MikeT

I have a Shimano XTE-A 5000. It's my first baitrunner reel, so I'm hardly an authority, but I have owned many fixed spool reels over the years, and I must say the quality of this reel surpasses anything I've seen. It is simply outstanding, and I'm unable to find a single flaw with it (despite my thorough perfectionism). Not that I ever use the thing.

I’m glad you had a nice time, John, though you’ll definitely need to come back and have a go for the chub! They’re fantastic fish. I was shown how to prepare bread mash by the bailiff who looks after the club stretch a couple of miles above Muscliffe- who’s caught more big chub than I care to imagine. At first, I thought four loaves was far too much, but I now know better. This is how I do it. I buy four cheap white loaves (thick sliced) from Aldi (about 45p each) four or five days before I’ll be fishing, open them up and spread the slices out on an old towel in a cupboard to go stale. On the riverbank, I break it all up into smaller pieces and put it in a bucket, along with about half a pint of dry milk powder (the cheapest I can find) and half a box of Ready Brek. I mix it up roughly by hand, then add water from the river in stages until I get a pretty soft but not loose consistency, mixing and squidging vigorously with both hands all the time. Then I take a potato masher and give it a good old pasting! The result is half a bucket full of beautiful fine bread mash, which I can squeeze into orange-sized balls- two or sometimes three of which I will chuck into the head of the first swim. I slowly follow my bait trail downstream during a session, adding a ball or two as I go to each new swim. When fishing breadflake on the hook the results can be amazing, as the fish often seem to be really ‘turned on’ to the bait, and smash it hard and fast. I’ve had great success with this method- it’s very effective and very inexpensive. The lower Dorset Stour is a big, deep river, often carrying a heavy flow, so it takes a fair bit of feeding with groundbait, especially if you cover a couple of miles of bank like I tend to do. Four loaves of bread will disappear easily enough.

Hi John, The Eye Mead site is more helpful as a reference for what state the river is in- the fishing around there is syndicate and club controlled only. In fact, there isn't much free or Day Ticket water on the Dorset Stour- though the RDAA and CAC allow guests to accompany their members (if you can find one to tag along with). I have this information about Day Ticket waters, which may be of interest: The Dorset Stour Another famous water the Dorset Stour offers very little in the way of day ticket stretches as clubs control most of the fishing. There are however a few free stretches that make up for this. There is a short stretch of water controlled by Blandford Council that is free to fish offering some excellent roach fishing during the winter. It can be a bit weedy in the summer. The free stretch at Longham is a popular stretch of the famous river starting from downstream of Longham Bridge on the right hand bank, where it is very shallow, and continues downstream to the lower end at Cudell Brook. The deeper water is found downstream of the island but take care, as the banks are high here and the water very deep when there is extra water around after the winter floods. A typical stretch of the river with plenty of weed and clear gravel runs, there are some big barbel and chub for the feeder angler to target. The Muscliffe free stretch is a single bank fishery starting from the top boundary of the Throop Fishery and meandering upstream first through the trees of the nature reserve, along the Stour Way to the top boundary upstream of the water treatment works at Ensbury. A typical Stour venue with plenty of fast, shallow runs, between thick weed beds and islands of bull rush to long deep slow gullies full of eelgrass in the summer months. This is an ideal venue for the float angler. Throop Fishery is the most famous fishery on the Stour offers miles and offers some of the best fishing in the South of England. Now controlled by Ringwood & District AA the venue can offer the anger huge barbel (over 14lb), chub (over 7lb) and roach (over 3lb) with carp (20lb plus), tench, bream, dace and pike also feature. This amazing stretch of river, with a mill pool, has weirs and many streams amounting to 14 miles of bank in total, offering gentle deep runs, gravel shallows and weir pools to meet the needs of all coarse anglers. The Lower Stour fishery is controlled by CAC. This tidal stretch offers not only coarse fishing, with roach, dace and bream in abundance, but also some excellent mullet and bass sport in the summer months. If you call Ringwood Tackle on 01425 475155, I'm certain they'll be very helpful regarding suitable places to fish, and best methods. Personally, I would target the chub using a roving approach and trotting a float to cover the most water. Bread flake is the best bait, on a size 8 or 10, with a float carrying about 1.5 SSG, with most of that weight being about 36" from your hook and a tell-tale shot at 18". You'll need plenty of bread mash for groundbait too- I take four loaves mushed up with some milk powder and Ready Brek. I use 3lb line straight through, unless fishing a very snaggy swim. Travel light and stealthily, enjoy the scenery, and you might well tempt one or two of our famous fatties!

Hi, John. The river should be in a good state on Monday- although it rises frighteningly quickly, the level can drop four feet in a couple of days. There was a huge flood on Tuesday this week, but it's already fishable again, and by Monday it should be perfect. Have a look at the Ringwood Association website forum for news of which stretches are fishing well, river conditions, etc. You will also see where you can get a day ticket. RDAA For further details of the state of the Dorset Stour, I can recommend this fascinating and excellent site: Eye Mead I'm sure you'll have a great day fishing- the chub in there are MASSIVE and greedy. Let us know how it goes? Best, Mike.

I ordered a copy of the book which accompanies the film series, from Amazon UK, in early January. When I placed the order, Amazon said there'd be a 2-3 week delay, which I felt was acceptable. Yesterday, however (four weeks later), I received an email message from Amazon to the effect that there's a further delay, and that I might now expect delivery of the book between 12/02/09 to 24/02/09. I'm sorry, Hugh and Martin, but this is simply not good enough. In this modern age, the consumer expects prompt and efficient service and delivery of goods. I feel this is an unacceptably long wait for a newly published and in print book, and I am not patient enough to indulge your or Amazon's woefully organised distribution of your products. I have cancelled my order, out of forlorn exasperation more than anything. I just hope all this means you're selling so many copies you can't keep up with demand- rather than it being a symptom of shockingly poor organisation, as it would appear. Another dissatisfied would-be customer bites the dust. [edit spelling]

I'm sorry, but you actually misunderstood my point. I was being sarcastic about the rather patronising suggestion made by Ken L that Hugh Miles had overpriced the DVD (compared to those for the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and got their distribution wrong for pre-Christmas sales.

It was a lot of hard work, but having said that they were jolly lucky with some of those great specimens- as Paul will be the first to admit. He’s a very experienced angler himself, and knows a lot of very experienced anglers who are very good at catching. Most importantly, he knows where to find the big fish, which is the key to catching one- whether in front of the camera or not. I can attest there was absolutely no ‘trickery’ involved in any of the filming- it was a combination of effort, knowledge and luck.

Has anyone ever had much luck trotting cheesepaste on float tackle? It seems like a leger bait to me, since its real X Factor is the smell, which draws fish to it. At any rate, I've not caught much with it on the float before. Or on the leger, come to think of it. Hmm.

Best of luck, old chap! I hope you get a seven pound chub!

I’m the same- I like things to be ordered, neat and tidy. But, thankfully, Paul has much higher ideals than me- his highest priority in his reelmaking was engineering perfection; everything else was secondary to that- in his mind it was all just trivial details. Thank goodness, because the result of that uncompromising ethos is his extraordinary reels. He's extremely modest about his genius, but it's quite true. Incidentally, he has the same uncompromising approach to his filmmaking too, as can be seen in the wonderful Four Seasons on the Hampshire Avon.

I simply don’t know, though I’ll try to find out for you if you’re interested. The problem is that Paul can’t remember off the top of his head exactly how many reels he finished, or when, and his paperwork is somewhat patchy. Seemingly, about 47 Elites were completed in all their various configurations, though which of these happened to be finished last is unclear. I know of one other Elite II numbered in the 50s, but none in the 60s- yours is certainly the highest number I’ve heard of, which would ostensibly imply it was the last one he made. But, as I’ve said, Paul didn’t always finish and sell his reels chronologically in the order they’re numbered, so I can’t be certain about it. Truth be told, Paul himself has a distinct lack of enthusiasm of all this sort of anoraky stuff, being of the opinion that it doesn’t matter for toffee, and I think he’s got a point. At any rate, I feel the uncertainty adds a certain mystique, which I find charming and appropriate.

Yes, I think most sensible anglers would keep their big fish secret. It does make you wonder what the real records are though, doesn’t it? Five pound roach, at a secret venue near you...

Heh. It's got very polished from all the hours of saying it to myself!

That happened. A lot! He's a dreadful perfectionist, and would scrap anything that didn't quite make the mark. Extremely painstaking stuff too, some of it. Even at several hundreds of pounds, it's all jolly good value on an hourly rate at such a high standard of craftsmanship. 60 hours. 600 quid. A tenner an hour? Bargain!

Fine. But I should warn you I'm taking Nandralone and doing altitude training already.

Yes, it’s all very mysterious, isn’t it? Chris Plumb has a 1920 pattern Witcher, numbered 34, when only about 33 were made- and which were numbered up to 40! I’ve asked Paul about his confusing numbering again today. He often made little production runs of his various reels as they underwent different stages of change in their specification. The Avon Elite came in two main phases- of which yours and mine belong to the second (the Elite II). Mine was finished at the end of that phase, and was one of about fifteen made in that particular specification. Your No. 59 was from another. Paul’s numbering followed no consistent system, with new run series being started when several reels had still to be completed from earlier runs- and he gave them a new starting number. And he might subsequently complete and sell an 'older' model. So, for example, he’d serial number a run of reels from 40 to 50, but only finish, say, seven of them. Then the next phase would start with number 51, which might be followed by a number 48. Only fifteen of the 21 Bisterne Aerials have actually been finished, but if he ever made another one in a new specification (please, God), it would be number 22. In total, he finished something like 130 reels, though if you added up their serial numbering it would suggest he made many more than that. I actually rather like the confusing mystery of the numbering business, as it emphasises the uniqueness of every single one of his beautiful reels, but we may see a formal and comprehensive catalogue being produced one day... By the way, if Bisterne 22 does ever arrive, it's mine, okay?

Lancastrians? Never wrong? God’s own county? Sir, it is my duty to inform you my family is from Yorkshire. Regarding value, yes, I do take your point, but if things really had no greater intrinsic value than the functions they perform then Rolls Royce and Mercedes Benz had better look out! That Carter reel is a lovely thing- and, though it may catch no more fish than any other winch, its quality is superior, and that (plus its scarcity and desirability) is the better measure of its worth. [edit to add smilie- so as to avoid potential for a new War of the Roses! ]

... or, of course, that your valuation of it's worth was, um, how can I put this... wrong. Yep. That's it.

At the risk of provoking further fits of paroxysm there was good interest in the Carter reel. The auction was viewed over 300 times, and forty people were 'watching' it. It received three bids, and realised £501 from the winner. All of which just goes to show.

Yeah, well I think Dim's parents had it in for him. Even the fact that he was a boy didn't stop them having their little joke- they just made it Kim with a 'y'. Cruel. But, how we laughed.

Heh. One of my sister's secondary school pupils was named Kym Dunt. He was affectionally known as 'Dim', of course. Seriously.

The other weekend, I went fishing on the fabulous Hampshire Avon at Breamore. It was beautiful, with deep hoarfrost making the landscape magical and Christmassy, and I had a fine day fishing despite catching nothing at all. The ground was frozen stiff, and the sun was bright in the cloudless winterblue sky; it was the deepest frost of the year- all of which put the fish into sulky disinterest. The atmosphere was completely still, without the least breeze all day, and I wandered along the river in silent contemplation of the loveliness of that wintry waterside. The air was frigid and dryly brittle, the river mist mournfully swirled and danced in the low rays of eye-watering sunlight, and my breath made steamy clouds in reply. As I paused to angle along the bank I found a deep peace there. Every structure was fluffed with white rime, and a trillion sparkles flashed. Walking back in the fast-falling twilight the frost was already crusting over the mud where it had softened in patches of sun, and my feet crunched and popped through the ice-lidded puddles pocked by hooves. The cold quiet of the river was inside my head. It was good. But the mud from my waders made a mess in the boot of my car, and it took me ages to clean it. I blame Newt.

Not at all. You did the prudent thing for the website and of course the Member (who should be grateful). And, in my opinion, it was also the right thing to do. Good management.

Would a 2SSG Avon have done the job? I’m still curious about what the Loafer has to offer that the stemmed Avon float doesn’t. My vested interest is simply that I like to use an old-fashioned cork Avon if possible, but I’d be willing to ditch this preference if a Loafer was truly superior. Is there any advantage in using a Loafer rather than an Avon? I’m guessing there’s no great difference, but maybe a plastic Loafer offers a smaller profile than a cork Avon, or, perhaps it’s something to do with the shorter gap between the top and bottom rubbers (because it has virtually no stem). Maybe it’s less visible to fish, if made of clear plastic?

Console yourself, Alan. Who are we to argue with market forces? They say a thing is worth whatever a person will pay for it. In any case, I shan't complain if it fails to sell.