Skridlov

In reply to the last couple of posts (apologies for not splitting up my reply) I've contacted The Ouse and Adur conservation society and summarised as I've already posted here. This is indeed my river and my own home, which is on the lower reaches of the river is actually at flood risk. The proposed work seems to be aimed at the tidal section downstream of Henfield in the Small Dole and Beeding areas. These sections are very brackish although that didn't bother Carp much. But as I said there have been no significant modifications to the river in the last few years. As for Eels, at the beginning of the season I caught more Eels than I have for many years - not sure why I omitted to mention them. In the last couple of months, none. I understand that there are some bonkers provisions in the current EU proposals for European Rivers. If I feel strong enough one day I'll investigate. I'm currently waiting to hear from E.A. in response to my most recent email to them. As for Sea Trout, as I mentioned I caught a fluke fish of at least 12 lb a couple of months ago. On a light feeder rod, 6lb line, fishing maggot and sweetcorn on a no12. Static, not on the retrieve. I've caught plenty of fish but it was the fight of a lifetime. Obviously I returned it and I've got the photo if anyone disbelieves me. Strange but at the time it really felt weird, like a consolation prize of some sort and a farewell to part of my own life. Roy

This is a small river. Nothing would be easier than netting it. Two or three people could clear out large sections undisturbed without difficulty. Over a couple of years this would probably result in what we're now seeing. As for "for the pot", it's more a case of for the £££s I suspect. Maybe the people who are stripping the wiring from alongside our motorways and rail lines are actually rewiring their modest dwellings. I sometimes walk down the Brighton marina arm and chat with some of the people who fish it regularly. The "free food" business is happening there too - people filling sacks with mackerel. It really p!55es off some of the local anglers. One of the local commercials recently found a huge length of net concealed in the hedgerow. The same place has a licence to shoot Cormorants too. I have watched the population here grow enormously in the last decade. I walk the coast regularly and where I would once see half a dozen Cormorants I counted almost 70 last year. A local lake (not a commercial and I don't want to mention which one) has a population of fish which are ALL very large - it's shallow and 8 years ago you couldn't get a bait down past the Rudd to the Tench. In the last few years there are almost NO Rudd at all. It's effectively impossible to net this lake covertly. I have friends from several parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. I travel to the Czech Republic from time to time and have been to and fished in Latvia and Estonia. All of these regions have been depopulated of coarse fish because of the habit of eating them. There's a HUGE demand for Carp, particularly at Xmas in Poland above all. Since I started fishing in the late 50s we've always tried to look after our coarse fish population. I have Georgian friends who tell me that their rivers are pretty well stripped. I was in Crete last year. Speaking to a couple of people who set nets on the south coast it became clear that there's nothing left. Even the Seagulls have left. Yet people have been living in and fishing the Med for millenia. I would bet money that poaching is a component of the problem. Local angling shops have told me that they're hearing more and more about this happening. I've outlined above why I came, reluctantly, to the conclusion that poaching is likely to be at least a contributing factor.. Roy

Very briefly (not much time this evening) there hasn't been any major change to the river. There has been a problem, growing over the last couple of years that one of the weirs at the fork in the river is broken and is now leaking underwater to the extent that the level upstream in this section for about 2-3 miles before it meets an old lock has dropped by about 2 ft. When I fished this section on the first week of the season I was shocked that there was no fish activity at all and put it down to insufficient water (about 2 ft only.) There's an intermediate mini-weir about a mile up which has a board missing too. Now last autumn I ran into a bunch of young persons from the EA at the fork. I buttonholed them and asked a few questions as I'd been told there was an active policy (EU derived) to eliminate or lower weirs in order that "migratory fish could get upstream". This was offensively, culpably ignorant. On every tide over about 5m at the coast (ie most of them) there is a back flow over these weirs up to 3 ft deep! Twice a day. The dimwit making this statement had probably spent about 30 minutes by the river in his life. Anyone local angler could have pointed out the reality. I've pointed this out repeatedly in correspondence with the E.A. but it just doesn't seem to register. Their careers obviously depend on implementing E.U. directives even if it lays the rivers to waste. But no, I don't think that any type of engineering or landscaping has had a significant effect on the current disaster. Roy

I'm pressing the E.A. and also pursuing some other avenues. I don't really feel like taking on their job and I can't really afford to either. But of course this needs doing. May be a bit late now. Roy

This river has two branches. There are a pair of weirs below which the river is tidal (although on the bigger tides the flow is upstream over the weirs for a mile or so) like many Sussex rivers. On each of the upstream branches of the river there are a combination of locks (the western branch is actually part of a former canal system) and weirs. These effectively segregate sections of the river. I would have thought that this compartmentalisation would prevent pollution events having a global effect on the river. The situation has not happened overnight. This year is the final stage of what I would say is a three to four year process. Which of course doesn't in itself preclude pollution as the source of the disaster. However previous pollution events have been relatively limited in effect and their results have been pretty obvious: ie dead fish. I have heard nothing about this even from the former fishery manager. The E.A. seem to be completely oblivious. My angling club likewise. The problem is that most anglers these days are only interested in fishing for farmed fish from wooden platforms on outdoor aquariums. Tidal rivers are hard work and by comparison unproductive. Nobody really cares about the situation. Unfortunately I do. Roy

I've posted something about this previously but it seems worth starting a new thread as I have a fuller picture. I've fished the Adur extensively over the last 8 years - both the tidal and non-tidal sections - and caught large numbers of many species as well as plenty of specimen fish. Over the last 3 years the level of catches has dropped dramatically. In 2011 I assumed that the cold wet summer was to blame; in 2012 I thought something similar was happening. This year, having fished and walked all along the river I'd say that it contains almost NO fish any longer. About a dozen sessions on various parts of the river without catching anything over a few ounces, and not many even of these. Not a single run on a Carp rod - or even a line bite for that matter. Walking the river and putting in loose feed shows almost no activity at all. I invited an old friend as a guest last week and we fished a section of the river at Sakeham. This stretch up to Wineham is usually teeming with at least small Rudd. My mate took a whip pole and walked most of the section to verify that the lack of activity was general. Not a bite between the two of us in 7 hours. This is just incredible. Now I know how to fish, having been at it for about 55 years and I know this river pretty well. Looking at my photos of fish caught in the time I've been living back down in West Sussex it's hard to believe the variety and size of the catches I made for the first 5 years compared to the wet desert that is all that's now left. For me this is a devastating development. I'm at an age where - like most of the anglers I meet who fish rivers rather than the open air aquariums which most lakes have become - being able to spend part of the year in a rural environment free of traffic noise and epidemic levels of humanity is a huge contributor to what quality of life I currently enjoy. Now that is gone. As for the reasons? Well Cormorants probably aren't helping although I don't see Cormorants being able to eat the sizeable Carp, Tench and Bream with which the river used to be full. Pollution? There have certainly been some agricultural spills in recent years however the geography of the river - which has two (nominally) non-tidal sections with weirs and locks would tend to protect the river overall from localised pollution. But both branches appear to be dead. That said I caught a huge (>12lb) fluke Sea Trout at the beginning of the season and there are plenty of Mullet coming right up the tidal sections so the river isn't entirely toxic. It's been suggested to me that East European poachers are a major source of the problem. Certainly I've been told that they have been caught with enormous gill nets around local commercials and that many deadlines are being found. I've been in tackle shops when people who don't strike me as sport anglers are buying "wire and beeg hook" at the beginning of the winter. Tasty, those Pike, I'm told. I don't know what to think. I'm in correspondence with the E.A. amongst other interested parties but sometimes get the impression that they think I'm just having a couple of blank days. But I've done marine ecology courses and studied biological sciences up to degree level - not that that qualifies me any better than any other experienced angler. There's a lot more to be said about this correspondence but I'll leave that until I see what reaction I get here. It's an internet forum so I fully anticipate the howls of denial, negativity and contradiction. But be assured, it really is this bad. One thing is for sure, here in S.E. England almost everything connected with the "natural" world is in precipitous and unstoppable decline. Roy

BTW The Black Rabbit is on the Arun, not the Adur, just upstream from Arundel. Roy

A few years back, at Burton Mill - in the same timescale as the decline on the Adur, it was hard to get a bait down to the Tench past the small Rudd. In the last few years there are no Rudd to speak of. In the last 8 years of fishing this water we have never caught Tench under abut 3-4 pounds. None. I fished the same place as far back as the late 60s when there was a spread of sizes. This lake is an SSSI and as far as one can see, the water quality is fine - it's fed (indirectly) from the chalk in the Downs. I used to drive by it in winter and don't recall any Cormorants at all until the last few years. I've been fishing all over the Adur consistently over the last 8 years so I'm pretty familiar of what to expect. It's never been hugely productive - which suits me fine; it keeps the bivvy-boys away. But there has always been an interesting selection of everything and you'd seldom come away without one or two nice fish. If it wasn't fishing particularly well you could resort to pulling out as many small Bream and Roach as you could stand. The difference in the last 3 years is astonishing. There is a water quality problem with the Adur, in that there isn't enough of it. The EA have failed to repair one of the weirs at Henfield which has dropped the level by up to 2ft upstream as far as the lock at Partridge Green and this section is barren; you can feed in maggots and free samples around the lily pads and there's nothing there to see at all over the entire stretch. One dingbat from the EA last year (an enthusiastic young graduate, I'd say) told me that there was a proposal to drop the weirs in order to "enable migratory fish to get upstream". Given that except on the smallest tides the water flows back over these weirs in a torrent up to 3 ft over the boards on every single high tide, this idiot shouldn't be allowed to have an opinion on anything but the level of the water in his bath. I've taken a look at the upper sections of the river and apart from the Wineham stretch which teems with fry and small fish there isn't much activity to be seen. As for water quality, well there was a big kill of the Sea Trout run a few years back, said to be caused by an agricultural effluent spill, which I well remember, however it didn't significantly change the way the river fished for other species at that time I suspect that the Cormorants are part, if not all, of the problem. And as for the idea that nature somehow rapidly adjusts predator/prey populations so that everything quickly makes nice, well, dream on. There's no balance in nature; there is no shortage of pendulums however. I walk the coast between Shoreham and Worthing regularly. In 2004 I never saw more than 6 or 7 cormorants on this stretch all winter. Last year I counted 64 of them on one outfall pipe alone and that is the new normal. I'd be surprised if they aren't a significant component of the problem and I'm not alone in this - there's a current proposal to cull, which (despite being very interested in birds generally) I'd support. A last note on water quality. Two weeks ago on an otherwise almost blank day, as every day so far this year on the Adur has been, I was fishing a feeder with 6lb line, a maggot plus sweet corn on a no 12 when I hooked what I thought was a carp and which I didn't expect to land given its power. About 15 minutes later I was gawping at a huge fresh-run Sea Trout on the bank - I'd say close to 15 lb. The fight and possibly the fish of a lifetime given the circumstances. Out of season etc but what the hell. And I have a couple of snaps to prove it although I didn't weigh it as I wanted to get it back in the water quickly. Fishing can be very strange. Roy

An absolute deluge of replies. Well, FWIW, which is surely not a lot, this river, the lower sections at least, seems to be now almost completely devoid of fish. The decline has taken place sharply in the last 3-4 years, during which time the local population of Cormorants has probably increased 10-fold. I think these facts may be correlated. The now proposed cull? Well, maybe it will happen if the urbanites who think they understand what's "natural" don't hear too much about it. However we're going to have to shoot (shoot? but that involves GUNS!) most of the bl00dy pests to have any real effect. And it's going to take a decade before the waters have recovered. I may not have that much time. Still, I doubt that many Coarse fisherman care that much unless the Cormorants are also depopulating the open-air aquariums known as "commercials". Are there any still waters in England that are fishable and which haven't been turned into Cr@p puddles? Even most club waters seem to have degenerated into "club commercials". Of course there's always sea fishing. Hang on, there are almost no fish left there either and those that are are being harvested as free food by our Euro-peon cousins. See them bagging up the last few Mackerel off the piers and jetties along the coast. Untill recently I wasn't aware that anyone had a recipe for Wrasse... Roy

A couple of years ago I was walking down my club's stretch of our local river trying to decide where to fish. I decided to go over into the next field downstream. This is all farm land which has a mixture of beef bullocks and dairy. Arriving at the fence I confronted about six heifers and a very large bull. On seeing me the heifers all immediately went berserk and started p!ssing furiously. The bull, which was facing me (they were about 30 yds away) slowly turned sideways on to me but sort of looked to the side, straight at me. I took it for a very non-aggressive posture however there's no way I'd enter a field knowingly which contained a bull. Interestingly there was no sign stating the presence of the bull, although I think this is only mandatory where there's a public right-of-way. I wouldn't have liked to have encountered this group - as I easily could have - a hundred yards into the field with nowhere to hide and 40 lbs of gear on my elderly back. A couple of days later I took the trouble to look up information about Temple Grandin, an American woman about whom I'd seen a fascinating documentary. She's revolutionised the cattle industry in the USA despite (or possibly because) of her severe autism. There are few people who know as much about cattle behaviour, a subject on which she has high academic qualifications as well as vast professional experience - she's treated like a deity at cattlemen's conventions. To my amazement I read that a bull broadsiding to you is actually a sign of aggression! It's telling you "look how big I am!" Also, it appears that the most dangerous bull is the "tame" bull that's grown up familiar with people. At some point such an animal will surely challenge a human - which usually has only one possible outcome. She also advises that any bull that shows aggression toward people in an open environment should be culled immediately. Bear in mind that this is someone who's prepared to get down at ground level in a stockyard full of cattle to see the world from their perspective. I grew up around farms and took it for granted that dairy cattle were basically benign. Which they are, most of the time, recently calved cows being an obvious exception. But every year previously docile dairy cows kill people, usually stockmen, and frequently for completely inexplicable reasons. So I treat them cautiously. One beautiful herd of Freisians always wanders past me at some point in a spot I fish regularly. At least one just has to stand and stare for a while, getting left behind by the herd as they munch onward. Bullocks are more annoying. Sometimes a herd of 50 of them will follow me like the Pied Piper. I once asked the farm manager if it bothered him if I shoo-d them away. His reply: "you can try..." Their idiotic persistence has now stopped me from fishing one of the best stretches of the river.

Haven't posted here for a long time. I'm interested to hear from anyone else who fishes the Adur (coarse fish). It's my feeling that over the last 3 years there has been a serious decline in fish stocks over all parts of the river. What do you think? Skridlov

I recently received a mailshot (dated July 2008) from the E.A I expect most of you did too. It was apparently intended to encourage me to go fishing... Hmm. I was moved to send Daffyd Evans (Head of Fisheries; round here we call him "Daffyd the Fish") an email, as follows: "The snap of the letter-box, the ripping open of the envelope, the shriek of incomprehension, the fury at wasted resources..." Dear Daffyd - you don't mind if I call you Daffyd, I trust? No wonder rod licences are relatively expensive given that you waste the money on insanely pointless mailshots. Of course the key lies in the phrase "have your debit/credit card handy...". Nonetheless, even by .gov.uk standards this is one of the most inane efforts I have ever seen. If its intention was to encourage yet more people to go fishing, one might ask "why?" Given the acute level of angling pressure everywhere you'd be better off sending a mailshot encouraging more people to abandon the pastime. Of course that might impact negatively on your pension fund. Alternatively, why not a campaign for teaching our "New European" "friends" not to kill and eat our fish - having already devastated their own stocks. If these suggestions don't appeal, why not spend a little of it rectifying some of the damage already inflicted by blunders committed by the E.A.? Like restoring the Millstream at Arundel , West Sussex, to its former condition as a pristine, healthy tidal waterway bearing a population of wild Brown Trout, Dace etc. This waterway is now a nearly choked anaerobic ditch, devoid of life other than algae. The cause? The permanently closed sluice which you have fitted to prevent tidal pulses from entering from the River Arun, of which the Millstream is a tributary. Might I humbly suggest summary execution for the E. A. dimwit who made this decision? Best wishes and good bureaucratising. I now feel guilty that I may be responsible for the death of some poor swine. Never mind.

On a much smaller scale, an old friend of mine has a Cray boat on the west coast of Tasmania (Cray aka Rock Lobster). For many years the local Cray fishermen bitterly fought against the idea of quotas. My mate, let's call him Frank, was one of the few who supported the idea and actively co-operated with the fisheries authority in collecting data about catches. As he put it to me, with every year that went by he found himself going out in riskier and riskier weather to maintain his income, all the while seeing the average size of the Crays go down and overall catches decline. Anyone who has been in a small boat off the W. coast of Tasmania in winter will have an idea what this means. Since the quota system came in he has seen the fishery improve in all respects. Now the fishermen can save up part of their quota for winter - when the prices go up - and only go out when the weather conditions are safe. From what I understand everyone has accepted that the quotas have been very successful in all respects.

Well, it gets worse. I hadn't actually finished the book when I posted the above. Toward the end the author visits the sites of some of the Gulag camps in N.E Siberia and even in such a remote and inaccessible location there are people hoovering up the remaining fish. Of course for quite a lot of these people getting enough to eat is extremely difficult (mind you, getting enough to drink seems to present fewer problems...) There are quite a few people there who are aware that the situation is terrible - but the breakdown of controls is so extensive that there look to be no prospects for anything happening to address a situation that is such a low priority. It 's amazing that even in an immense country (I seem to recall that Siberia is about the same size as USA and W. Europe COMBINED!) it's still possibe to eliminate the majority of the fish in a couple of decades. And in reference to Jim's comment, many of the Siberian rivers are devastated by mining too, with all kinds of pollution and interference having quite literally exterminated ALL the fish in many of the rivers. I also know a little about the situation in Armenia. A web search on "Lake Sevan" will throw up a horror-story about the way in which a very special ecosystem can be completely devastated. To be fair, the Armenian government are doing a lot to rectify the damage (caused during the Soviet period) - but there is still uncontrolled illegal fishing. There's a lesson for us all here. What we have is extremely precious and very fragile. Currently there's a lot of concern about the potential impact of freshwater-fish-eating E. European "anglers" on our fisheries; I don't know how substantial a threat this really is but it would seems to be a good idea for levels of awareness to be raised amongst people coming to live in this country. I think this is not likely to appear very near the top of any government agenda, local or national. Maybe we can encourage the human consumption of boilies as a more efficient way of obtaining protein... Strongly recommended book though, for anyone who likes travel writing and fishing - if depressing in many ways.

I'd just like to bring to the attention of anyone who may be interested, a book; "HOOKED - fly-fishing through Russia" by Fen Montaigne*. The author is a Russian-speaking American journalist who was formerly a Moscow correspondent. In 1996 he spent an entire summer travelling all over Russia (including, notably, Siberia) with fly-fishing tackle. As a pretty intrepid individual, speaking the language well, and with numerous friends and contacts in the region, he was able to visit some exceptionally inaccessible and fascinating places and to fish in most of them. The overall impression produced by this excellently written book is one of complete despair - at least for anyone who loves sport fishing/angling. As a travel book alone it's interesting and enjoyable, but it reveals a situation far worse - in most respects - than we can possibly imagine from the UK perspective. The economic collapse of the post-Soviet world, and the near-total absence of any awareness of the ecological issues surrounding the aquatic environment have led to a situation where whole species are rapidly becoming extinct. Even some of the remotest places in Siberia are being fished out very quickly. The author recounts a trip to one of the rivers running into Lake Baikal where, despite traveling a long way up river in a small boat, and then tramping a considerable distance through the midge-infested bush, he encountered two groups of people busily engaged in exterminating the few remaining Grayling in the area. One group had got there using an old Soviet go-anywhere armoured personnel carrier... Some of the other locations, such as the Kola peninsula, famed for its runs of Atlantic salmon, are being run as high-budget fishing camps for the well-heeled of all nations - which at least has some marginal conservation effect - whilst everywhere that can't be easily policed by the local Mafia who control the fishing camps is being netted, poisoned, dynamited for the only available cash-crop, Salmon. On being introduced to the concept of catch and release, one of the author's local contacts stated that this was a practice belonging to " a more civilised society than ours..." Everywhere in the book the author encounters the amazing levels of carnage that alcoholism is inflicting on the country - where male life expectancy has now declined to about 58 years. At one point a Russian "angler" notes that "fishing is drinking in hip-boots..." Phew. Anyway it's a fascinating and well-written book, and reveals just how quickly fish stocks can be devastated by lack of controls and lack of awareness. Of course economic collapse comes into it too, but that's a bigger story. * I have also seen what I believe is the same book published under the title: "Reeling In Russia: An American Angler In Russia Fen Montaigne" Available second-hand from www.abebooks.com

On this reel I was using 8lb PP mainline and 7lb Berkeley hook-length (can't find the orginal spool so it may just have been 8lb). I had been fishing for smaller stuff on this rod - chub and some nice little roach - using a 5lb/14 mono hooklength. I changed to the braid and a no8 to fish some Spam for the last couple of hours - I had another rod out with a pellet. The bottom was clear where I was casting - I had no snarl-ups in weed there all day. The breakage was a few inches above the hook but I was too p!55ed off to examine it closely - and it was dark. My night vision is pretty duff by this stage anyway. I was going to fish straight through but this would have meant having to change the type of tulip bead stop I was using and I was tired and not at all optimistic by this stage. Mistake. The point is, from my own experience, this has happened so often in all kinds of situations, with at least four or five different brands of braid, on different reels and styles of fishing, mainlines and hooklengths. But it has never happened with PP. I have no axe to grind here, that's just my experience over the last three years that I've used braid frequently. I haven't looked recently but there is a bit of a shortage of PP suppliers at realistic prices so I only have 50lb and 8lb versions, which is a bit of an extreme jump. I have used the 50 for both carp and pike and just adjust the end-tackle to suit the circumstances (I'm with R. Walker on this; always use the strongest line you can get away with). A personal opinion only!

To put it short and sweet, I have had nothing but trouble with every brand of braid I have ever used except Power Pro (no I don't work for them or sell it!). Yet again last week my only (Barbel - I think) bite from 13 hrs of Barbel fishing at Throop resulted in an inexplicable snappage of an 8lb braid hooklength (Berkely something or other). Drag was set well short btw. The hooklength was new - I'd just tied a new hair rig a couple of hours before. I had a small eel on it earlier and was forced to cut the hook off as the eel was hooked too deep for any other solution. The snappage was fully 6in above the second hook tied to this hooklength. I can't see any way that I damaged it when tying a new hook. My mate who was fishing with me has had this happen twice this season (Berkely again) - he hasn't used braid a lot previously. I've had innumerable mysterious snappages on many brands of braid in the past to the point where I would NEVER use it for ANYTHING - were it not for PP, with which I have had no problems at all, ever (8lb and 50lb versions). Mind you it does float a bit, which is a slight drawback in some situations. The cr@p season continues - and from speaking to people I meet on my local rivers, and the local tackle shop, it's not just me. Everyone reports that this season has been almost dead. So that's that then!

On the rivers I fish this has been the worst season of the last three - by far, with many blank or near blank days and almost no decent sized fish all season. I could understand it when the weather was really terrible, with massive amounts of very cold water coming down, but it hasn't got any better since the weather improved at the end of August. I'm talking about all species - Carp, Tench, Bream (still one or two of them most sessions) and even small silver fish. The situation has been the same on the tidal and non-tidal sections of the rivers. Speaking to other people I'm getting the same response. What's happening elsewhere?

Interesting reponses - particularly the one that "blocks" me based on an honest statement of my experience AS A BUYER.... It's notable that an awful lot of the responses are from sellers who feel threatened. Guilty conscience? Personally, if I was a seller I'd try to make sure I was very accurate in my descriptions. As for the photos - well in my experience most people haven't got much idea how to take them - particularly if the item needs to be shot using macro - so I doubt that many of the cr@p photos are actually deliberate. The fact is that THE MAJORITY of the seven or so lots I have recently won have been partially misrepresented. Today I received a rod that was described as having been used three times and in EXCELLENT condition. In fact it has had a couple of inches snapped off the top section and subsequently repaired by regluing the tip ring. The last few inches are in scrappy condition - whether glue or damage to the carbon I can't tell. So I mailed the seller and asked why he'd failed to mention this - and got a semi-coherent reply which stated that he was selling it "as he had bought it". So I assume he's a dealer - he's certainly got a fair bit of other tackle on ebay. Well if he is dealing (whether professionally or not) tough 5h!t: no sympathy. No offer to take it back of course - the only response with which it's hard to argue (although even this may still mean that the guy's trying it on and gets away with it most of the time!) This is just b*llox - am I supposed to just roll over and accept it? In this situation immediate negative feedback is a reasonable response- it's the only way these clowns are going to be deterred from LYING about the goods they're selling. And of course I don't imagine that this applies to everyone who sells on ebay. To suggest that this is what I'm implying is a very odd response indeed

Just posted something else on ebay. Take a look.

I have used ebay a few times, usually to buy new stuff. A couple of years ago I had a bash at selling too, with a mate who deals in small antiques. I was completely put off by everything that was involved, from the scam emails to the amount of financial info that had to be broadcast (paypal). So we gave up on the idea after the first batch. Recently I decided to buy a bit of old fishing tackle as a - hopefully - investment, in a very small way. So I bid on and eventually won about half a dozen lots. In one case it took a week of emails to get a response from someone who lives locally and from whom I had already, in advance, agreed to collect the goods. The story is that he had computer problems and was having to use a neighbour's PC. So he was only getting mail sent via the ebay message board, not those sent directly to him. Well, that's the story anyway. Of the remaining lots, only one could be described as matching its seller's description. One reel had a non-returning bail arm (no surprises there). Another two, part of the same lot, had broken components. The seller of this lot insists that they were not broken when sent - and they may not have been - but thehandle on one was clearly missing a chunk long before it split in half. They were reasonably well packed it's true, but nonetheless broken and not by ME. Another reel is described as in superb condition. Well, that means near-mint to me - and it ain't. My response to this stuff was to register neutral or negative feedback - it's the first time I have sent ANY feedback, and it seemed to be the obvious response. Now I have an inbox full of whining mails and, I expect, negative seller feedback. Apparently I should have first mailed the sellers - all this nonsense for a few tens of pounds worth of old reels! Well, in fact I think that the sellers should have [a] described the goods accurately placed meaningful photos rather than the blurred cr@p most people post, (I particularly love the shots of rods placed on floral sofas taken from about 15 feet away!) and [c] packed the stuff so that there was NO chance of damage. Another seller, who received a cheque from me at precisely the same time as most of the others, is actually promising that the goods will be with me next week - about 7-8 days after the other sellers' goods have already arrived. So I should be generous and describe him (sound of vomiting) as a "great ebayer"? Er, no, I don't think I will. This experience reinforces the opinion I already had that ebay is a paradise for people who like to p155 about. No doubt before someone starts shouting at me - that there are lots of people who do busines honestly and efficiently. It's notable that the one 100% as-described and faultless reel I received is actually from someone who operates openly as a commercial dealer. They say "you gets what you pays for". Well, sometimes you do, but where ebay's concerned, don't bank on it. Cat now among pigeons?

Thanks for the detailed responses. I was rather hoping that I could revarnish over the existing finish - it's all in very good shape apart from the few brittle intermediate whippings. I'm not at all sure that I'm up to a complete strip and refurbish although I'm fairly useful with tools. The whipping would be the major obstacle. I suppose my question is; would overvarnishing with marine varnish hold the rod against any further deterioration? The "set" I can live with as it's not at all bad.

Hi Anglers' Net (first post here) I have recently acquired a 9ft (The Lennox) split cane fly rod which formerly belonged to a friend's family. It has some sentimental value for me as I used to use it when visiting a farm they once had in Essex. I'd like to be able to use it again occasionally. It has two tip sections and is in generally in fine shape but with a slight set to one of the tips as a result of standing rather than being suspended. However on close inspection some of the intermediate whippings have become brittle and are separating. Generally the varnish is undamaged. I occurs to me that re-varnishing the brittle whippings should be sufficient to hold them against further deterioration and unsighly loss which might be hard to repair. I'd appreciate any advice about this. Is it advisable to re-varnish throughout or just the damaged areas? The varnish now looks evenly semi-matte - what varnish is suitable? Anything else I should attend to when restoring the rod? Thanks! Skridlov