Julian

Hi all, can anybody help with this visitors question to the forum? ---------------------------------------------------------- HI, I HAVE BEEN INVITED TO LOCH SUNART FOR A WEEKS FISHING COULD YOU PLEASE TELL ME WHAT I MAY CATCH FROM THE SHORE & BOAT IN MID JUNE? THANKS, KEVIN ---------------------------------------------------------- The visitor has been directed to this post so could any answers be posted below. Cheers, Julian.

Hi all, can anybody help with this visitors question to the forum? ---------------------------------------------------------- Hi, I was very interested watching Matt Hayes demonstrating his ‘time bomb’ method but would like to be reminded of the set up if this is possible? I enjoyed the Go Fishing show at the NEC very much. Thanks, yours sincerely, Steven Barfield ---------------------------------------------------------- The visitor has been directed to this post, so please post any help below. Thanks… Julian

Hi all, can anybody help with this visitors question to the forum? ---------------------------------------------------------- Hi, How much cornsteep liquid should I use on pellets or groundbait per kilo? I have been told one tablespoon per kilo, is this the right amount to use? ---------------------------------------------------------- The visitor has been directed to this post, so please post any help below. Thanks… Julian

Hi all, can anybody help with this visitors question to the forum? ---------------------------------------------------------- I have never pole fished before so I thought I would give it ago on my local canal (GUC). I saw what looks to be an amazing deal from dragoncarpdirect.com, an 11m pole and a pole roller plus 5 rigs for £50. Couldn't resist at that price, I have now received the pole etc. I cannot see anything wrong with it, can I have an opinion on the quality and what not to fish for with such a pole, I am off to a commercial for a week soon and would not want to break it on a 20lb carp if it is not up to the task! Many Thanks, Steve

Hi all, can anybody help with this visitors question to the forum? ---------------------------------------------------------- Hi, I live in the Chester area and am keen to find some good productive pike waters nearby, possibly in the Local, North Wales, Oswestry areas as I don’t have the time to travel vast distances. I currently fish a reservoir in Denbighshire which rarely produces pike of any decent size and is a bit "Godforsaken"! I know Dave Kelbrick is a Chester lad and wondered if he or any of you other kind folk could put me on to some good still waters or river fishing that regularly produces pike???? Cheers Pete

Hi all, can anybody help with this visitors question to the forum? ---------------------------------------------------------- Fishing abroad possible location Holland. Species: Coarse Fishing, Tench, Bream and Carp. Party of four: two adult's two children. Specific dates not known, awaiting your advice but definitely 2007. Having fished Ireland for a number of years my friend and I are looking for something different a new challenge. Having not fished abroad (Holland etc) we feel we need to gather as much info and advise to choose the most suitable destination, enabling us to get the best results. Therefore having given you our favoured species I would appreciate if you would be as kind as to supply any info regards: 1) Best dates in the year to fish. 2) What regulations do we need to be aware of (rod licences, baites/groundbait allowed and not allowed to take, locations not allowed to fish etc)? 3) Which location/locations given our targeted species would you recommend? 4) How do we get suitable map locations of waters allowed to fish? 5) Modes of travel available? 6) Language difference. Obviously not speaking Dutch would this be a problem. 7) Angling retailers, are they as numerous and helpful as they are in England. Again we do not intend to travel until next year so any help in regards to the above question would be gratefully received. Barry Causer

Hi all, can anybody help with this visitors question to the forum? ---------------------------------------------------------- Hi, I have just started fishing again after an 18yr gap. I live in York which the river Ouse flows through. Can you tell me please, what’s the more popular fish in this river, and what bait & tackle would I be most successful in using? Many Thanks, Stuart

Whilst all the points discussed so far undoubtedly play a part, I’m amazed nobody has mentioned the effect that poor handling, once netted, has on mouth damage. We all know how a fish *should* be lifted once netted to ensure there is no pressure on the line if the fish is still hooked when you lift the net, but time after time after time I see anglers grabbing hold of line net and all when lifting the fish from the water, and then when pulling back the folds of the net to find the barbed hook has come out, say something like “that was lucky, must have only just been hooked” Hardly… you’ve just pulled the dam thing right out of its mouth!! If you’re looking for a major cause of mouth damage, that would be a good place to start.

Hi Dave, Not been able to manage a session since. Little one is due in about 7 weeks and there is much still to be done around the house. Had made plans for a quick overnighter last weekend but when the time came all the lakes were frozen solid! Julian

Now added at: http://www.askanglers.co.uk/Carp/shelflife_v_fresh_bait.html Cheers... Julian

Hi STC, Bit of an open ended question really, would depend on a few factors like how big the water is and how the netting is to be undertaken and how extensive it will be. If they are just going to run a net few a few times then I would not see a problem in fishing shortly afterwards. It this time of year a good number of the carp are pretty dormant anyway, so who knows – it might even wake them up a bit! A strange story, but once on my parents farm (which has a canal running through it) we had a cow that decided to go swimming. We were following the cow down the footpath deciding how best to try and get it out, when it went past an angler, literally right in front of him. Of course he reeled in and I apologised for ruining his sport, upon which he replied that it did not matter much as he’d been fishing for almost two hours without a bite. Then, no more than sixty seconds after the cow had passed, he chucked back out and almost immediately got a bite - resulting in a bream of about 4lb – the biggest I’ve ever seen out of that stretch! If however, they are draining the water to undertake maintenance or if it’s a decent sized lake which will require the net running through extensively, then yes, there is a chance it may spook them a little. In most lakes there is often a spot where the nets can’t get to – I’d have a look for a few of these areas and start your session there – you never know – the fish might be all stacked up right in front of you! Julian

Hi all, I’m hoping somebody may be able to shed some light on some problems I’m having with text I’ve written. In ‘plain text’ things are fine, but when something I’ve typed is in HTML, any apostrophe appears to be changed to a question mark. For example; Wording typed as; "We’ve probably bumped into each other before now as I’ve been going up to Mull" End’s up on an Email as; "We?ve probably bumped into each other before now as I?ve been going up to Mull" Any ideas? Cheers… Julian

Hi john, Sorry for the late reply. Sandiway has indeed been stocked over the last two years. Twenty Mark Simmonds carp went in last January, and another twenty went in a few weeks ago; between 14lb and 20lb. Lynn Lythgoe from Warrington Anglers sent me some images a few days ago and they look quality fish. 30’s wise, your best Club ticket would probably be SOTAS; four of their waters contain 30’s with the Redesmere containing the most, approximately thirteen fish over 30lb. There’s lots of us north-west boys on here, so always happy to help, and I’m sure Elton won’t mind me mentioning my http://www.northern-monkeys.com site, where there are specific threads in the forum relating to regional waters. Cheers… Julian

LOL – Anything over a foot is deep for me. I see where you’re coming from and obviously the cast is a tricky one. I’ve fished a venue which sounds almost identical – big chuck, shallow water, deep silt, gin-clear, and spooky fish! I used to fish with a length of quicksilver as a shock/snag-leader to 15lb mono. Got sick of the blanks so started to do some heavy investigation. My mate fished the same set-up pretty much, so I would often wind-in and sit up trees on the far bank watching how they reacted to his presentation – in short, they could see it a mile off! They would happily approach but rarely would they ever go near if a PVA bag had been introduced. However, if there was a single bait or a couple off a stringer they would often have a sniff around but still not pick up. As such, I saw it as a two-pronged problem. I get into these things way too deeply and ended up taking home a sample of the silt in order to paint all my end tackle the same colour. I then reduced the size of the lead to do away with a leader entirely and reduced down to 12lb mono straight through to a safety clip. I then attacked the place again and within three sessions began to pick up fish. Difficult to say if it was thinning down the tackle, painting it, or doing away with the PVA bags – but as a whole it worked. After about 4 months without a bite I then banked about 5 fish within two months – so something somewhere must have been right. The other thing worth mentioning in relation to the amount of lead is that we were only using 2.5oz leads for a chuck of around eighty yards, and sometimes on the cast the lead would bury well into the silt, and as it was so shallow, the pull back would often not lift the lead above the silt at all, rather it would just stay submerged but get pulled back a few inches! So not sure how the fish in your place feed but if by sight then might be worth checking how your lead is sitting – 3oz in soft silt could get seriously wedged! We reduced from 2.5oz down to 1.5oz and clipped-up with stringers for the cast; doing 80-85 yards with ease on 12lb mono straight through. I’m assuming you need to pin down the line with lead-core because of weed? Luckily our place was pretty clear so there was no need to pin down as the angle over 80-yards to a bait fished in about 18” of water was virtually zero – the line will hug bottom for a good few feet at that distance before lifting. Not an exercise is sucking eggs - you may have done all this already, just trying to offer a little input on a similar situation experienced. Cheers… Jules. Nice picture, btw, that’s how I remembered the place from before.

Hi Steve, Visited Kielder several times – a fantastic venue, not been for many years though. Not sure which routes they will be using within as there as so many! I understand there will be about 85 competitive miles within the forest itself. Not sure how they are the running spectating with it being the National – they may have set locations, which could prove a bit crap. Much better to get away from the crowds if possible but as yet there is nothing on the website about the stages. Motoring News should carry a preview shortly before the event which usually gives a few choice locations and times, etc. Much will depend on the weather – if it’s dry I’ve found its best to avoid tight areas like hairpins with tree cover as the dust rarely settles before the next car comes – so would then go for more open areas, etc. If you have the time, it could prove lucrative to get to the Friday shake-down. Usually more relaxed and with a little perseverance you can get *very* close to the cars and drivers. It’s usually quite relaxed and many are happy to speak to you, so some great photo opportunities. Should be a good event this year – will be interesting to see how those M-Sport Fiestas perform! Cheers... Julian

Hi Tony, What a kind offer, thanks very much – isn’t Anglers Net a great place! Unfortunately, I’m not quite at that stage yet, as I have none of the tools, materials or equipment required! For info I live in Leek, about 10 miles south of Macclesfield so it’s a fair knock up from Birmingham.

How shallow are we talking?

Yep, read through the building pages on their site yesterday – some very good info and it’s definitely fired me up to have a go. Will do a bit more investigation on the blanks, As Nige says, something a little lighter would be ideal - I wonder if the reduced length has something to do with the bigger TC’s? I once met a guy on the bank who was stalking with a 9ft 2lbTC Sportex blank, a cut down and slightly lighter version of my 12ft 2.25TC rods – it was fantastic, and ideally that’s the kind of thing I’m after. Thanks for all the input guys.

Nice one STC, Sounds good to me. Mind you, I'm still working on my away pass for our usuall week on Birch Grove - touchy one at the moment!

Great comments, Jim – fully agree. At the end of the day your fishing will only ever be what you make it. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little nostalgia now and then. I’ve always been a bit of an adventurer and regularly go off to investigate a new spot on the map or a snippet of hearsay. Often it’s a dead end, but every now and then you get lucky. I guess it comes from growing up as a kid in a totally cut-off wooded valley where the nearest house was a few miles away. My brother and I would always be off adventuring for days on end, making camps and enjoying the outdoors; the excitement never came from what we found, more from the journey itself.

I’ve often fished double boilie hookbaits in various guises; either both pop-up’s, one of each, or even two bottom baits, but I have to say my results when fishing this way have never set the world on fire and I’ve always tended to fish the two baits tight to each other on the hair and pretty tight to the shank of the hook. I was watching the latest Nash DVD that Elton sent me the other day and there was a bit where Jim Shelley was showing his typical braid hooklink; basically this consisted of a hair that was quite long – perhaps 5-6cm, with just two boilies on (app 16mm baits). The baits were separated by the knot on a large overhand loop knot, which was tied approximately half way up the hair, so that one bait stayed close to the hook whilst the other was around 6cm away, with a few centimetre gap between the two baits. I was quite interested by this, although I’m not entirely sure why!! Perhaps because its different from the norm. Either way it’s obviously something that works very well for Jim. Just wondered if anybody else fished a similar method to good effect either with multiple (but spaced) baits on the hair, or just single hook baits with a very long hair?

Thanks for the input, Sounds like the key will be to do lots of reading in advance – can anybody recommend any books or sites (other than those above) which could help? Thanks for the link, Newt – some good stuff on there. Thanks for the offer of help Stan, may well be taking you up on it. Had a good look around the Harrison site but could not see any stalking blanks? Definitely going to give it a go and will write it up as an article for the site. Cheers… Julian

Looked around loads over the years but lots failed to live up to expectations, however many were added to my list of waters to fish before I die (but will doubtless never get the time/chance!). A few well known Northern waters I’ve ‘done–time’ on would be; Capesthorne, Main Lake & Top Pool Redesmere Colemere Birch Grove

Interesting one for me, as this is the first year for a good while that I’ve not really set myself any targets. Have a baby due in March which I know is going bring a considerable change to my previous style of fishing. That said, I’ve not been doing much over the last few months whilst working on house, etc, so it’s not as if it’s going to be a sudden change. I’ve struggled to get out for nights or long sessions of late so have reverted back to short-session carping, just a few snatched hours here and there, and I dare say much of the year will be like this, so my only aim is to maximise my chances of a big kipper when I do get some time on the bank. Been enjoying the challenge so far and have managed to bank a few lovely fish along the way. Also, as I know I’m going to be at home more, I’m looking at a few ‘in-house’ projects building a new stalking rod being the first.

With you. Is this the place where the fish hog the far bank margins – seem to remember you mentioning it a while back (or rather, mentioning the blanks!)? Could changing the leadcore leader be a possibility, or maybe you’ve already tried. Nothing like a challenge, eh?