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This is another useful resource for looking at small rivers in the area: http://www.picturethepast.org.uk/index.php Some of the images are fairly contemporary and will give you an idea of whether the location looks fishable. Beware the creaky search facility. There's always Google earth for an aerial view. A lot of these small waters are only known to people who live next to them and would repay a bit of pioneering work IMO.

Some Leen history here: http://www.lentontimes.co.uk/images/galler...listener_50.htm

In the early C20th the Leen was a very productive water but ran through industrialised areas and became all but dead. It was culverted heavily in the 60s but I've always felt it had potential as a fishery if it were cleaned up. I'd be very interested to know how you get on if you give it a try. Another tiny water that used to contain small pockets of big fish was Tottle Brook which ran from Highfields lake to the River Trent.

Haven't fished the area for years but Bottesford AC might be worth a try. The 'Where to Fish' guide (in many libraries) gives the controlling clubs for almost all British waters. It's amazing how rivers have cleaned up since industry moved out. A friend was a fishery biologist on the Erewash as recently as the late 80s and he reckoned it was pretty disgusting then, though probably a lot better than 30 years previously.

A bit further away the Devon ("Deevon") has always been good.

I remember most of those as open sewers but dare say they're all fishable now.

The advantage of an Englishman abroad SL [Kenneth Moore accent] My dear chap I had absolutely no idea[/Kenneth Moore accent] Wouldn't work in the NT pond I have in mind, there'd be a stately homo or two taking me down the cellars for questioning in no time. Like bluddy carp they were, ciabatta fed rudd with a Smarties habit. A Ferrero Roche hair rig or a popped up Jelly Baby and you'd be away.

Been an absolute cloud burst in Yorks for the last half hour, bouncing off the pavements, drain covers like fountains. Badly needed.

Magazines leave me cold, only bought the odd one since the mid-70s. Seeing sponsored anglers fish plum waters for giants has zero to do with my regular fishing and makes me dissatisfied. A nice book is a different matter, in fact my angling book collection is worth a lot more than my tackle.

Aye, Dexter's been entertaining in the Norman manner, 40s a la carte. I just been twitching for slimy roach with beefcake shoulders or bream with a touch of rouge, delete as appropriate. Meantime the carp have been sailing past dorsals in the breeze, playing tag, sucking the leaves off willows, posing like a Sun scorcher in Trafalgar Square fountains, manoeuvring like the fleet off Spithead, anything but feeding which, as I was worming for trout and just passing, like, suited me fine. Hairy riggers not happy behind their Special Brew though. I said this year would be the year of the rudd but as I say that every year, it's a lie (as yet). Only your genetically modified Lara Croft crucians beat them for looks. Must find a stately home to scratch my rudd itch, know any good lines to keep National Trust dowagers off my case while I deliver a floating crust?

On the lure point anglers should have a damned good reason not to use a trace. Perch and chub are put off by wire (I believe) but most river venues will get you three jacks for every chub and you will be bitten off. Unless there are no pike present clubs should make non-use of a trace a booting out offence.

Maybe my comment didn't match what I meant to say and I agree on the wider point about fishing and welfare. When we were kids we used keepnets indiscriminately, especially those 4ft jobs with the big mesh and at the end of the day you'd have 70 gudgeon with their heads out and gills trapped and finish up trying to squeeze them through the holes. Obviously modern nets are different but I'd need a reason to use one like setting up a photo before I could justify it. I remember seeing summer matches where keepnets were solid and the mortality rate shocking. That's a different matter to a few chub in a net in a well oxygenated river. The whole commercials thing is so far from my idea of fishing anyway it's like a different sport but if it keeps people at their holes and away from my pitch good luck to them.

How many rays does it have, my eyes can't tell? If it is a wrong'un, which is quite possible I'd base it on the shoulder and the copper coloured scales. Trouble is all the roach (?) in that pond look the same. Are hybrids sterile, or do they become progressively weaker strains? BTW, lest anyone suggests I'm passing off funny money I almost never weigh fish (well, maybe if the pike looked a thirty) and seeing my mug in the comics holding fish porn would be my idea of hell. I like to think I've reached a state of zen-like, all-rounderness where size and taxonomy really doesn't matter.

Alright Shanghai - I signed up as you recommended. As you know quality tackle is completely wasted on me but you'd have liked a chap's pin who used to fish on the Trent back in the day. A solid machined aluminium block with one finger hole, take your crow quill all the way to the Humber, he used to work at Rolls Royce I believe. Fantastic. The Adcock Stanton looks nice in a less-is-more kinda way, I remember when they were thirty-five quid.

Hugely complex subject with every variable of water, wind, distance, species and getting away from the OP's trotting theme but if you can catch on the lift method, which relies on displacing on small leger weight to all intents and purposes, every other method is subtle. A large suspended bottom shot is in a sense a variation on that theme. Ideally for roach, say, a tall antennae would give tell-tale pick ups with a line of dust shot responding to progressive bands on the float. You'd be able to see exactly what was happening but whether that would enable the angler to give the correct response is open to debate. I'd argue that at any distance such nuances are wasted and you are better off striking at a lift or a sunken float. Frustration sets in if you keep missing twitches as well as disturbing the swim. Yesterday I took half a dozen roach in a lunchtime session on an open-ended feeder, which is a bolt rig by any other name and even then I have to fish standing up and a few paces away to stop myself hitting twitches. Maybe that's why I don't have any 3 pounders to my name! All thoughts, IMHO.

"Maybe I'm working them too slowly, maybe I'm too fast...." Although spoons will catch spun slowly most anglers don't fish them fast enough IMO. Following fish will often veer away if a spoon pauses for a second. My suspicion is a spoon's hydro-pulses affect the fish as much as its 'realism' and an ideal cast will be one of gradually increasing speed to work up the predator. A friend on whose boat I sometimes troll put me on to fishing lures at speed and spoons are no exception. He sometimes uses a short line and catches just off the wake of his outboard. Pike are capable of incredible bursts of speed if they want something enough.

Can't remember the last time I used a keepnet. If fish welfare makes me a bleeding heart liberal so be it.

On stillwaters I err towards a BB about 8" from the hook as a dropper. It's a pragmatic decision rather than an aesthetic one based on the fact if you can't tell a bite you can't hit it. At anything further than two rod lengths I struggle to see what's happening to a float especially if there's a breeze and dust shot won't tell me anything about a non-insert waggler and I wouldn't be able to see an insert float. Years ago I read an article that said if you're missing bites the temptation is to lighten up whereas you should be doing just the opposite. Better a noddy looking rig that works than a theoretical masterpiece that just looks pretty.

Like any lure it's a matter of confidence and if the pike are having it, they're having it and a spoon is as good as anything IMO. I remember trolling with a mate behind his 20hp outboard at crazy speeds and catching on various spoons. A real red letter October day, he beat me with a selection of large lures with about 16 fish to my 13 (and he had the biggest pike by a long chalk but we'll ignore that) but he admitted he was surprised a spoon was still in the race. I've also caught with them deep and almost stationary with the current barely turning the swivel. Oddly, never had much luck on Toby's or bar spoons.

They were toads. I had a swift lunchtime session today on the quiver and there are still a few round, slightly bigger but coal black. First saw them on the water silhouetted in bright sun so colour was hard to tell.

It does look slightly breamy Anderoo, but none of the roach in that pond have the bright red eyes and fins of other places. Didn't weigh it and I've had considerably larger ones from the same place anyhow, I just enjoy fishing for them on a waggler and a bit of paste. I can walk down in five minutes with a little rucksack and be fishing in ten. Nearest thing to being a kid again.

Interesting stuff Worms. As the toad/frogs were so small it was hard to tell, they were just post tadpole stage. I'm not a livebaiter anyway, a small surface popper lure would get the predator's interest just as well I should think.

In this era of Dawgs and Burts and Jakes it's easy to overlook the humble spoon but I'm a fan, favourite probably being the Tooth Critter Mr Musky. The downside is there's only one treble and a revolving one at that but spoons are versatile things, they work slow and fast and given the nerve - and a handy set of drain rods - you can get right among sunken trees and other features. They seem to have fallen from fashion compared to other lures and people lack confidence in them but I've taken some good fish on spoons and they can be made to perform in ways other lures can't. Any other keen spoon fishers?

One of my stranger catches was a large perch caught between some bream on a sweetcorn quiver. Also heard of a guy who took a big lamprey on a lure (a Jake IIRC) trolled at speed, properly hooked in the mouth. One of the smallest fish was a 1" roach fry skewered on a size 2 treble off the back of a boat. Oops!

I use old school tactics for roach, a float and a pinch of bread or a single piece of corn. The difficulty is hitting bites but it helps if you make the bottom shot larger rather than small so you can see the movement - the roach don't seem to notice the weight. Here's one from last week - had a few around the same size yesterday morning. I've had many over 2 lbs but never hit the magic 3, but as I rarely weigh them it's hard to be sure!