wanzelbin

Hurray! With your support for the idea, I gave it a bit more welly and I've finally got it off ( ). Thanks very much Medwaygreen Wanzelbin

I've just bought one of these reels but I simply can't work out how to get the spool out of it and feed the line! I've taken the black cover off, and a friend has said I should then hold the reel handle and twist the silver dome clockwise. I've tried this but don't want to force it as it really doesn't seem to want to budge and I'm concerned I'm pressing against the gears. I've looked all over google but clearly everyone else is a lot brighter than me when it comes to closed face reels - I can't find anything. Please help - it's driving me mad! W

Well done Jigotai. After the missed bites I'd have been rather nervous (how many times have I looked round to see the float coming back up ) , but what a marvellous result.

Anderoo Something's come up and I don't think I'm going to be able to make it on the 24th. Please can you remove me from the list and give my place to another. Sorry and fed up W

Hi there. Nick's basically right - you need to put the address of a script that will process the form contents in the action attribute of the form element. You've currently got an email address, which will thoroughly confuse the browser as it trys to send an HTTP POST message with all your field contents to it. If you want to do something with the contents of the form - such as email it to someone, then you need to write a script (in php or anything you like), or perhaps as Nick says use a third party script, that will take the field values that come through in the HTTP and put them into an email. W

I've just thought, I caught three nice perch on the slow carrier at Timsbury back in November. I believe it was quite wet that day...

As others have said, I think that was an excellent post, but I don't quite agree that anglers haven't become more caring, at least in a general sense. I think everyone has become more caring, including anglers. It seems to me that with better life expectancy, health, education, money etc, people's natural altruism has become redirected. You used to have to look after yourself and those immediately around you, in your family or community, and though we still do, it's nothing like as onerous as it used to be. The stereotypical philanthropists of the 18th and 19th century were idle rich folk with nothing better to do than spend their money on making themselves and others feel good. Now you could argue that most people are like that. We send money to countries in Africa, run a mile for Sport Relief, wear red noses and support countless other charities. The size and popularity of the RSPCA and RSPB gives a good indication of how much that concern for others' welfare can also directed at animals. It's bred a culture of caring - everyone's very conscious of their effect on things outside themselves - especially now-a-days the environment and everything within it. There's doubtlessly many other reasons for more caring generally - the world wars, international news and 24 hour news highlighting every sad story that can be found etc. Also agree that age must have an effect - I've certainly become far more conscious of such things since I became a parent. I'm quite sure the "disney" effect (anthropomorphising) hasn't bothered anglers too much, but it must play a role in the public's opinion of fishing. However the general increase and all-encompassing nature of a caring society (including anglers) seems to me very likely to have changed our attitudes to how we treat fish, just like everything else. W

I'll be there, and in answer to a previous question, I'd really appreciate it if I could spend a little time with someone for tips on handling etc.

Great read dant - I came on here looking for a good fishing story as I've not managed to get out there for a while, and that was perfect - thanks. Sorry to hear it got away though. W

I've seen this happen a lot when trotting, and as this is my first season properly trying that method, it's about all I've seen. Also agree with Tigger about meat for chub, but judging by Peter's comments it must be a water by water thing. Keep meaning to try bread a more, but so far not much luck. Despite all that, my fave's lob worm!

Oh dear. I think it's me! Seem to have a habit of losing things around Lyn. Last time, it was my wallet!!! Thanks for finding it. I'll PM you. D

Just to let you helpful folks know: I tried the VLC player, the codec pack, the hardware acceleration settings, reloading the latest driver for my soundcard, and re-recording the music as MP3. Nothing worked. Today however I re-ripped using the "Windows Media Audio (variable bit rate)" format, with the quality set to about the halfway mark (85 to 145 Kbps), and it all seems to be fine! It's amazing how much it was getting on my nerves, and though I can't say i've got to the bottom of it, it's wonderful to be able to play some music again. Thanks again for all your help D

Hi there. I've not deliberately fished for pike around Tonbridge, but this might help. Best day ticket places would be Barden lake and Long Reach - about a mile of river downstream of the flood barrier. I've also hear that Chipstead lake near Sevenoaks is supposed to be good. D

Ian, that's very kind of you. Regards David

Even though I'm a programmer, I don't know much at all about things like music and video on computers. I've recently copied loads of my CDs onto my computer, partly to secure my music from being lost when the kids inevitably scratch the originals, and also so that I can listen to lots of stuff all at once while I'm working. However, there seems to be a problem sometimes when I'm playing stuff through WMP. Things usually start off ok but then the quality will suddenly reduce, with something that sounds like a jump or scratch regularly interrupting the songs. A subsequent song will then be ok. I initially thought it must have been a problem during the original recording, but then I can play the same track later on and it's absolutely fine. In fact, if I'm half way through a "bad" track, I can drag the progress widget back to near the beginning and it gets better too. I've tried using Real Player instead, but it seems to do the same thing. The processor seems fine when the problems occur, and the only thing left I can think of is some kind of buffering issue. I've looked around in WMP and Real Player but can't find anything. The tracks were mostly ripped with WMP and they're in wma files. Looking at the properties of one of them it says "Audio codec: Windows Media Audio 9.2 Lossless VBR Quality 100, 44 kHz, 2 channel 16 bit 1-pass VBR". I don't understand codecs and bit rates and whether these may be responsible and whether they can be changed etc. Any thoughts much appreciated. David

Sent you a reply yesterday - hope you got it. D

Thanks Janet. I hadn't seen the previous post either - very good reading (laughed a lot at the worm washing), though I've now got loads of work to catch up on! D

I know this probably won't help much, but with steep, uneven banks and that much roving, I'd recommend a small unhooking mat! That's what I use - strap it to your arm, multi-purpose, lightweight - perfect!

Thanks everyone. I'll try phoning them, and if that doesn't work, it's out with the screwdriver! D

I've got a shakespeare zeo fixed spool reel, which I've had for about a year and until recently has been excellent - it's also got a great review here. Now though, when playing a fish, the anti reverse keeps failing. Not all the time, but even as I sit here on the sofa testing it, every so often I'm able to turn the handle backwards though the anti reverse is on. Is it worth pulling it apart and trying to see if there's anything wrong with it? Anyone else experienced this problem with this or another reel, and fixed it? Any thoughts much appreciated as I like this reel, and it would be a shame to have to replace it. Thanks for any help David

Of course.

Though (typically) your suppliers will probably all be sending their stuff out in different formats, RSS (which is in XML) would be a very sensible option for them and likely to be the most common. If you need any help with parsing XML / RSS etc, let me know.

There's some really useful info here.

Like nurse judy said, it didn't feel right to me either, but that's just cos none of us have fished for carp like that. I guess we're used to catching our coarse fish and admiring them, handling them gently, using unhooking mats, knotless nets, barbless hooks etc etc. It's great to be able to put the beautiful creatures back in the water. That's what we're used to, and it's a long way from killing and eating them. However, if I'm trout fishing I'll happily bang it on the head and not think twice about it. It's nothing to do with the type of fish, it's just the mindset. Think it would be difficult to change the way I see coarse fish though.

Were / are they registered with the same company? I know of a certain american company beginning with E that seems to be responsible for allowing their customers' domain names to be used for spam. I get loads of stuff to a particular address. Interestingly, rather than being to dave@[mydomainname] (i.e. the full address I normally use), they're addressed to [myaccountname]@[mydomainname], which I never use for correspondance etc ([myaccountname] is only known by the registration company and is used for logging in etc). I know of a number of other people who used the same provider who have had the same problem. Another one I and many others get is a lot of bounce-backs, where spammers have clearly used my domain name in the From part of the message. When the spam then occaisionally fails to deliver successfully, it's me that gets the NDR! To be fair, they may not have been sold - there are often reports of hacked databases providing lists.