mike1234

i know replacing things can be a pain especially on a budget but it may be worth getting a new reel rather than fixing your old one and have it break or fail on you when you have got a decent fish, on and then having to buy a new one anyway

there is a young lad who usually "fishes?" at one of my local lakes who seems just to sit in a swim for 10 to 15 mins throwing football sized handfulls of groundbait about,then fires maggots and sweetcorn everywhere with his catapult then effs off to the next swim along, the last time i was out it was a red hot day and the fishing seemed to die off about noon, i had swapped over to using bread for bait and started getting some decent sized bream in when the above d**khead arrived in the swim right next to me, and seen i was using bread and catching after that he pulled out his buttys from his bag splodged a chunk of bread on his hook and cast his float about 6 inches from mine,and then proceeded to shower my swim with sweet corn from his catapult, as i turned to tell him where i was about to shove his catapult i couldnt help but burst out laughing and move down the bank a few pegs,

a week or so back i was fishing a local pond thats right on the edge of a council estate, i only fish there on week days when most of the local idiots are in school or at work, when i arrived there was about 6 or 7 others fishing around the pond, about 11'am a white van pulls up and 2 men get out doing some kind of water test, dipping a machine with some kind of probe on the top in the water and dangling some other device on a chord into the water at several points around the pond it didnt take long to spot the ones with no rod licenses within 20 mins the place had cleared, one lad of about 19 came over and asked me if they was "them fishing license people" and stated that if they bothered him he would just throw them in to which i replied i will just show them my license i didnt see him after that and seen the 2 men drive off bone dry, i am not sure what they was doing or even if they was from the environment agency but they gave me a quieter morning, P.S i have to shamefully admit i have been tempted to go fishing in my garden pond

it seems to love both corn and maggot but its never been fished for and i think my girlfriend would have something to say if i started fishing in the garden pond to change its mind, i have been more trying feeding it stuff that i have heard rumours of people catching on to see if it will actually take such things as crab sticks, pasta, mealworms, prawns etc, and watching which ones it seems to feed on or which ones it will have a few mouthfulls of and then move on, i usually put loads of floating pellets down one end to keep the koi on the surface as the tench seems to be more or less always in the same place near the lilys, but i think they are getting wise to it now

it always puzzles me why people can carry a tin of sweetcorn to a lake but never manage to take the empty tin away when in fact it is lighter and should be easier to carry them packs that dead baits come in are always scattered around my local lake too i often feel guilty and find myself carrying away other peoples crap so no one thinks i left it, i went for a walk around one of the lakes i fish last night (with the dog sorry gozzer) and it looks like a bin lorry as crashed into the lake with all the empty fizzy drinks bottles, chrisp packets and so on at least these warm weather anglers dont get to surface too often thanks to the usual brittish weather

a few years back i got one of them ornamental golden tench for my koi pond which is bright yellow and stands out like a sore thumb. The past few weeks i have been dumping in a hand full of feed near it and monitoring what food it prefers, hopefully to use as hook baits for its big green cousins in my local lake it seems to go for cubes of crab sticks which i mentioned using as bait in another thread, so hopefully if i can get a day off next week i will put some of my findings into practice

it would appear that we have established a new set of rules for waterside conduct 1, all dogs that set foot near any stretch of water should be shot on sight, 2, dont speak to any other anglers except to tell them to **** off out your way 3, walk everywhere like quasimodo, anyone daring to break the skyline will be shot with the dogs 4, anyone on the floor is either stalking, drunk, or fell victim to mugging i will be expecting to see them on my next fishing permit with the usual keep nets, barbless hooks only, not littering etc,

i am 26 so sort of in the middle of the miserable old farts and the young loud mouths,i have got the day off today but the only water i can access as i dont drive will be full of idiots of all ages, i have decided its probably better to stay at home than be bothered with the "caught anything mate" questions every few minutes and kids throwing stones etc.but on the other hand i dont think we should all become too grumpy as a lot of people just dont think and once they know they are causing annoyance will usually stop.i have seen anglers walking to there car and have politely said morning and been ignored i always make a point of being polite which includes respecting others and not speaking to anyone who is fishing or looks busy but on the other hand it costs nothing to be polite to other anglers in the carpark or on the pathways a most of what i know (admittedly not alot) about fishing my local lakes comes from either talking to other anglers or watching what others are doing, so if i can help someone or they can benefit from quietly watching me then i dont mind,i would hate to fish somewhere that i felt if i seen another angler i would have to avoid him or not fish within a 100 yards of him "GONE FISHING"

my local lake is exactly the same at the minute bream and the odd crucian and tench till about mid day and then its seems to go slack i have been fishing 4 or 5 rod lengths out on the waggler over groundbait with red maggot and bread and when the bites die off further out, i have been throwing in a few chopped worms near the reeds closer in and getting a few more hits from smaller fish, when i set up i sort of break my swim into sections and think how i would fish each section for the best results, you can feed 2 or 3 areas and when one dies off switch to another, but make sure you dont over feed or scatter bait everywhere and kill the swim

i didnt even know there was goldfish in my local water and it seems funny after reading this post i caught this

i have been challenged to a bit of friendly competition by one of my neighbours in a local canal which holds a good head of fish, i have never really fished in competition before as i am a pleasure angler and the first to admit not a specimen hunter, but i am quite excited and hope to win, but either way it should be a bit of fun

a few years back when i first dug my new pond the first fish i put in where a few gold fish from the local petshop as a water test to make sure the water was right for fish before i introduced my koi from the old pond, some of the goldfish now are about a 1lb and every year mange to spawn and i scoop out as many of the fry as i can, and give them to the local petshop, but most are brown to completely black and start to get more orange as they get bigger some lighten slightly and some stay jet back in colour if they spawn twice in a year there seems to be more of the glassic orange colour the 2nd time, which is odd

i am not surprised with your anti-social approach to anyone (or there dog) who sets foot in a 20 mile radius of your swim

no i would say that is perfectly reasonable, like my wanting to combine my dog walking with checking on a lake. if i am going to walk the dog i might as well do it somewhere i enjoy being yes i carry a tesco bag with me so no one gets dog poo on there shiny wellys and am respectful to other anglers and dont go shouting my dogs name everywhere or throwing sticks or anything that would upset anyones fishing, my dog does tend to wag his tale at passing angers because most of them encourage him and he cant spot the difference between the dog friendly ones, is it too much for me to ask that if have to walk the dog anyway to do it somewhere i actually want to be and where MOST people dont mind without worrying if some idiot as planted any food with sharp objects in or anything else that will cause harm to the dog or make it make mess in my home that i would have to clean up or is that expecting too much ?

I know dogs can be annoying especially when you have paid your day ticket,rod license etc, and just because someone cant be bothered to keep there animal on a lead when they know its going to be a nuisance and you have to suffer. But the answer isnt to cause harm to the dogs, because that just makes the angler look bad one of my local parks as a lake with free fishing and is a really nice venue and fishes well but there are the people with nothing better to do who constantly complain blaming anglers for all the litter and blaming bird deaths on abandoned line etc, if someone there was to leave food out for a dog with treble hooks in it i doubt the headlines would be "menacing poodle taught a lesson not to sniff anglers backs" but more likely " sadistic fishermen not happy putting hooks in the mouths of fish turn to injuring family pets" not only that if the owner has an idea who is responsible for his pride and joy needing to be fed pedigree chum threw a tube i think he is going to want revenge

Yeh and people "choose" to go to public places with there dogs fact of life,

yeah it would seem that dogs would make better company than some of the anglers.

when i first started my uncle bought me a cheap outfit and used to let me set up with a small float fishing a few inches deep next to the lilys for little roach, perch, minnows and anything else under 6 inches long, even now on hot days i cant restist half an hours "tiddler bashing"

fair enough when we are fishing we dont want to be disturbed but it happens, i dont want to be disturbed by kids, idiots on motorbikes, boats deliberately going over my line, rats, etc but it happens and i deal with it because the majority of the time on the bank i am happy, if i suggested harming most of the other "annoyances" most people would frown upon it i dont want to come across as a internet hardman or get into any arguements because i come on here to talk about an interest i share with most of you, and i understand that people are going to have a difference of opinion i am not a peta whiner or a animal rights activist but the person who suggested putting treble hooks in a sprat and feeding it to a dog (whos owner is the one who needs feeding the hooks) did that to my dog, it would be about as OK as my reaction which would be to introduce my filleting knife to his throat to see how he likes it (might be out of term to some people on here but so what.. ) my dog as made me feel more comfortable at 8pm in the evening on a saturday night when i am taking a walk around a lake to suss it out for the next days fishing where there are bits of human rubbish filled with cider wondering around as water seems to attract idiots for some reason, at the end of the day MOST dogs are harmless and any one who thinks its clever to hurt them when the owner is the problem to me are the annoying ones, give me the dogs any day

i know a fella who breeds his own maggots who is a member of a pigeon club, apparently when they aren't winning to many races they aren't worth there weight in seed and head for the wheelie bin, if you have a pigeon club local might be a worth asking for any deceased birds to save them going to waste

some of the places i fish dogs are the least of your worrys a friendly face and a wagging tail is welcome anytime over the "have you caught anything mate" questions while checking out what gear you have and if they can have away with any, the day before i go fishing i often walk my dog around the lake just to see how well its fishing and what swim i wanna try then next day, most anglers actually call him over, so he tends to think that all anglers are friendly even tho as this thread proves you get the odd miserable so and so, i agree dogs can be a pest if there owners are irresponsible and have been to lazy to train there animals, i have had a dog dive in my swim after the fish i was about to land which i lost as a result and the owner apologized put he was the one who got a mouthful, some of the stuff people have said about hurting dogs for doing what dogs do makes me sick, if anyone ever tried to harm my dog whilst we was out looking around a lake it wouldnt be the dog damaging there tackle they would have to worry about it would he its lead across there skull

i have never owned a set of scales so all my bests are guesstimates but i have caught a conger that was definitely over 20 lb, have had tench upto around 6lb carp into low doubles about 10-12lb bream to about 4lb but my best fish in terms of enjoyment was my first roach over 2lb which aren't common around these parts, catching a small perch with unusual blue tints and no barring and an almost albino eel are also notable fish even tho in specimen terms they wasnt that large, sometimes its not the biggest fish or even the best fights that bring the most enjoyment, so i suppose it differs between the angler what personal best is in terms of weight, fight, rarity, and enjoyment

i imagine that they are so rubbery cos they are held together with some kind of gel/binding agent that might dissolve after being in water for a while, and cause them to go soft but if we can fish with bread and luncheon meat i am sure there is a way of using crab sticks all i need to know now is if they work i was hoping to go fishing tomorrow and try a few out but my girlfriend had other ideas so either sunday or next thursday i have decided i am going to give em a go and will let you all know

i was speaking to my neighbour who fishes a few of the same venues as me and seems to find out a lot of the latest local trends anglers are using , as he gets out a lot more than me and spends a lot more of his time and money in the local fishing shops in the past i have had some good results from his advice but have also had some days when i have sworn never to listen to him again recently he said he as been using crab sticks (or whatever they are labeled now) and it as produced a few nice carp has anyone here tried using this bait or have any thought on it before i sit around a lake for 8 hours with no chance of a take on it, the lake in question as a strict one rod per angler policy so i would rather turn up with a bait that i stand a chance of hooking a fish on cheers mike

the pond which i was fishing at is basically a hot spot for crucians and skimmers so that could be the problem,i should be going back one day next week if i can get the time off, i will try using more shot on the line and sinking the float right down to the tip and striking at any movement rather than waiting for the float to move across the swim before striking, its hard to tell what is a line bite or what is a take without the float going under or moving in a manner that cant be anything but a fish towing it along, sometimes when you see the float twitch its hard to know whether to strike or not risking missing a fish that could be the catch of the day thanks barry and everyone else