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BoldBear

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Posts posted by BoldBear

  1. In built up areas in towns and cities it is often a degree or so warmer than in the countryside away from built up areas which is why the fish can sometimes congregate and feed a bit more often than their out of town brethren.

    Plus as Martin says; any bread or other feed which is put in to feed the ducks or swans etc. can also attract feeding fish.

    However in wet weather when the rain water is running directly off of the road surfaces in towns then the opposite can also be true.

    Keith

    • Like 1
  2.   On 11/25/2021 at 6:51 PM, Peterjg said:

    I regularly fish the Kennet, Thames, K&A canal and lakes around Newbury, preferring quieter venues.

    Expand  

    Back in the late 70s I used to fish the Kennet at and around Newbury and caught my very first Barbel there (see photo)

    F1-A6-A076-2446-47-A2-AF5-D-D9-CCF0-F61-

    I also fished the Kennet at Theale and Thatcham and Burfield plus the pits at Burfield for Pike during the winter months too.

    We also had some nice big Roach from the Kennet while fishing for Barbel plus some superb Chub.

    The Kennet used to be my favourite river back then however I haven’t fished the Kennet for many years now.

    You fish a really nice river Peter, :thumbs:

    Keith

    • Like 1
  3.   On 11/22/2021 at 9:04 PM, The Flying Tench said:

    I used to tie them using an old hook tier I had, but it wasn't a Matchman. Maybe I should get one and have a go? Do you do it at home or on the bank?

    The Drennan Sweetcorn range provide a reasonably fine barbless eyed hook. I can't understand why it's so hard to get similar barbed ones. Maybe I'll hear from someone that there is something out there.

    Expand  

    I tie my spade end hooks using the Matchman hook tier both at home and when I need to tie a hook on the bankside after setting up using the bend in my rod to keep a little tension on the line while I’m tying the new hook on.

    As long as the line is tensioned slightly as you tie your hook, and the turns of line around the hook shank are not overlapping, and you wet your line around your hook shank before you tighten the line up then everything should be fine.

    You don’t need much dexterity to use a Matchman hook tier as long as you are careful.

    Keith

  4. When you say that your eyesight and dexterity no longer allow you to tie spade end hooks; do you mean by hand, or using a hook tier or both?

    I can still tie spade ends using a matchman hook tier but my eyesight and dexterity doesn’t allow me to tie spades by hand.

    Keith

    • Like 1
  5. I use a Stradic with a fighting drag but mine is a 4000 series which might be a bit too large for using with a normal sized waggler; however the smaller sizes of Stradic are fine for light float work. 

    Mark Wintle very occasionally uses a Stradic 2500 when he’s trotting a float as you can see in this video. 

    However; as Tigger suggested I would probably just send it to Felindre for a service and get them to get it running again for you.

    Keith

    • Like 2
  6. Thankfully the rivers that I usually fish don’t have steep slippery banks, however if there is going to be a chance of slippery mud in my swim; I just wear a pair of ankle length walking boots which have a deep tread on them (mine don’t have studs); or I try to find somewhere else to park my butt.

    Keith

    • Like 1
  7. I also have this book. This is the book that has a chapter by F.W.K. Wallis (chapter twenty-four) called ‘The Modern Light Float Cast from the Reel, Nottingham Style’ which was later known by others as the Wallis Cast; which I previously showed on another post about centrepin use.

    Keith

  8. Never seen or heard of that rod/reel before. Very strange 🙂

    I think I heard on the film that the lever type control on the top (or bottom) was a range control or something like that.

    Nice thing to have on a shelf in your fishing shed, but I don’t think I would ever use it in earnest on the bank though.

    Keith

  9. Hi, welcome to the forum :thumbs:

    As long as your rod was suitable I think you might have caught a lot more on maggots on a size 18 hook and a 2lb hooklength on your canal and on your coarse fishing pond; however you should have had at least something using half a worm on 3lb line with a size 14 or size 10 hook (depending on the size of the worm of course).

    Anyway I hope you do better the next time.

    Glad you are enjoying your coarse fishing.

    tight lines

    Keith

    • Like 1
  10. That’s easier said than done Norm and there are times when an out of the way stretch of river doesn’t even see an angler or anyone else; especially in the winter months.

    However I agree that if they could be reliably trapped and moved a long way from that river into a vacant sluggish stream or river that is not already home to too many other beavers; then that should be fine on paper.

    Perhaps the time and money involved when doing this should be passed over to the people or organisations that were responsible for introducing them in the first place, as not many Angling clubs and landowners on our chalkstreams have the time or the money or the inclination to undertake this sort of thing; especially if it’s an ongoing thing which happens regularly every few months.

    They are already trying to combat water extractions by the water authorities/companies who don’t believe in spending any of their shareholders money on using existing (or new) water storage reservoirs and are currently taking their water directly from our chalkstreams.

    Having licences to cull the beavers (preferably without inflicting pain) would still be preferable to many, and be a lot easier and quicker and cheaper to do for most clubs or landowners who are continually trying to preserve these chalkstreams.

    If only it was as simple and as straight forward as many of us humans think!

    Keith

  11. When I was a naval meteorologist back in the late 70s when I was working in the MET office at the RNAS Culdrose airfield next to Helston in Cornwall; we had a laser light which when we shone it up in the sky during the night we could work out the height of the cloudbase by working out the angles.

    Whenever we used it at night we used to get people phoning up the airfield reporting UFOs in the sky as they could see a bright disc shaped spacecraft whizzing across the sky at high speed and then suddenly changing direction and zooming away at an speed. Of course it was just us with our cloud base laser light trying to record the cloud base.

    NB: We didn’t use it very often as we could only use it when there were no aircraft in the sky.

    Keith

  12. The thing that annoys me is the disappearance of 'chunks' of chocolate in our chocolate bars? 

    All of the makers are now selling their chocolate in a thin layer now and chunks of chocolate are a thing of the past. But the prices are still increasing even though we're getting much less chocolate than we used to in a bar of chocolate. 

    And this type of thing has now started to happen with our split shot. 

    Keith 😕

    • Like 1
  13. There’s nothing wrong with fibreglass rods, they still enable you to catch and play decent sized fish and still cast very well.

    The early Carbon fibre rods were not always as good as they could have been however they’ve come on a lot since they were first developed; and they soon improved and today even a relatively cheap carbon fibre rod can be is as good if not better than most fibreglass rods of old used to be.

    Of course there is still the very occasional fibreglass rod that is still going to be hard to improve on like a light fibreglass Canal Wand for example.

    I eventually replaced all of my fibreglass rods (except for my canal wand) over time with Carbon Fibre rods and haven’t regretted it at all; as I can now hold them all day long because of their lightness, plus I can cast a lot further whenever I need to, plus I can handle extra long rods of 15ft and 20ft rods all day long with a lot more ease when I use them without having to put them down into rod rests.

    It’s not that fibreglass rods are not very good to use, because a good fibreglass rod is always going to be a good rod, but carbon fibre has just made it a little easier to use in a lot of situations because of what I mentioned in my previous paragraph.

    But as I said a good rod is always going to be a good rod regardless of what it’s made of; in my view.

    As far as feeder fishing is concerned; it depends on several things like: the type of venues you are fishing ie. rivers or Stillwaters and in the case of rivers the current speeds etc, plus the size and types of the species your likely to be catching, plus the type of lake or river beds you are going to be presenting your baits over; etc.

    I suggest you invest in a good fishing book which deals with feeder fishing in all of the different types of venues that you are likely to fish and the types of fish in them. As it can be a lot larger a subject than you think, with lots of different types of feeder and feeder setups and feeder rods depending on the above.

    Anyway tight lines

    Keith

  14. The only time that I could see myself using a ‘Semi’ loaded waggler (like an Onion) on a faster flowing river is if I needed to be trotting tight against the far bank in a strongish downstream wind, and I needed to have a bit of stability without it starting to drift away too far from the far bank.

    But I don’t think that I would use a normal loaded waggler whether it was on a Stillwater or a running water, unless someone demonstrated differently.

    Ivan Marks used to fish with a zoomer on the river Wellend however he used to fish with his zoomers attached both top and bottom; but the Welland is a far cry from the smaller rivers/streams that I am usually fishing.

    Keith

    • Like 1
  15.   On 9/7/2021 at 8:55 PM, Norm B said:

    Now that beavers are loved by the public the AT are keeping quiet about they wanted them culled because they are a danger to fisheries but the facts show they help fisheries and wild life, even if they do chew a few trees. 

    Expand  

    Not if the fishery is a fast running chalk stream where if the water was dammed and the flow reduced it would encourage the gravel bottoms to be silted up; because any silt particles in the water would start to settle on the bottom when the flow is reduced; meaning that the fish that rely on clean gravel in which to lay their spawn and the streamer weed and other wildlife that thrives on these clean flowing habitats would all start to die off.

    Im all for beavers as long as they can be culled in places like these sort of gravel bottomed rivers and streams.

    Keith

  16. I’ve never even had the urge to put a loaded waggler on my line; by loaded I mean the ones with the heavy weights attached to the bottoms like you see being used on commercials; however;  I love using ‘semi’ loaded wagglers like the Onion waggler; (these would still lie flat if you put them in water with no shot on)

    The Onion waggler has just enough loading so you can still spread shot down the line. These semi loaded Onion wagglers fly through the air without the characteristic waggle that gave the waggler its name and are perfect when you need real accuracy when casting up close to distant lilies or bankside vegetation or tight up to the far bank with the hooklength flying behind it.

    Plus it doesnt sink very far on landing like the usual loaded floats often do either.

    Not much good on a small stream or river though 🙂

    Keith

     

  17. Had another evening on the same lake after Carp and caught a couple of small Carp of around 10lb to 12lb-ish and then just as I was going to start packing up I caught another Wells Catfish which felt and looked a little bit heavier than the last one that I caught here a few weeks ago.

    Apparently they were illegally stocked into a reservoir further upstream and they spread downstream into this lake.

    hopefully they’ll have another netting party soon to catch and remove them; however meanwhile we are putting any that we catch into a large submerged pen ready to be taken away. 

    OK yes I did enjoy catching it as it did put up a tremendous fight; however I’d much rather have caught a 20lb Carp which is what I was trying to catch; or a 7lb Tench.

    89-DCC644-7609-4228-8-D39-FBA957-DF7-B7-

    Keith

    • Like 2
  18. We also used to make a floating boilee cake by adding two or three extra eggs to the boilee mix together with some extra sodium cassienate or some baking powder and baking it in an oven until it became a cake like texture.

    It would last a lot longer than floating crust plus you could also add some colouring and flavouring to the mix before cooking.

    Keith

    • Like 2
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