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Hi Guys, I haven't been on here for many years, ( I was known back in the day as Norrie ) .....but was told about Daves passing by Elton....geez, the end of an era...what a lovely, lovely guy...I had the pleasure of fishing with him many times at Lochaline, where he and his wife Paula supplied many varying foods for our end of day feasts....one that sticks in my mind is Wild Boar sausages, and for dessert , strawberries dipped in melted chocolate ...awesome food. We also fished at Lymington along with John Becker, and Paul Compton...( Do they know of Daves passing?? ) I remember one trip out of Lymington, when a baby Thresher shark followed Daves bait right out the water and up the side of the boat...exciting that was... So, I suppose it comes to us all, but it was a real shock when I heard about Dave...he seemed to be invincible....just kept going on and on, in his Ford mobile home...I for one, will miss him, but will certainly have fond memories of the time I spent with him.. Att is a wee photo of Dave, Paul Compton and half of John Becker, Lymington 2006...at dinner in the Mayfair...Happy Times indeed..:) RIP Dave...

Reviving another old thread - had this 1lb 1oz beauty yesterday on a canalised stretch of Kennet at Thatcham!

So sad to report that my beloved Dave, known to you as Vagabond has died. He left to fish another world on 3rd May. I'm thinking he is out there hunting that 2lb roach. He enjoyed the friendships he made through Anglers Net and was still reading your posts until very recently. We often remembered the Anglers Net gatherings at Wingham and the bass fishing trips out of Lymington and Weymouth. My best wishes to you all and thank you for giving Dave so much entertainment with your many posts.

I had several hours trotting for barbel yesterday, but not a sniff of a barbel! Maybe the sudden overnight frosts and with the river only just dropping down after being in flood had put the dampers on me catching a barbel. Anyhow, I did catch 5 decent chub of about 3 1/2 to 4lb , several roach of around a pound, small roach, dace and chublets....no barbel though! Had another couple of hours after chub today. There was a horrible strong downstream wind but the temps were up from 9 degrees yesterday to 14 degrees today. I did ok today and had quite a few chub, no monsters, but all of them were around 2 1/2 to 4lb and really fought hard. A couple of pictures from the day....

A Kiwi and an Australian go to a pastry shop. The Kiwi whisks three cookies into his pocket with lightning speed. The baker doesn’t notice. The Kiwi says to the Australian: "You see how clever we are? You’ll never beat that!" The Australian says to the Kiwi: "Watch this, an Australian is always cleverer than a Kiwi." He says to the baker, "Give me a cookie, I can show you a magic trick!" The baker gives him the cookie which the Australian promptly eats. Then he says to the baker: "Give me another cookie for my magic trick." The baker is getting suspicious but he gives it to him. He eats this one too. Then he says again: "Give me one more cookie..." The baker is getting angry now but gives him one anyway. The Australian eats this one too. Now the baker is really mad, and he yells: "And where is your famous magic trick?" The Australian says: "Look in the Kiwi’s pocket!"

A week ago today I had a ride down to the river seven for a day for a change of scenery, it was really nice, but unfortunately was a little to high for me to wade in my thigh waders. It was dropping off and was carrying colour but still looked good. I stood at the waters edge, or just in it and cast out into the middle or towards the opposite bank. I had roach, dace and some small chub, then dropped on a shoal of very nice chub and had 14 virtually one after the other. My spider senses told me that I was due a barbel amongst those chub, but my friend had to get off and I wasn't sure of my way back to the main roads and left with him. It turned out my phone took my the exact way he took me so I could have stayed after all....darn it! I had planned on another ride down today but the river was way above last weeks level and so I stayed local. I'm hoping to get back down there asap as I enjoyed the change. I had a couple of hours out trotting on a falling river today, the river was heavily coloured with what looked like sewage again!...so not a tanning from peat which often comes down from one of the tributaries that comes from peat, it was tiny brown particles which looked like mashed up bog roll and shyte! Anyhow, the river never fishes well when this stuff is coming down, I saw no sign of a barbel but managed a few decent chub, roach and dace. It was quite precarious wading out around 40yds on a rocky river with no visibiity so I only took one chub back to the bank for a photo when going back to re fill my bait pouch....

I am old but despise bookface and titter. They are like self checkouts in supermarkets imho

Last....hang on , it was sunday last week not saturday , the river was a couple of feet up and I had to don my chesties in order to get out to the area i'm usually able to reach in my thigh waders. I'd forotton how much of a hasstle it is when you want a slash and your wearing chest waders! The water felt cold and to be honest I wasn't expecting much, so I was surprised to hook something solid after only a few trotts through. I won't harp on about how I got a piece of wood shaving in my eye after cattying out the first pouch of maggots, or how I had to walk back to the car and try to swill my eye out with half a small bottle of water that had been in the car since june!, or the rain, the downstream wind,etc etc. Anyhow, within a couple of hours (that includes the time it took to walk back to the car etc, oh, and re-tie my hook after it hooked a large twig on one of my fist casts) I did ok and had six barbel and some xxl dace as a by product, several pic's from the session....

I've fished for the last two saturdays in a row, week before last I caught five small barbel and some chub... .

Had a few hours on Sunday evening on our clubs Estate Lake after Carp; but it was unusually quiet as there are usually a few anglers there on a Sunday evening but there were no other anglers there. Perhaps there hasn’t been many Carp coming out recently I thought; although my son had a mirror of just over 27lb only last week plus we both had Carp between 11lb and 17b last week so it can’t be all that bad. Anyway I set up my two rods in the swim below. Unfortunately I was right and it didn’t seem to be fishing well, however just before I started to pack up as the light started to fade after resigning myself to having a blank (which is fairly rare for this lake) one of my alarms finally sprang into life and a Carp in the very low teens was the result. I will be back on my favourite stream after Barbel next week and onwards so I will be giving the estate lake a miss for a while Keith

I had to abort my trotting for barbel today due to conditions of the river, but rather than miss out on a days fishing I visited another venue and targeted chub instead. These chub fight really hard and are difficult to stop from getting into the bankside vegetation. Because of this I used a hardy marksman supero 11ft avon rod and it was perfect for the job. Here's a couple of pic's from some of the swims I dropped into....

The Wife's let me have our 3rd (smallest) bedroom for a Mancave/Tackle room. She also bought me some storage shelving, a bit like "Dexion" but Aluminium or Tin Plate?? off eBay (or Amazon) one of them anyway. They hold plenty of weight & quite cheap. You get 2 units in the box & I highly recommend them. I'll add a photo a bit later.

I also have separate tackle bags and rod quivers containing rods and tackle items for the different types of fishing that I usually do the most; and each tackle bag has everything I think that I will need; which means having several duplicate items in each of the different bags. However my fishing den had so much other stuff that had accumulated over the years; especially equipment and tackle items and other stuff that I hadn’t used for a long time like my old match tackle and associated bits; and my sea fishing stuff; and my fly fishing stuff; and lots of rods that I hadn’t used for quite a few years but would still get to use them at some time or other; plus all of my older reels that I kept for old times sake etc. and this stuff seemed to be everywhere and getting in the way Now I’ve sorted it all out I have much more space and I now know where everything is and exactly what I have and where to find it. Keith

I am a compulsive sorter and a just in case person. Rather than forgetting things I now have several complete sets of tackle which contains everything needed ,long gone are the days of borrowing bits from a box and forgetting to put it back and raging on the bank. If I go carp fishing everything I need is in one big box and rod bag ,everything needed for piking is in another holdal and seatbox and my tiddler bashing stuff is in another .Sea fishing is the same one complete set for shore and one for boat. It's getting so bad even my metal detectors have their own set in their carrying bags (digger ,finds bag and pinpointer)and every ordinary bag I have has a set of painkillers bog roll and plasters and a silicone folding cup for the pain killers to fizz into (effervescent co-codamols)" just in case" I know if I grab a bag for anything everything is there and believe me if I use anything it's not put away until it's replaced . Tidying my shed is a different matter to get something put away I need to move something else so it goes round and round first clearing one part by cluttering up another ,I love sorting things into boxes but those boxes take up space I just don't have Just in case works ,we didn't need to buy anything ifood wise n the first lock down for two months (we had enough for 6) because I had stockpiled food "just in case" .hopefully there's another one or the year or so stockpiled will taste yucky when it's needed lol not gone as far as sorting the food store how would you do it by name or can colour it's not simple

I managed to get a couple of hours trotting on saturday afternoon (just gone). The river was a little up on my previous session and had a colour of peat to it. I think the peat colour comes in from one of the tributaries a few miles upstream, thankfully it wasn't that horrible brown sawdust looking mess which is obviously particles of sewage! I only fished two swims that day, in the first swim if I fished more central in the river I would get a bite a cast, either a dace or roach, if I cast closer to the opposite bank I would normally have a much better chance of catching chub and barbel. Anyhow, I caught lots of roach and dace, but not a hint of a chub or barbel which were my target species so I moved downstream to another swim. I had to wade out about 45 yards across seriously slippy rocks and then cast about another 30yds to reach the sweet spot of this swim, which was close to the opposite bank and was quite fast in comparison to the swim i'd just fished previously. I had a decent chub first trott through, maybe about 3 pounds, then I had a number of chublets and a few dace. After about half an hour I struck into a more solid critter which turned out to be a small barble of about 3lb. Shortly after that I had another barbel which was about the same size as the forst one. I remembered I had no food left in the freezer for my Manueli piranha and decided to catch a few small roach and dace to take home for it. I really don't like doing it but the piranha has to eat. What was unusual was when I gutted the dace they were full of roe ! Possibly this warm spell has kicked them off but I do think they will have been spawning throughout the summer. If conditions are right I don't see why they wouldn't just keep breeding, as fish do in aquariums. I didn't bother taking any pic's, it was a long wade back to the bank on those awfully slippy rocks and for such small fish it wasn't worth the trouble.

Unfortunately due to medical problems I am restricted to nearby, places with lots of cover (colostomy arranged for Wednesday hopefully that spots the cause) so stuck with fishless river .But think about it I go through the motions () and blank more than most .Fishing to me is being outside ,catching fish is far down the list .

I spent yesterday trying to hunt down a stunted trout, I couldn't find one! I must have walked about 6 miles yesterday, through long grass and nettles, balsam, stick bob bushes etc etc and was propper nackered at the end of it. I visited two stretches catching fish on both, first tott on the first length and I had a roach that I reckon (without weighing it) would be a good 2lb, then another exactly the same! After that I had a few decent chub, chublets and dace, and a single small barbel. You wouldn't believe it, on the next length I had another of those roach, virtualy identicle, they must have followed me . I also had a good few decent chub, chublets and lots of dace with a few being quite large, as far as dace go. Not a hint of a barbel on the second stretch, strange as it used to be lifting with barbel on that stretch. Only a few years back I had 43 barbel, some large chub, chublets, dace, and trout on one swim, and yesterday not one barbel and only a couple of decent chub and some dace, quite depressing to be honest.

I fished on sunday, target species was chub, mission accomplished.... I had a dabble on the river today...30 degrees and blazing sun! Luckily for me I know of a spot that's shaded by a huge steep banking covered in large trees. Anyhow, I fished the swim from 1.30pm to 3.30pm theis afternoon, packing up just before the sun came round and fried me! I was lucky and had a good few dace, chublets, a few decent chub and 6 or 7 barbel, I lost count . The barbel weren't big, but a barbel is a barbel and they all fought hard for their size....

I had a session on the river last friday, the river was up a meter and the wind was howling! I had a good country mile walk to get to my intended fishing spot and I had to fish off the bank, no wading due to the extra water going through. Things weren't ideal and I spent most of my time crashing through undergrowth trying to get to fishable spots on the bank. Anyhow, I caught a lot of roach and dace before having my fill of 'em. I don't normally visit the river on a weekend, but because I had several pints of maggots turning and a pack of sweetcorn de frosted in the fridge I decided to go fishing on saturday just gone. The river was still up but had dropped off from the previous day so I could just about wade out on my tip toes lol. This was a different stretch than yesterday and more chance of a barbel. Anyhow, I had a lot of very nice roach up to around a pound and a lot of huge dace. I also caught a few chub and 18 little barbel ranging in size from the one in the picture to about 3lb in weight. I was stood about 40 yards out in the river so released all the fish there appart from the one in the picture which i'd taken back to the bank with me when I had to go back to refill my bait pouch. It was an unusual session catching so many little barbel like that, that'a the most little ones i've ever caught in one session.

I wasn't realy in the mood for fishing today, but since the weather was nice and the river had dropped to a fishable level, plus I have a load of maggots shrivelling up in the fridge I decided to force myself out for a couple of hours trotting. As usual I wore my thigh waders and at times when wading out or back to shore I was literally on my tip toes as the water was lapping the very tops of my waders. Now and then I felt a cool sensation on my legs as the water came over the lip of my waders. The fishing wasn't up to much at all and all I caught was a load of roach to about 10 ounces, a few chub of about a pound to a pound and a half and one average barbel. I fished from 12pm to 2pm before i'd had enough. The sudden dissapearence of the sun behind a cloud made me look up and see a huge bank of dark angry clouds coming over me which made me quicken my steps to the motor. I'd drove half way home before the rain started, it's still hamerring down now and forecast to carry on overnight and possibly tomorrow ! Here's the only barbel of the session...

I managed to get out yesterday, main reason was to try out a new rod I got a few weeks back. The weather forecast predicted a high of 21 degrees, cloudy and showers so I thought that didn't sound to bad. The river was a nice height but was heavily coloured with what looked like brown sawdust, obviously the sewage companies taking advantage of the flush of water from the recent rains. They prolly thought it would go unnoticed or people would assume it was run off . Anyhow, I had a chub of about 3 1/2lb first trott, followed by some similar sized chub, chubletts and dace. I had an angler just above me rolling meat,another one just below me legering with two rods, then two more just below him both using two rods each. The one below me was there when I arrived, but the rest arrived just moments after me! I go fishing for solitude and to get away from people unless they are my friends of course, so I decided to go back to the car and head off to another stretch of river on my other clubs book. I had that stretch all to myself , the fishing was similar to the previous stretch but I got a couple of small barbel. I only fished just over an hour in each spot and am sure I would have had a good chance to catch some better fish if I had stayed, but I couldn't cope with the heat as the temp's had risen higher than the forecast prediction, there was no showers and the sky was clear. On top of the hot weather my ankle was giving me grief so I left it at that and went home. https://postimg.cc/ns6dnqKv https://postimg.cc/VSSGyKtf

I'll be encouraging my Granddaughter's boyfriend to join the forum - Keegan is just turned 21 & has already caught Carp up to 14 & 1/2 Lb. Not bad for a lad with no previous fishing background. His Boss (a carpet fitter) asked him if he fancied a bit of Fishing - It just went on from there!! He's bought some gear now & my mate is giving him a very nice seatbox + I've got some stuff for him. He calls me Grandad, he's a great kid. We all went to Croatia a couple of weeks ago & thoroughly enjoyed it.

Why anyone would rather use FB etc than a propper angling forum like this one beats me too Ian. NB: Thanks for helping to sort my problem with the forum Ian As you can see Elton has sorted it now. Keith

Your prolly right Ken, although I don't get why anyone would rather use FB etc than a propper angling forum like this one.

Shame he didn't write any more books - I feel sure Dave had MANY more stories to tell. A quick google reveals that Angling Vagabond is still widely available from all good bookshops (& Amazon!). Worth picking up a copy if you haven't read it. This is what I said about it at the time.... https://www.anglersnet.co.uk/reviews/book-and-media-reviews/angling_vagabond_dave_park/

I am sorry to hear that .Another Anglers Net hero gone .No doubt he's already on his list of heaven fish to catch .He will be missed .I had the honour of him visiting here once he was a very nice chap if only more were like him .

Awful news to hear A top fella who will be missed. My deepest condolences to you and your family.

Decided to take myself fishing today, which meant five miles each way on my pushbike - which is pretty much my limit. I arrived at the venue (Wilden Pool near Stourport), with two travel rods, a seat, and some basic gear, at about 11am, and found the place packed, with a match in progress. I set up a match rod and a 7' spinning rod. The match rod got a waggler, and the spinning rod was basically set up for freelining, but with a little float that slides onto the line from a wire to act as an indicator. Noth had barbless hooks to soft and fine braided hooklinks. The chap next to me was fishing hard against the island with standard carp gear and had already had a couple when I arrived. I put the spinning rod out, about 40cm off a clump of reeds, and fished the waggler at about 5m, in a little over 2m of water. Both baited with meat I then sat in the cold for two hours without a bite! Feeling pretty miserable, I had the rice and curry from my food flask, took a swig of water, and zipped up my coat to keep warm. Finally, the inside rod marker slid away and I struck into nothing. Ten minutes later, the waggler slipped under, and I struck and was immediately smashed up. I knew the line was new, so there must have been a fault, but I set back up and ten minutes latter, the float slid away, resulting in a common of about 6 lb, that put up an amazing scrap. Not so amazing was that I needed forceps to remove the hook - I'd accidentally put a barbed hook on after getting smashed. Part way through tying a new barbless hook, the indicator on the freelined bait slid away, and I landed a low double. The chap next to me packed up at 4:30, with a total of 8 fish. I fished on until six, and ended up with ten fish, including two that were either very high doubles or low twenties (one a fin and mouth perfect common that gave a lift bite) and a mid double that I hooked in the base of the anal fin, and which took me all over the pool. I packed up because it started raining more heavily than forecast and I got soaked coming home. The return trip was a bit grim, because my knees were giving me grief and the tackle bag was cutting off the blood to my arms, but all told, it was a fun day. Weird that it was all carp though, the place is stuffed with bream and they love the small chunks of meat that I had on the waggler.

My top time saving tip is very simple, lots of recipes call for boiling water but when I watch the kettle it seems to never boil! So I fill the kettle with water and wait for the click, then, when you have your boiling water place it in a suitable container and then freeze it, then when you need boiling water just take it out and bingo! **note** I’m not allowed in the kitchen very often.

This might help someone out. https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/daiwa-ninja-reel-4234076

It was always an idiotic, unworkable and hideously expensive "plan", and I don't for a moment think that there was ever any intention of implementing it - or stopping/reducing legal or illegal immigration. What it was, however, was a very convenient way to create distraction headlines on demand. Boris flies to Kyiv to derail peace talks and prolong the war - distraction. Excess deaths that may be a consequence of dodgy vaccines - distraction. They think we're stupid - and for the most part, they're right.

Down on the Broads we have had the usual saltwater surges driving the fish off the main rivers. The salt also sours the water and the fish go off the feed. However, if you know where to look the fish will hold up away from the salt, they will also get hungry! A good time to be out fishing but success is not guaranteed, at least not on the Waveney. My neighbour went out for the day, just one fish, a three-pound roach, jammy sod!

I haven't been on AN for a long time, only just stumbled on this topic. I met Dave when he parked his dormobile in my driveway. He'd driven up to The Broads to take part in a pike fish-in starring that all-American friend of AN, the indomitable Newt & his wife who had flown to the UK for a fishing holiday. Dave was also something of a bird-watcher, and was suitably impressed by what he saw from the end of my garden. A wonderfully interesting man, I'm glad I met him.

Am I the only very disorganised Angler out there??? At long last I can now actually find all of my fishing tackle and actually get at my work bench for a change. After many years of putting it off; I finally decided to work through all of my boxes, shelves, drawers, miscellaneous bags and cupboards etc. in my fishing den; a lot of which I hadn’t even seen for decades; and do a clear up and sort out and put it all into a logical order. It took a while over quite a few days but I can now actually see what I had accumulated over the years and actually throw away some of the things that I no longer have a use for. I went out and bought myself a label printer to help me; plus loads of different sized containers; plus a couple of new steel storage shelving units; and tall storage cupboards; and threw out some old wooden shelving that had seen better days. Im not usually very organised but now it’s done and everything is in its logical order it’s great. Am I the only Angler that has let their fishing tackle and associated bits and pieces get into such a disorganised mess over the years??? I’ve found things that I forgot I had and the wife no longer nags me to death about the mess in my fishing den I also managed to whip on the odd rod ring that I’d been putting off and had forgot about long ago; and bought a couple of new cloth rod bags that had deteriorated over the years for rods that I might start to use again in the near future; now that I know where they are Are you the same as I was? especially concerning the stuff that you don’t use very often? or are you a very organised person as far as your fishing stuff is concerned? Keith

Here's what comes in one box, 2 units with 3 shelves apiece & Includes the Hardboard.

Doing ok thanks. Been a bit busy trying to track him down, difficult at first with only Spain as a clue but once I got closer I found loads of clues pointing me to his door.

You may be more at home with drop shotting than me; however I had the same problem when I bought a fox rage dropshotting rod and the associated tackle & lures and started drop shotting on the canal. I tried close up to moored barges and all along the near shelf and tight up to a lock; and I used different sizes and coloured dropshot lures as well; however not a touch. The next time I tried I started to vary the amount of rod tip movements and the speed of my twitching and I also learned that not all takes are as savage as you often get when your spinning with a mepps; and the fish can often just take the drop shot lure without even moving off; and so to look out for the tiny plucks; and I started to get the odd perch. Im still learning and each time I try drop shotting I seem to improve a little; but I’ve still got a lot to learn as far as drop shotting is concerned. None of my fishing friends go drop shotting so I’m having to learn all on my own without anyone to tell me what I’m doing wrong, but I’ll get there eventually as long as I keep improving a bit each time that I go drop shotting. Keith

Not sure tbh, unlike others on here I’m not so desperate for info that I post without reading an article. I can however state with a strong degree of probability that chicken from the Indian sub continent is not being served on that well known River Class Warship HMS 7 whilst she still is in active service today, nor do I presume said chicken pieces will be part of the delicacies enjoyed by those attending the next mountain oyster celebrations.

I had a couple of hours out trotting last wednesday also. I used a daiwa Dave Harrell RS PF rod which is supposed to be a power float rod (PF) but it's a lightweight compared to the 1.6lb test free spirit my friend had lent me! To be honest it was much nicer to use and it wasn't a bad couple of hours fishing. I used a reel I haven't used in ages, a 4 3/4 inch kingpin zeppelin reel which are usually shipped out to the americas for the steel head anglers etc. It was nice to use on the daiwa rod and they made a good set up. A few pic's from the session...

I always have a quick look at the local rivers etc when I go over them or past them and the rivers were flowing very slowly and had lots of sewage floating on the surface. It was the bubbles which forms into brown scum. It gets stuck on overhanging branches and against the bank in low conditions forming quite large rafts. You can smell it also, it really is beyond belief that this is being done so blatantly!