Barry C

I got mine from the local fibre glass suppliers but I am sure most yacht paint suppliers would stock it too. Must be one or two in the Morcombe area.

Ive recently rewhipped an old Sealey float rod. I used some stuff called G4 primer sealer and am very pleased with the result. The good thing about it is you can overcoat on itself as soon as it is tacky and it gives a good bond between coats. I found by the time I had applied the first coat on all the whippings it was ready to go back to the start and recoat. 3 coats did fine.

Well done Essex boy not many been out for a while. I tend to try for the bigger fish and stay away from maggots as bait. I usually use 13mm halibut pellets. As I said before the carp guys have been getting the odd fish but nothing over about 5lb. My best last year was a Friday afternoon/evening Saturday morning session. (I sleep at night) Probably had over 40 fish with only a couple under 4lbs. Best fish was 9lb 2oz with two at 8lb 8oz and one at 8lb 4oz. I only keep records of individual fish over 8lbs but there were several 7s and most were 5 - 6lb.

Hi essexboy The bream on Argal have been very hard to find for over 12 months now. I had some realy good bags last year before spawning with fish to 10lbs but after spawning hardly a fish. There were quite a few fish died last year with the water so low. Have only tried a few nights this year with dissmal results. The long stay carp boys get the odd fish, biggest ive heard around 10lb but mostly 5ish lbs. Ive tried the deep water, the shallow end and all my favourite banker spots. Nothing. Other guys using feeder and worms or maggots have had the odd skimmer. Maggots, corn or other small baits will get roach. Ive even had 10oz roach on 15mm pellets. Good luck and let us know how you get on.

A little fished lake I know has some cracking rudd in it. You have to wade through the smaller fish and hope for a bigger one to come along. Trouble is the water holds a good head of ravenous pike. While you can land small fish quickly anything that takes a little while attracts the pike and the poor old rudd get mangled. I can't think of any way to avoid them, attract the rudd and you attract the pike.

We get lots of this but what's your pet favourite. We are told ' The fish here are fed on pellets so use them, it's what they're used to'. Then we hear ' The fish here see pellets all the time so use something different'. Confusing aint it.

How often do we hear 'land them nice and quick to avoid exhaustion' and then find a lively fish on the matt jumping all over the place and the captor desperately trying to hold it down. Even with smaller fish they are lifted out of the water flapping and jumping, all the while ripping the hook hold. I see just as many mangled mouths on small roach as on bigger fish. But who the hell cares? they hav'nt got names and are not valued in hundreds of pounds.

Ime no expert but coral coloured fins and large eye the two main identifying features of silver bream.

Trouble is that every bit of available water has got bl00dy carp in it. Long gone are the days when you could fish 3lb mainline and 2lb hooklink for roach and crucians etc. If you try that on most waters you just get beat up.

For a fishy paste that you want to stay together as opposed to the type you have to ship out in a pole pot try this. Just take 2 or 3 slices of decrusted bread, soak in water, squeeze out and add a fishmeal groundbait. I use green swimstim. You can add more water and groundbait to make it more fishy or less clingy. I use it to wrap round pellets when fishing for bream and regularly cast 40 yards or so and it stays on OK.

What do you big bream experts do when using multiple rods? If using two rods as I do, do you bait one area and fish both rods to it or, bait two areas and fish one rod to each. What I have been doing is baiting one area and fish one rod to it and the other rod 'roving' and hope to drop it on fish. After a while I then settle both rods down over the bait.

I usually find what i'me looking for. Peace and quiet.

Stanley do the same lifetime guarentee. Had one lose its vacuum after a few months. Just emailed the company telling them when and where purchased and it was replaced no arguments.

That was the closest I could come up with. If it is a chub it's a very strange photo. Must be the lesser known smallmouth chub and not old big gob.

For those of you that have this weeks Anglers Mail. Have a look on page 32, whats the fish with the hair rigged pellet hanging out of it's mouth. According to the caption it is one of our more common river species.

Had the same problem using prawns for perch.

I use a fishmeal groundbait (swim stim) mixed 50/50 with brown crumb. I add to this very finely cut up fish, usually sardines or sprats. Did try blending the fish but found I needed to add water to it to loosen it up a bit. It went very claggy without water. I usually use this when float fishing where I have something to throw or catapult to. I find that the groundbait and crumb also attract silvers which in turn attract pike. To make this work you could of course also add maggots or pellets. I think it is best to cut up the fish very fine, about thumbnail size so the pike have to search around for a mouthfull and will hopefully find your bait.

I understand it is fairly common practice in matches to count foul hooked fish (I do'nt match fish). But how about a foul hooked specemein or even a record. If you would slip a foul hooked fish in the net to win a few quid would you also claim a PB or record from one. What about hooked just outside the mouth? Do you consider this foul hooked.

Most of us go fishing to please ourselves. To some it is all about catching using whatever it takes to meet this end. Others want to catch more than the guy or gal in the next peg. Most like me have certain methods and techniques that they enjoy using. I also have styles and equipment that I do'nt enjoy or want to use. I have never used a pole or wish to. I would never use a baitboat or fish finder. I do'nt own a keepnet and only use single hooks when piking. These are my choices. Others are quite happy to use some or all of these devices but it is there choice. It is only cheating if you think it is because however you fish there is almost certainly someone out there who thinks you are cheating.

But sureley you will only catch Halibuts. Anyone got any definite info? just seems to be rumour so far.

I suppose the carp guys can claim some credit after all it would have been their boilies that helped it reach that size. Just a pity they don't have similar regard for smaller but worthwhile fish.

Had two off the top on Saturday on a small peice of flake. No controler just flicked out when a fish showed interest in freebies. A couple of years ago I set myself the target of carp off the top every month of the year. I did it ok from 8 different waters. The last one in December came with one end of the lake frozen solid.

It'l soon be time. The sun's got a bit more warmth in it, the pike are spawning, the clocks go forward next weekend and theres a big double out there with my name on it. Bring it on.

One of the major contributory factors for the increasing carp sizes is the huge ammount of high protein bait being fed to them. This is of course true for Barbel and any other fish that can eat this bait, bream, roach etc. Pike and other predators are not fed these vast ammounts of bait and do not generaly have the weight increase. The exceptions are some trout reservoirs stocked with high protein fish that the pike gorge on. In days gone by pike were removed from these waters on a regular basis. The fisheries bosses have seen the light by way of hard cash and opened there doors to limited pred fishing. Two local reservoirs near me were stocked many years ago with big pike from trout venues. Both produced high 20s and 30s for several years and attracted pikers from far and wide. Now the waters have returned to their natural state and a 20 is almost unheard of with a high double an axceptional fish.

As kids we used to fish a small farm cattle drink and catch newts one after the other. (sorry newt, hope you're not related).