peter mccue

I'm very pleased that Fred J has received a gong, Chevin has already stated the good Fred has accomplished in his lifetime, so no need for me to repeat it. However, just as a little extra, Pikers owe the original development of deadbaiting to him & he was using sweetcorn 10 yrs before it was the secret Carp bait that was catching loads of fish. He publicised it as well, but oddly it didn't catch on straight away. Dick Walker attracted people of a high calibre around him, & Fred was undoubtedly one of those. Mind I can see Jeepsters point, a bloody spin doctor got a gong as well which somewhat devalues it, which is a great shame when people out there like Fred deserve an accolade.

I'll go with the majority as well Mark, they look like lovely conditoned Roach to me, sorry mate but I can't see any signs of a Rudd there, not even in the the big fellah.

Thats got to be in for a shout at the mini record Chris, get it sent into one of those media specimen comps it has to be at least 90% of the current champ Bullhead Nice to see plenty of Bullheads elsewhere in the country, we used to have loads on my local rivers ie the Tees, Leven, Swale etc but haven't seen any for about 10 yrs now

I'm not so sure it's a water by water thing, of all the waters I've fished for Chub they have all responded to bread. However Tiggers & wanzelbins comments have got me thinking about it a little more. It could be a lot more to do with your style of fishing. Whilst Chub can be caught quite easily trotting with bread, if you have a shoal of fish out in front of you in open water during the day that you can target with maggots, then the fine line techniques & the preoccupation you can achieve with very small baits will prove more effective. However, & this is my style, if you tend to fish either end of the day, & search them out under vegetation, in weedbeds, undercut banks, snags, etc where you hope the bigger chaps lay, then you're usually on 6-8lb line coupled with size 6-8 hooks, & I have been known to go to 2s & 4s!! In this situation I have found bread to be the most consistent Chub bait of all. A couple of other points concerning bread, if you can get them on the top by steadily feeding floating bread down the current, then you will need no further encouragement from me as you'll see it all for yourself & that is truly great sport. The other point is, I've read time & time again not to use the hair rig with Chub. All I can say is, make sure you use a very short hair so that the hook is resting on the bread, also make sure it's a decent piece of crust or flake so that the bait size is in context with the hook, then just hold onto your rod because it's coming off the rests!!!

The standard Carpers heavy metal works very well Chevin, & would fit the bill a treat. All you would need to do is add an extra swivel above the spoon to carry the putty, it holds onto swivels very well indeed & stands repeated casting. I have used it in the circumstances you described & rarely had a problem, no matter how cold it gets it always remains easy to pinch small amounts off to get the balance you want. Also all you need to do is ensure the putty is well dried & you can add weight just as easily.

I've found Conditions dictate the success of day or night fishing for Chub. Low & clear water in winter or Summer, have nearly always produced the best Chubbing after dark in my experience, whereas unsurprisingly, colour in the river produces the best fishing during the day. Generally, the first couple of hours into dark seem to be the best, often providing much bigger than average Chub. The feeding spells do seem to be a lot shorter after dark though. As to baits, you can catch Chub on everything edible, but for sheer consistency, night or day, clear or coloured water you can't beat breadflake. Tiggers comments are interesting, my local stretch of the Swale holds a lot of Chub & Barbel, & I to have little bother with the Chub when fishing pellets, meat etc, but put a great chunk of breadflake on & old rubberlips appears as if by magic!

Excellent shot Mick & a well deserved winner, & not forgetting mr wiggles Polruan shot, lovely colours & beautifully composed. Despite the 'troubles' a very good start to the competition I think.

There has been a couple of posts indicating that we are accelerating changes that would be normally take thousands of years. But I'm pretty sure I've read that scientist believe that natural climate change can take place in decades, with evidence to suggest that thousands of years ago this was happening in Northern europe with the coming & goings of the ice sheets. I don't see anything wrong in modifying our behaviour to protect our environment, providing it's done for the right reasons. Personally I think it's been hijacked by politicians (Al Gore etc) & scientists with pockets to line, plus eco warriors with axes to grind. Trouble is, for a lot of people Global warming has become a dogmatic mantra to chant & feel righteous about, & when faced with this most people become wary & cynical, with good reason.

I think we could rule out any crossbreeding with Barbel, their respective spawning demands are too different. Plus, any other species that have a reasonable chance of spawning with Carp are always far smaller, resulting in a fish that grows a little bigger than the smaller parent & no more. Those Carp in the picture look far too big & seem to carry no characteristics of another species for any crossbreeding to have gone on. It's a crying shame, but I think we have to say we're looking at unhealthy fish.

To be honest they really do look undernourished to me, they show all the classical signs, large heads, angular body shape & almost concave stomachs. Could there be parasitical problems with these Carp? Are the more heavyset Carp a recent stocking? Wherever I've encountered Carp that are genetically slimline, they've almost always had rounded bodies & proportional heads, if they've had plenty of food & are healthy. Oops, oldfellah got there before me.

Great video, but don't you just hate it when people just sit on the fence

Not my cup of tea either. leaving aside the reduction in skills argument, I once fished a reasonably sized water with a decent head of Carp in it. Trouble was, there was quite a few trees overhanging the lake where the Carp liked to rest under. With careful baiting & a fair degree of stealth & patience, you could usually get them to come out 3-4 feet from the branch edges, brilliant fishing. Then the 'real deal' Carp boys turned up with the bait boats from then on the boats were manoeuvered deep into the snags dumping boilies & rigs combined. To start with they had runs galore, followed by snagged fish galore! Eventually though the takes dried up & we all struggled. I am convinced the thoughtless & unnecessary use of bait boats, robbed the fish of their safe havens, & left us with ultra cautious fish that simply couldn't relax anywhere. Incidentally, one of the their defences for the use of B/B's was they could fish snags safely, not leaving line in the trees. Trouble was they conveniently forgot about the huge increase in snagged fish through fishing so deep in the snags

Entry No: 4 ------------ Any fish mate! ----------------- ISO 100 / F6.3 @ 1/320 / Aperture Priority / Focal Length 200mm 16/11/2007

Entry No: 3 ------------ Time for breakfast --------------------- f6.3 @ 1/1500 / ISO 320 / F/length 200mm 16/11/2007

Entry No: 2 ------------ Sun up -------- F8 @ 1/4000s / ISO 100 / 200mm f/length 17/11/2007

Entry No: 1 ----------- A brand new day for Berwick ---------------------------------- F8 @ 1/500s / ISO 100 / 80mm f.length 17/11/2007

Two lenses cover a lot of distance HM, I have the standard 18-70 F3.5 DX Nikkor which is a superb lens, & the 80-200 F2.8 ED Nikkor which is an old lens but has great glass quality. those two lenses cover a range from 18-200mm which gives you a lot of flexibility in your shots. To get you started though go with a lens in the 18-70 range. What lens you choose will be governed by the make of your camera & the depth of your pocket!! Unfortunately, the cost of a lens can mostly be gauged by its quality, & high quality lenses carry a high price. Bear in mind HM, Quality lenses have a long life & if you stay with your preferred make of camera you only need to buy bodies in the future. The F value on the lens refers to its max aperture, ie how wide it will open. The lower the F number the wider it goes & the faster the lens is. The speed is important because it allows you a greater use of light values at the time of your shot, plus it gives you greater range with shutter speeds. Hope thats of some help to you HM I'm not sure I've explained it very well, but one very important point is that if you get a great camera body from whichever manufacture & fit a poor quality lens to it, it will only perform to the level of the lens which would be a great waste of your money. The lens is that important.

With the advent of the Nikon D300 HM, the price of the D200 is starting to come down. With a grand to play with, you could buy a 200 with money leftover for other goodies. I have the D200 & cannot praise it highly enough, very user friendly once you've played a while. A friend of mine has the D80 as well, which he swears by. So Nikon wise, for me it's a choice of two. What a nice dilemma to be in though

I well understand Brians post, & agree with his sentiments, there is a large matchscene up here scott & not a small number of matchmen would like to see them out of the rivers. But If I moved somewhere new it would be nice just to get a pointer, so to that end, if you are anywhere near the tees you could do worse than to try the free stretch at Yarm. There's a big head of Pike there of all sizes & it's well known, so you wouldn't be treading on anyones toes. Use your loaf, show that you're a competent Piker & people will give you more info.

Cheers Norrie, very good of you mate, when she does make her decisions I will most certainly give you a shout. Last time I was on a boat in that area, I was on a aquastar owned by a chap called Dick peebles working out of Drumore. Cracking sport with Thornbacks, Spurdogs, Bull huss, pollack etc. I remember first time out, I fished our local inshore Cod style with the multiplier spool locked up....big mistake! I very lightly hooked a shark ( the skipper reckoned probably a Porbeagle) the hook sooned pulled out, but not before it dragged the rod sharply down chipping my elbow on the side of the boat leaving it painful for the rest of the holiday. When I retrieved the tackle, the Mackerel lask was still on with a perfect set of disturbingly big 'V' teeth marks down it Didn't make that mistake again

Agree with the posters who mentioned Chub fishing after dark, it can be superb! One of my best sessions after Swale Chub came on a bone chilling night last December. Not a cloud in the sky, full moon & as soon as the Sun went down, the sand bank I was on developed a crust! As bright & cold as it was though, I had a great 2hr spell catching fish to 5lb 4oz in a bag of around 30lb which contained three 4's. All this from a swim that as far as I could tell, hadn't produced a fish all day. They had clearly waited for darkness, despite the full moon, before deciding to feed. I've caught well on a number of occasions now in very similar circumstances, & the one thing that stands out is that the fish were caught in 'pressured' swims. But whatever the reasons, fishing after dark in Winter works a treat....so go do it! One more thing, no need for fine tackle after dark, & I didn't find anything to beat a big chunk of bread.

New development chaps, the missus has decided 6hrs travel or so is not what she wants, so Oban & fart william is now out of the picture. However, those links you posted Norrie have convinced me & we're going to look at that for a longer holiday So where now?.... well she has a relative that lives in Berwick, so that is now in the running. The question is, has anybody fished the harbour at Berwick & is it any good?

Cheers Norrie, Fort William or Oban looks good, had a little trawl through the net tonight & they both sound like nice places, can't find much info about fishing in the harbour though. Snatcher, did have a think about port Logan & the mull of Galloway, but there didn't seem a great deal to keep a shopaholic wife occupied. Great for me though, you're pics sell it a treat! Ken, Dave & Lyon, Can hear you loud & clear chaps, I love those places but I am in the N.E. & I've only got three days.

I have a three day break coming up shortly, & much to my surprise, the missus (God bless her heart) said pick somewhere nice where I can browse the shops & relax, & you go fishing!! Now of course, my mind has gone into overdrive. What I really fancy doing is a bit of Harbour fishing with Carp rods, flatties Coalies etc...well anything with fins really. Any of you well travelled guys & gals have any suggestions? As long as its North of Watford!

In 1933, the Communists were actually the 4th largest party, the SDP & the Catholic center party were closest to the Nazi's. Just to reinforce the point that the majority did not support the Nazi's, out of a total 647 seats they won 288 in the last election, & don't forget this was after a campaign of murderous intimidation that left most opposition parties unable to mount a proper campaign. PR government doesn't appeal one bit 5B, in our present state of society it's a recipe for getting nothing done! I'm just like everybody else, I can see the problems but I can't see the solutions. A non political civil service is our best defence against dictatorship, a situation under some threat at the moment. Quite right, but the point was made that the entire generation of that time was at fault, which I felt was a rather shallow generalisation to make.