Moggy

My son has just moved to a spot about 4 miles upriver from Brightlingsea on the Colne, and I'm trying to get him started with a bit of local fishing. Anyone know the area?

Right...with you Rudd. Now I've heard it can be beneficial to pre-feed in the desired area for a few days. to get them concentrated a bit. I've caught a single (Very fine specimen) on worm here. my informant tells me that I can pre-feed with maize for example, for a few days and then present a maize/worm cocktail on the day. your thoughts?

My club "Holstebro Omegns Fiskeforening" (Holstebro and District Angling Club) a 100 year+ old club in Jutland Denmark; have been setting out salmon and trout fry in enormous numbers in our river system over the past 8-9 years and it's really beginning to pay off! This year we had two particularly pride-producing results. well last year really, but the info has just come through for last year. The three largest salmon caught in all of Denmark were caught in our "main" river; Storaa...AND anglers were coming from Norway to fish OUR river! The largest was 20.1 kgs...that's the salmon, not the Norwegian! It's usually quite the reverse. So here's a health to the young men of the club that have untiringly tramped the banks of the streams and becks distributing our fry and making this happen. Last year it was 70,000 salmon fingerlings and a quater of a million fry brought up from stripped sea trout. skål!

What a cracking bit of footage mate...thanks for having the presence of mind to get it on film! My fishing club has a hatchery (Seatrout/brownies) way out in the country here in Denmark and I encounter the resisident otters on a regular basis there, but they're nowhere as tame as that...they keep an 8-9 foot seperation zone...but they're just as curios as to what manner of beast just strolled into their territory!

I know that there a few tench specialists on the forum and I am going to make a serious stab this year at cracking a virgin water over here in Denmark. I'm off soon to drag out a swim in the lakewith a view to getting started asap. When do you "tenchies" start your quest? Is it a matter of water temperature? This is a natural lake, quite shallow, well established weed beds, lots of big bream and other coarse species with the odd silver bounty drifting off course on their way up to the redds on the other side of the lake. Cheers, Jon

I've been a sea angler for many a year, fishing from beach, pier, rocks, boat in more countries than I care to remember and if there's a single thing that I've learned is that the only thing that's predictable about angling is it's totally unpredictability You can put yourself over the best mark with first class bait on the ideal tide and come home empty handed...or mis-cast on an unknown mark 25 yards into the surf, quickly reel in again and hook a 6lb bass on the retreive. This is the beauty of our sport! Enjoy being out in nature...doing what you love...in peace! And by the way...if you look again at the Hene Bay AA site you'll find that they do say that the cod are back in again! Get out there and do it!

Hiya mate...try this site...it's the Herne Bay Angling Association site, where you can read about what's being caught where and no doubt you'll be able to contact the club for further advice. You could do worse than popping up to their clubhouse and chatting to some of the lads there. Otherwise...tackle/bait shops are often the centre of angling news...give it a try. There should be cod around just now if nothing else just now.

I don't know if this subject has been broached elsewhere on A.N but I thought I'd put a feeler out here. It's now official that stocks off common eels are way down and the downward trend continues. This is not least because of the French hoovering up elvers in the Bay of Biscay as they make their way up to Northern European rivers, for export to China for HUGE sums per kilo. I'm sure that had this been one of the "sexy" species, anglers and fishery managers would be up in arms. In my river system alone we release half a million or more salmon/brown trout fingerlings every year and have succeeded in getting stocks back to where they were in the 50's. Whether or not it is one of our favourite quarries is neither here nor there, the issue here is one of keeping the balance of species in our rivers and not allowing crass exploitation of a species for monetary gain. Is it not time to apply pressure to the European Fisheries Commission (Or whatever it's called) into looking at this problem? Jon

Hiya Peter..sorry...just got this...been offline for a while. I live in Holstebro...fish Storå, Vandkræft søen and the tributaries, and the west coast mainly....plus an odd put'n'take if I fancy bending the flyrod out of season

That's great mate...your patience paid off! You'll catch bigger but the odds are you'll not forget that first one. I live in Denmark and we've stacks of sea trout over here, and I've had my fair share both from the sea/fjord and the river but I'll never forget the first one! A little tip...as soon as the fish jumps, drop your rod tip straight to the water. I regularly lost fish on the jump and an old hand gave me this tip and sure enough, it worked. And as Worms said...you want to try catching 'em on fly...guaranteed to put some jelly into your knees!

I didn't land anything above 6-7 lb but there were some that would definitely sneak over the 10 mark. Odd thing was that there wasn't much under the 3-4 lb mark...no tiddlers at all.

Yep...Brest had a fair few and our trip took us all the way down to Lorient...there were mullet all the way...not only large shoals...large individuals too! Took my canal tackle and took a fair few on bread flake...what a gas! lost more than I landed but the ones I landed were in fine fettle and "gifted" to locals who took them with pleasure! Many an Armagnac was earned that way.

I've used my Hardy 8-9 when (Unsuccessfully) fishing for mullet here in Denmark. In my local harbour. I've always figured that if I'm to have a chance of having some sort of control over these muscular monsters, a 4-5 might be a disadvantage. But never having connected with one yet, this is but theory! When I was sailing Brittany a few years ago, I did observe large shoals of fair-sized fish cruising the harbours, notably in St Malo Yacht harbour, depite a group of our beret-wearing cousins casting lies decorated with 9-10 triples, "ripping" for them.

Yeah I know...similar probs to the ones we had...hydro dams. You may want to read about it here: http://www.shannon-fishery-board.ie/downlo...ration_plan.pdf Sad tale!

Sorry to contradict Ken...Denmark's record salmon was a little bigger weighing in at 26.5 kgs caught by D C Dinesen, Easter 1954. It fell to a devon spinner on Skjernaa (River Skjern) Here's a picture of it... http://www.7days.dk/fishing/droemmefisk/fisk/dinesen.htm But this is certainly the largest one caught for a heck of a long time and quite by chance it was caught on my local river...Storaaen. It was caught about 10 kilometres upstream from where I have a shack by the river so who knows how close to catching it I've been! Since the 20.1 kg one another one, a shade lighter has been caught! Again not far away from me. My club has spent thousands of pounds and volunteered uncountable hours in getting the fish stocks back to where they where in the 50's, with massive restocking programs among other things Coincidentally, I sent in an article some time ago which Elton kindly published. Anyone interested can find it in "Miscellaneous Articles" title: "Viking Trials and Tribulations" Cheers...Jon

Thanks Rich...that's good inside info! Been researching the species available...WOW! Also...found out that a member of the family that I'm visiting owns Totland pier just up from the Needles...interesting!

Hiya OT...On my own river (NW Denmark) there's often hatches of yellow (Not sure if this is a mayfly at all but it has the general characteristics) I tie vey simply with a yellow wool body, thickish yellow front hackle and hackletip wings and a few fibres of same for the tail from dyed feathers. Works a treat sometimes...one notable morning I took no less than four species on it...Rainbow, brownie, grayling and dace!

Interesting...I'm off to the island in August and have never fished it either. I rather fancy the southwest side close to the Needles...just a hunch. Rich...is Scotties in Shanklin? Moggy

You obviously have to take care with hooks and knives Nick, but otherwise the Avon is a very seworth little craft. As Newt says...they're nervous...don't worry about it mate.

Here's a health to Elton in particular for his sterling work over the last 10 years and to all other users for always having the answers! It's a difficult thing to be all things to all anglers, but this site comes damn close! Jon

They're not difficult to make Elton. Make the frame from hardwood...if there's any curve in the deck then make a cardboard template and apply that to the frame...cut and sand to fit. For the top you can use either plexiglass if you need the light or marine ply if not. There are all sorts of fixtures you can use to hold it down, but these can often be found second-hand at the local boatyard. Do use brass or stainless...anything less will inevitably rust.

Hi all! A young friend of mine is moving onto the island (Near Freshwater Bay) in a few weeks and though he's never wielded a a rod before, he's interested in giving it a go. I understand that there are tons of good marks on the coast, and I've promised to research it for him. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks Moggy

That's something else we have in common then OT...well...I actually own two...but they're both at my ex's flat and both for sale. Listen to a lot of radio when I'm indoors though...4 for the serious stuff and 7 for the humour and drama. Just as entertaining as the idiot box if not more so, and you can get on with other stuff while being entertained. I'm actually just in the throes of routing a couple of speakers into the hobby room which is adjacent to the kitchen so that I can listen more otr less wherever I am in the flat! I've just found one on the net...I can see how that'd work! I know a chap that's into his carp-fishing now that I think about it...I throw him a mail and see if he's got a spare. Thanks again for the help.

Right...knowing nought about carp fisherman or boilies, I don't know what that bit of kit looks like! But I'll find out. This is yet another arguement fror getting myself a nimble fingered oriental wife! That pheasant deserves a place in the book "Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by the way! Cheers...Moggy

Have you tried using the quill body, OT? Am I wasting my time as Alan suggests? It's just that; if there's one thing I've plenty of, it's quill-ends! One successful "fly" I have made using a sturdy goose pen quill was a Quill Popper from Hugh Falkus' book on seatrout. But I'm getting the feeling that if it was an ideal solution, there'd be a lot more patterns with quill bodies! The chenille body looks excellent by the way...I'll give that a shot. I always have problems knotting the legs though...any advice there?