Rusty

Well done! What cracking perch. The PB really looks the size because it's a great picture.

Had a great day on the Itchen with Chris & the IAC yesterday and then used up leftover maggots on the Thames with JV44, Steve Walker and Keith this afternoon. It was a really enjoyable afternoon jousting with Keith for the best roach of the day...I shaded it with this plump example weighing 1-06 according to my scales or 1-03 according to Steve Walker's, whatever it was a roach over a pound;

Crunchy peanut butter and marmite works well....apparently.

A big improvement for me with no obvious glitches.

Sold for £741.00. Who on earth would be daft enough to pay that for a fishing reel?

Nope! I'll watch to see what it makes but the performance of my latest acquisition has really got me wondering whether I need the aerial ‘pins that I’ve got let alone another one. Just wrestling with the idea of listing a couple of reels on e-bay myself.

Think I had an encounter with your over-ambitious pike yesterday Chris. It was on for a couple of minutes before the hook pulled and I got a good look, at least a double.

Cracking session Chris, well done! Sort of blows my theory that bigger perch prefer the slack water of lock cuts.

Bath Ales Gem or Badger Champion for bottled beer, my local manages to consistently trump them both though. Never been into spirits but like Steve W a good cognac will always be welcomed, I'm partial to Hine and have a small bottle (probably a treble) of the Antique which I'm saving for a special occasion - I've had it sixteen years!

Agree with Kappa that it's not the most supple mono, this is 6lb Sensor and a 16 hook. It is very reliable though - and cheap so I'll be using it until the last two km on my bulk spool has been exhausted.

Well done John! Sounds very similar to the session I had on Sunday afternoon - all roach of a good stamp though I didn't catch as many as you (too busy teasing JV44 and Steve Walker about the micro perch they were catching). I wonder if we were in the same lock cut?

What a brilliant afternoon. The reel met all of my expectations but the fishing exceeded them by far. 9 roach, biggest two 12 ounces (Keith reckoned they would have made 14 of his Yorkshire ounces) and none below 8, a 2lb perch thrown in for good measure. They weren’t proper big roach but they were the largest I’ve caught for a long time, and so many of them without any interference from tiddlers. Fantastic!

Like most other ‘pinheads, when this reel appeared on the maker’s (read assembler’s) website a couple of years ago I thought it was far too expensive and pretty dull, it didn’t do anything for me. My opinion changed when I saw one in the flesh a couple of weeks later, I thought at the time that it would perform as well as any of my centrepins without the drawbacks of the traditional 12 spoke Aerial design. I was there to buy a rod though and couldn’t afford the reel as well so had to leave with just one deposit paid. The limited production run ended and I resigned myself to the fact that I’d missed the boat, none have since appeared on the 'used' market. I got a second chance on Tuesday, the e-mail read that a collector had decided to sell off his cane rods and in amongst them was a centrepin, unused as were the rods. I replied as fast as I could type and that was that, I’d bought the reel. It’s a very simple design but the quality of manufacture isn’t obvious until you see it, easily as good as any other I’ve seen. A solid drum means reduced line bedding and no bait crap or water getting behind it into the works – really looking forward to trying it out. Vital stats: 4 inch diameter, 1 inch wide drum, a very light 248 grams all up weight; And a really impressive toad in the hole I had for dinner last night;

Hear, Hear! Generally I think good news especially the rolling licence idea but would it have been that much more difficult to introduce 1,2 & 3 rod licences (or more)? Moving to the 365 day licence means that there will now be printing variations anyway.

I'm away this weekend so no not for me but the end of the season is creeping up on us so I'll have to get my finger out and make some plans. Last week of the season booked off work.

I've used a thick woolly sock in the past but those look a lot better.

River Lambourn, Newbury, Wednesday 13th January 2016 ”Hello mate, happy birthday, I hope you’re out fishing somewhere, I would be”. I wasn’t out fishing, I was at work at 9:00am trying to figure out why I was listening to Steve’s voicemail message and had missed the original call. My Windows phone has a mind of its own. Steve had made a good point and after a quick conversation with my boss I was heading back down the M4 towards London wondering where to fish (I hadn’t been sacked). The Kennet I knew was high and coloured and whilst there would’ve been a couple of places which might have been ok the obvious choice was staring me in the face. The Lambourn is remarkably resilient to heavy rainfall in terms of both colour and water level, it takes a lot for it to flood and a lot for it to lose the crystal clear water favoured by its inhabitants. An afternoon grayling fishing it would be then. I haven’t fished the Lambourn for at least a couple of years preferring to target chub and perch elsewhere, neither of these species have established a foothold in this river despite the EA constructing fish passes at its confluence with the Kennet. Grayling have moved downstream through the passes but no ‘new’ coarse species have moved upstream. That’s always puzzled me but it didn’t matter for now, the sun was doing it best to brighten up the day and my right wellie had dried out after a full on, leg in the water dunking on Sunday. This is all you need to go river fishing, probably less if you can do without the basket but I like it in a retro sort of way and it does actually support my weight when pressed into service as a seat. Impromptu sessions can often be surprisingly good and today was one of those occasions. I caught 21 grayling - mostly in the 10-12oz bracket with a couple of larger fish approaching a pound - and 5 brown trout. I’ve never had a session like that on this river, every spot I tried produced fish and by the time the sun could no longer keep me warm it didn't matter, I’d already had a wonderful day. A pint of ale in front of an open fire in my local rounded it off nicely.

Not recommending this to the OP but the Allcock Match Aerial has been quietly holding its value over the past three years. Boxed perfect examples are still only fetching a couple of hundred quid with cosmetically challenged reels (doesn’t matter with these) well below that. They don’t enjoy the following of more exotic makers products but they are beautiful reels and very nice to use.

And one of mine from Hunky Dory (prefer the album version tbh). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljv8xCt4Bq8

Another sad loss. I have most of his earlier albums on vinyl or CD, was a big fan during the late seventies/early eighties and went to see him at Earls Court, Wembly and Milton Keynes Bowl. My mate’s Vauxhall Viva sprung a leak on the way to MK so we spent half the concert filling up discarded water bottles for the 100 mile journey home, we didn’t make it, said Viva expired half way.

Not sure, I usually only get one from there. Last time out was unusual in that I lost a chub from that swim but then caught one 5 minutes later, maybe he's not the brightest chub in the river;

I'm not planning to fish during the night for that reason, the bivvy will be the hotel/restaurant facilitating dawn & dusk float fishing sessions. Not too bothered about big crucians really, I just want some good old fashioned tench fishing.

Thanks Anderoo, that's exactly the sort of fishing I was thinking of. My cane rods haven't been used much in the past year so I was thinking of giving them an outing during warmer months, an over-nighter if I can buy a ticket for that.

Never fished Marsh Farm but looking to do a bit of tenching there later on this year. Wonder why the closed season isn't being applied to Harris and Richardson lakes too?

Absolutely! The mash groundbait being the important bit, it'll send flakes of bread downstream and hopefully bring chub up to investigate the source. It's very effective, my two largest chub (and most of the others come to think of it) have been taken on bread fishing just one swim.