Slug Salter

I too use a Candle as someone mentioned earlier but I use a 3 inch, flurocarbon hooklength. The Candle, being white, actually attracts the fish (and Seagulls too...), bringing them close to your bait, I assume they think it's bread. I also find that giving it a slight twitch will scare Ducks away. I use a fake dog biscuit that has a shot in it so that when hair rigged the hook is actually out of the water, it also doesn't go soft and fall off. I think this is actually my very favourite way to fish.

What exactly is the problem with diamond eyed swivels? I've not heard or read anything about it before.

When we moved into this house in the late summer I was ill so had people to help us, as a result tons of stuff got lost in the garage. I've been ill since so didn't get a chance to go looking for my fishing tackle until a couple of weeks ago. Turns out we've got Rats in there. They completely destroyed my large hold-all that was full of bags of boilies and ground bait. They also managed to kill an alarm, 2 landing nets and my unhooking mat. We've now put poison down. The most common poisons, anticoagulants, do kill slowly and painfully, they cause their blood not to clot and they eventually bleed to death. If I remember correctly, it takes longer on mice than it does rats, oddly. I saw a mouse trap in a shop the other day that electrocutes them in a little chamber, didn't see one big enough for rats though.

While lure fishing on the river Bure I managed to cast into a tree. I couldn't see where it had gone, it turned out it had gone straight up, and I mean straight up, I let out some line and my plug nearly hit me on the nose. It had gone over a branch about 40 feet high. I was extremely embarrassed as there were loads of people about, I grabbed the plug but missed and managed to stitch two of my knuckles together with one of the hooks. Another time, in the middle of winter, I went Carp fishing. My first cast seemed rather heavy and then I saw this my wife's hat go sailing over the lake. It wasn't until I heard all the shouting 'What the hell was that? A Chicken?!' (my wife has strange taste in hats) that I realised how many people were there. Last one: Lure fishing again, on a little river called the Anker. I had been casting under a little stone bridge with a road going over it. I don't know what I was doing wrong but I managed to cast into the bridge a couple of times. The third time the worst happened, I caught a bloomin' car. I just had to point the rod at the moving car, hold on and wait for the line to break.

I've had quite a few Barbel out of Lizard, off many different pegs, but only up to 4lb. Never heard of any bigs ones coming out of there. A mate I was fishing with had one of just over 8lbs out of lake one on phase one.

Here: http://www.sea-fishing.org/ftopict-8777.html though it doesn't actually say commercial, I might be assuming incorrectly. To be honest, I've been having so much trouble finding useful, up to date information, that I was prepared to take what I could get. The problem, of course, is that I'm usually too shy to ask. The only reason I started this thread was because knowing how to kill a fish with as little suffering as possible is more important than my shyness.

Well, we ended up at Llanstephan in the end as I'd read that Cefyn Sidan was having trouble with being commercially netted. And we blanked anyway. Still, thanks for your help, I'll certainly be trying again sometime soon so perhaps the advice I got here will help then. Need to do a bit more research first and perhaps a new rod (the pier rod I have doesn't cast too well...).

Cheers. Ideally I'm looking for the most humane way of dispatching them, I think it would haunt me if I made them suffer unnecessarily. I have an idea of how to cook them, it was just getting them to that point that worried me.

I've just moved to south west wales and due to the lack of course fish in the rivers and being nowhere near a canal I've decided to take up sea fishing, from the beach. Tomorrow I'm heading to Cefn Sidan and in the unlikely circumstance that I actually catch anything I'd like to bring something home to eat. I'm mostly aiming for Dab and Flounder but I'm having trouble finding anywhere online that will tell me the best way to kill and gut flatfish. Any help would be very much appreciated.

I am around 21 Stone and have been as big as 26 Stone. I have had a Fox Recliner for years with out trouble, I totally trust this chair. For more of an upright position I have a chair very similar to the Coleman Captain's Chair (with a folding table on one side and pockets on the other), again, I have absolute faith in this design. Oh, and incase anyone might be interested, I finally found a camp bed that can handle me: Outfitter XL Cot. It is truly massive and strong.

Tomorrow I'm planning on trying Weston Lawns in Bulkington. It will be my first time on the venue. I have read that there are small Catfish in Pool 2 and I would very much like to catch one, has anyone got any advice on how to catch the Catfish or just on the venue in general? Any help would be appreciated.

I have quite a wide ranging taste in music. I have to admit to loving Country Music too, gotta love a bit o'Willie! Do you know about Last.fm? It records the songs that you play and uploads the info to a website. Here's mine: LAST.FM

I'm really interested in one of those Side Planers, I'm hoping to do more lure fishing in the future. While trying to understand a little more about how they work I had a look on YouTube and found this: http://www.bulletbobber.com/ I have to say it looks very interesting, what do others think?

I'd go with silicone sealant too. Otherwise a No More Nails type glue would be good.

Nixon had been trying to qualify for 20 years and for him to go as far as he did when he did get in, is an amazing achievement. But, I have to say I'm glad for Wolfie, it's been horrible watching him keep trying and getting so close for so many years. If I remember right he was in it each year for the last 14 years.

A couple of weeks ago I casually mentioned to a friend, that has never fished before, that I'd love to take him to see if he might like it. A few days later he called me to take me up on my offer. So on Wednesday we headed off to Kingsbury Water Park. We got there to find the swim platforms were under a foot of water and the wind was roaring across the top of the lake causing such a chop that it looked like a big angry river. All day my mate had less than half a dozen knocks but by gawd did he get excited when he did, he absolutely loved it, the whole day, from the moment I handed him his day licence to the moment we packed up. He definately wants to do more and I'm going to take him somewhere where he might catch something other than a cold next time. It was such a great feeling watching someone get hooked. Neither of us cared that we blanked, it was enough for him to be there and I got all I needed from watching him learn and getting so excited about the whole thing.

7 of 'em.