tiddlertamer

Hi Anderoo I'm sure we all hope it's an isolated pollution incident. Nonetheless, a very well respected perch expert has expressed fears it could be the perch virus that caused so much damage to the species. So let’s not necessarily knock the Angling Times. Perhaps there is a journalist at the Angling Times with his own agenda about getting the story he wants and is willing to trick an expert into giving him the quote he wants to 'prove' his article. But that sounds a touch disingenuous. So accusing the Angling Times about 'scare stories' may be a touch unfair. The quotes are from one of the UK's leading perch experts. Journalists may have their own agenda sometimes (or their editors) but they don’t make up the quotes which form the bulk of their copy. (Well they often mangle the odd quote but not normally maliciously...) If I was a journalist, it would be the perch experts that hang out here that I'd be seeking out for a quote or background information.

There was an article today in the Angling Times about the discovery of 10,000 mainly two inch dead perch in an intake between Farnmoor reservoir in Oxford and the river Thames. Fears are growing that this discovery heralds the return of virus which decimated perch stocks back in the 1970s and 1980s. Anglers Net aficionado and regular contributor, who is also one of three founder members of ‘The Perchfishers’ Steve Burke, was quoted in the article. Steve, who was also a co editor of ‘The Book of the Perch’ said: “that it could be the same disease...” He spoke of two main causes: “the aeromonas bacteria...thought to be spread by seabirds, and a nematode worm, the tell tale signs of which are tail rot and ulcers... and that there hasn’t been a national epidemic since the mid 1980’s.” He went on to say: “that when it strikes, between 90 per cent and 100 per cent of the water are wiped out.” Others sounded more cautious and the EA is examining water samples. Nonetheless, it sounds very ominous. Anyone know anymore about this potentially worrying disease and incident?

This season I've lost three good perch right at the net. Each time I got a good look at them. Two of them were around the pound mark but one was around two pounds. They all seemed to break free by thrashing their head about at the net and the hook hold pinging out I'm sure some might suggest barbed hooks would have been a better bet. I'll perservere with barbless if for no other reason it'll be easier to unhook myself if I ever get careless with the hook and impale my own hands or fingers, which I manage to do more regularly than is good for my health. I did wonder though if my technique of holding the rod high might not have been the wisest. Are there fans out there of keeping the rod thrust low when entering the final throes of a battle with a perch? Which technique of holding the rod - high or low - works most effectively?

You could try Jack's Lake which is near Cockfosters tube station in north London. See: http://www.waterscape.com/things-to-do/fis...7097/jacks-lake It cost five pounds per person but may do discounts for juniors. I've never fished it but a close friend has and he assures me there is a good mixed bag of fish. Carp but also tench, bream, roach, and rudd. Tight lines!

Many stretches of the river Lea are free as it runs through north London on its way down to the Thames. If its a lake you are after, there is fishing on Hampstead Heath lakes. See link below for a leaflet you can download on fishing on the heath: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation...+recreation.htm If it's a reservoir you are after, then Wathamstow reservoir isn't a million miles away, though that'll cost you a bit and the water could be quite large and daunting.

There is much interesting and revealing talk on Anglers Net about targeting specific species at particular times of the year with particular tactics. One of these tactics is using lob worms to target river perch in autumn. Whilst I know perch love lobworms, so also do chub and large roach too. What specific tactics or what types of swims are targeted in the hunt for large river perch which differentiate it as a type of specimen fishing - as opposed to the chuck it and chance it tactics I normally employ when I’m happy with whatever fish gobbles my bait including a brassy flanked chub When using lobs, is it generally float fishing and trotting that is the most devastating tactics in rivers during autumn? Of course, conditions and weather play their role but do people generally just trot a lob worm or are do they work better as a static bait? From what little I know, perch prefer shady spots and slacker waters. Do perhaps chub concentrate in faster runs? Then again chub love cover too! What are you looking for in a likely perch swim? What differentiates it from a chub swim? And what is the best tactic when using lob worms in rivers in autumn if you wish to catch perch?

I’ve got through 6 pints of maggot a day when float fishing the Hampshire Avon. But that was at the height of summer when the days are long. At this time of year I’ll scale back to four pints. By the depths of winter that’ll be too many as the fish, I do believe, feed less. Mind you, there is nothing worse than dusk falling and all your maggots have gone... So maybe half a gallon if you’re playing safe. But eight pints only works in the favour of your local tackle shop!

That's a very kind of you and I shall take you up on that offer at the Timsbury fish in. Going back to the rather special 7lb 6ox chub which recently made an appearance in a 'guess the weight' competition on Anglers Net, the successful angler was in fact using a closed face reel. By all accounts he was a seasoned veteran of many of England's great rivers and clearly knew what he was doing. I'm very tempted to ditch the fixed spool reels and master a new art. I assume it is simpler than centrepin fishing. Any drawbacks to using it though? Many people seem to rate the Abu 501 as the finest closed face reel which has never been beaten by newcomers. True?

I normally travel light when fishing rivers but I do carry two reels - one fixed spool reel and one centrepin. The fixed spool reel is used 90 per cent of the time, mainly because I prefer far back swims next to or under cover. And I can barely cast my bleeding centrepin beyond the rod tip. I use a cheap and cheerful Shakespeare Mach 1 fixed spool reel. A little over £20 but it has its merits as you can strike with finger over the spool, and then just start winding to engage the bail arm without any resistance as opposed to many fixed spool reels which force you to manually engage the bail arm - often loosing the fish in the process... Closed faced reels are getting a good write up from a lot of people on this thread. Embarassed as I am to admit it, I've never used one. Are there any drawbacks with them?

Truly a fisherman's tale! I'm really getting the hang of this angling lark- my tall stories are clealy second to none! Well 3lb 12oz is just under 4lb but 3lb 10 oz is just over three and a half pounds... To cap it all they were weighed on digital scales meaning they could have been anything between 2lb and 5lb!

Well done sir! An honest cheat! I did indeed post something on this board about the ragged anal fins of these fish. Well remembered. I didn't claim 3lbs 15oz for it did I? The avatar fish was 3lb 10 methinks if memory serves me well. It looked bigger. Apart from the ragged fins it looked perfect though. As John Aston says in 'A Dream of Jewelled Fishes' , the chub is a perfect fish shaped fish. If a child was to draw a fish he/she'd draw something that proably looks like a chub. Now if only I could catch a 7lber rather than the ones I keep on snaffling which are normally closer to the 1lb mark...

Much warmer... This little beastie which came out on the same session was 3lb 12oz:

It's a rather nice Hardys specimen float rod. Horribly expensive but a thing of beauty. Mind you the reel was a modern and rather clunky Japanese or Chinese version of a Mitchell reel which spends its time in a cupboard nowadays rather than getting any outings to the river bank. Pretty cold I'm afraid Anderoo.

Well seeing as our fun with the monster chub has come to an end, I'll post a photo of my avatar chub to the forum for more guess work. Apologies in advance as it was taken in the days before I carried an unhooking mat but the grass could have doubled up as a bouncy castle it being so soft and bouncy... And yes I know it pales into insignificance with the monster chub but it was the best I could do! (Anybody guessing under 1lb gets pushed in the carrier at the Timsbury Fish-in.

I'm afraid the fun and games are over. I don't have dimensions for the landing net but it was big. As big as this chub. Which did indeed weigh in at a mighty 7lb 6os. Well done Rusty - your trophy is in the post so should be with you by the NewYear. If I'd posted a photo of one of my own fish, then 2lbs 1 oz would indeed have won the day...

Oh so cold...

Everyone loves a guess the weight of the fish competition. Sadly, I didn’t catch this fish though I have a reliable witness as to its weight. I didn’t even take the photograph! A friend was out fishing on a river (actually he was blanking which is a speciality of his ) when he got into conversation with another angler. The other angler then hooked into this beauty. In deference to this angler, I will not name the swim, stretch of river or indeed the name of the river! Let’s just say it’s a UK river... But the big question is – how much does this chub weigh? Answers on a postcard please. The winner gets the Anglers’ (Don’t forget the apostrophe) Net Order of the Caster which was by all accounts the successful bait.

Cracking write-up Anderoo. It looks like a lovely river/stream and a great place to spend some time trotting a float down with the flow. I got a bit minnowed out myself last weekend trotting with maggots but didn’t have the flip side of those two fin perfect 3lb plus chub. What pound line were you using, what size hook and how many maggots on your hook bait? Are you like me a profligate loose feeder getting through quite a few pints in a session or do you nurse them frugally? What I particularly liked about the stream was it looked like a perfect place for a centrepin. Well especially for someone like me who struggles to cast beyond my rod tip... One quick question about the pictures. I’ve worked out how to display my snaps in the same format Chris Plumb did – quite small with a black frame. How do you get to display the photos like you did, embedded at a large size within the message?

River records tumbled last week according to today's Angling Times. That included a 8lb 14 oz chub from the river Lea - a record for running water. Just up the road from my base in north London. Meanwhile I had been targeting the Hampshire Avon involving a lot of travel and expense. Ho hum! Elsewhere, a 5lb 6oz perch came out of the Great Ouse on float fished lobworms. So although there have been weeks of low rainfall and poor fishing conditions, clearly some anglers have battled through and come up with the goods. No bad idea methinks to target those chub and perch. Still no rain in London though. Any better news elsewhere?

Heavy rain is predicted in the south of England for Tuesday and Wednesday. Hopefully it'll make a bit of a difference to the low water levels in rivers and the seemingly drought like Autumn conditions. Of course the water table is low. Of course the ground will soak up much of the rain. But, in a quote that Anglers Net resident contrarian Chesters 1 would be proud of hearing here, I shall use the words of Winston Churchill: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Can anyone remember rivers being so low in mid October? I've been struggling. I can see big fish. I can even get them to feed when I'm putting in loose feed. But the water is so low and gin clear in the rivers I'm fishing, the canny chub and retiring roach are refusing to take my long trotted hook bait! I can imagine rivers being so low is a common phenomenon in summer but so late in the year - is that normal? Anyone else struggling with their autumn river fishing this year?

In a piece he did for the media, angler Martin Bowler goes after a record dace but puts forward the argument that trotting and the continual retreival of the tackle over the swim would put fish down. He then proceeds to ledger for them on a small carrier on the Kennet. I should shout 'poppycock and balderdash' but perhaps he is right. But trotting is a tad more fun and, in my experience no barrier to catching large hauls of dace. It's just that elusive extremely large roach, and dace too, that escapes me... Perhaps I should focus less on enjoying myself and more on actually catching the monsters out there, that maybe, just maybe would fall to my new tactics.

Hiya Den I can live with all of that - even the 1.7lb hook length - with one exception. The pole. No, no, no... I'd be laughed off the Hampshire Avon. Actually I wouldn't. But I wouldn't get around the five mile stretch I normally roam around. And I love to escape the urban sprawl and explore the river in the heart of the countryside which is so much central to the appeal of fishing for me.

Clearly Ukranian born actresses and models are big in Scotland. (I'll admit I had to google search to find out who Mila Jovovivich was but now I know - and she clearly has a certain appeal and a couple of foothills which would appeal to most red blooded scottish warriors.) Now we've established bragging rights with regards to poor old Mila, can we get back on topic and talk about the 2lb roach... (I clearly am an effete London dandy ) I note from threads elsewhere that other Anglers Net stalwarts are fishing up to six pound line for perch and chub. I normally fish three pound line straight through when trotting for roach, as well as chub. But at the weekend, whilst fishing on the Hampshire Avon, I met someone fishing for roach with one and a half pound hooklength. Is that what is required to catch that special 2lb roach?

Fine hooklengths are order of the day if you want to catch big roach... Not blowdried ones though and no you can't borrow mine.