We were catching these nearly every cast. The surprise Tench which is my favourite species. Plus we had a few of these between us. Keith

I seem to be hearing the same from places all round the country Ian. Barbel seem scarcer this year, even on the usual 'hot spots' like the Trent, Severn, and Avon. Like you, I think that the heavy flooding over the winter has played a part, not the otters as a guy I met on the bank the other week kept insisting, we had a slightly heated, (more like luke warm), debate on the subject. I've not tried for them yet this year, I've reached the time of life when my approach is more sedate than it used to be. Walking a few miles of bank, to locate them is out now. I don't mind a longish walk to a spot

ALL, About time I guess. 2020 has provided me with some real challenges. For example eating this onion. Half a year ago I was diagnosed with "Large B cell lymphoma" cancer. The fix is chemotherapy. I intend to continue to be around for at least three or four more years. I have zero complaints, I've had a rich and rewarding 80+ and wouldn't change a thing. Well, maybe a couple things - like 3 heart attacks, 4 strokes, diabetes, stage 4 kidney failure, and assorted other boring maladies. I just don't want to sneak out the back door without Chesters1 having a peek. I

Chesters1, Probably the number one reason I could not maintain an interest in fluff chucking was gold. As soon as I would see a few flakes the 'ell with the fish rod and out would come the pan. My best ever about 1/2 oz - 50 years ago Phone

The problem is that a five year old will want lots of bites, which will inevitably reduce with the colder weather. I'm sure you've asked advice from the local fishing shop.

All, Of this I can assure you - HOPEFULLY I am quoting myself. """ “Carp eat between nothing and very little when the water temperature is below 50 degrees F. and what they do eat they digest probably less than 5%”.""" A couple observations and biological facts HEALTHY carp can live seven months without feeding. THIS is the reason carp do not survive the far cold extremes. ON topic (if I remember my own stuff) the warmer the sweeter, the colder the more acidic. IN cold, carp will continue instinctive foraging behaviour and attention to tactics is far more im

Thanks BB for a good summary of how wind affects carp Also see my comments on venue 2 in the earlier thread "Winding Down" As Dick Walker once said "How much intelligence, for the love of Mike, does an angler need to realise that floating food will go where the wind blows it ?"

Do you feel Lucky Punk??

ANT, Fifty is the ultimate "F" word Phone

Kayak fished for a few years now ,mainly on the Thames where it’s certainly getting more popular

Best wishes fella - and I hope you finished your blooming onion.

Great to see a tench in the canal, that’s the first one I’ve seen in truth. There’s been some good perch caught at Enborne up on the stick ups and a 4lb bream made an appearance on the help the heroes match. Well worth a trip. Pegs 28, 19, 14 and 5 all worth a try.

Yep I can remember Phonebush, right pain in the arse.

I have built up two micro climates, one under the mango tree and the other, under the macadamia tree. The Macadamia one 'houses' my phalaenopsis collection, plus a few dendrobiums and cattleyas among a few ferns. Th white orchid at the bottom, is the uncommon variety of cattleya skinneri, the common variety being mauve.

Your humanity is shining through.

been smacked in the face by the kayak after I got binned in the surf when I first started and had a black eye from it (though not like that one) didn't realise until one of the barmaids pointed it out a few hours later

nice looking pond ,much better than featureless gravel pits ,nice fish to go with it although ii prefer no carp once they get big or in numbers they radically change small ponds

There was a time a few years ago when ‘Costco’ sold large plastic kayaks for not very much money and I was seriously thinking of buying one to use for fishing close to the shore and in estuaries for bass. However I didn’t buy one because it wouldn’t fit on top of my car and I lived too far from the sea. Keith

yup been at it since around 2006 dont do much at the moment unfortunately as too busy with other projects.

I caught a gudgeon on Saturday from the Thames - while jigging a soft plastic for perch!

Another one........ A large woman, wearing a sleeveless sundress, walked into a bar in London. She raised her right arm, revealing a huge, hairy armpit as she pointed to all the people sitting at the bar and asked, "What man here will buy a lady a drink?" The bar went silent as the patrons tried to ignore her. But down at the end of the bar, an owly-eyed drunk slammed his hand down on the counter and bellowed, "Give the ballerina a drink!" The bartender poured the drink and the woman chugged it down. She turned to the patrons and again pointed around at all of them, revealing the same