Andy Macfarlane

Both the creel and the rod are just lovely. I always laugh at Chris Yates quaffing about in the undergrowth with his cravattes and his bottles of vino but I'd love a setup like that for sure. They both just oooze quality.

You're probably right in all regards. I'm going by old efforts. Mind you, I still can't abide the ringing and the general appearance of a telescopic.

I like Original or Betaine Green Dynamite Swim Stim or any of the Sonubaits method mixes. I normally mix mine with near Robinson's Fruit Juice. It's sticky, fruity and sweet and it beats using water IMO.

When I put mono on a spool, I leave the spool soaking overnight in tepid water. It seems to help the line 'relax' onto the spool.

Golf clubs - caned, cut and maintained every day. Chelsea's Ground - maintained to the same degree and then there's running costs, wages, fees and all the other gubbins they require money for to run their business. Gym - Maintained, equipped, cleaned, staffed, personal training sessions, pools, sauna, classes, lockers, showers, heating, bills etc. etc. etc. Coarse fisheries - Open to all and sundry, often ruined by 'visiting anglers', open to pollution from nobody knows where, used as rubbish tips, rarely maintained to the lowest level, rarely managed, rarely bailiffed and so on and so on and we never know where the Licence Fee goes or gets spent on, if at all. Nobody gets prosecuted even though the threat is banded about for all to see. The EA are never seen except on the choicest waters but everyone pays for what should be an equal share of their efforts. The fee is paid, or should be but nobody sees their fee being spent evenly as things are. Put the fees up and the choice waters will become more choice and the waters that never see any attention will continue to see no attention. People would gladly spend a few more quid on the licence if they imagined it was going to be spent on their local water as a result but it won't.

Keep it in the paper sack and stick that in a bin bag and knot it to keep excess moisture out. Leave it up the loft or in the airing cupboard. It'll be there til you've used it.

Smell is a good indicator that something has 'gone' too far. The fact it smells ok means that although there has been fermentation taking place, it could be that the raised alcohol content has stopped the batch turning even further or you just jammily managed to come across them, when they are probably ready and best used. That slime is EXACTLY you want to putting in with your feed. All thoise lovely gloopy, sugars, yeasts, flavours etc. Like horrible grey snot....YUM YUM!! Creates a nice visusl cloud on contact with the water too. The fish love it when pulses and nuts are in that condiditon.

I could but he didn't answer....could have been working our just out.

Get yer arse out. You've not done these bits yet and it's 5 mins from the train station if you get off at (Pollokshaws West - cheap too - FOLLOW RIVER UP) Best come out of the station, take a right, cross the road, walk to the lights, take a left and follow that road along till you come to a little green swingpark. Go into park and follow path closest to river. you won't miss me. OR Bus (any of the 38s First Bus from Renfield/Union Street) Ask he drops you at the Pollok Football club. Cut through the supermarket carpark and it'll spit you out at the bridge (Riverford Road Bridge) Or you can Get off bus, cross the road, walk left away from Shawlands and evetually you'll come to a road on the right Called Riverford Road. Can't miss bridge. Im down stream. COME ON!!!! IF For Any Reason If I'm not yet at Riverford Road. You've got there before me and I'm somewhere close behind. As long as you walk up, you'll find me. Won't be miles or anything since I'm only fleeting past the Linn swims etc. Riverford Road is a my end of day tagret. I want to get settled into it for a few hours before duck, the sea-trout and the massive perch come out. Hopefully by then, I'll also have loads of minnows. COME ON!!! IT'LL BE A GREAT.....Nice water, cheap day, plenty of fish, few rod benders and surprises....who knows. I wouldn't have stocked if it wasn't already one of my alltime favourite swims. It also gets stocked too....lol. MOST IMPORTANT.....BRING SOME MAGGOTS AND MAYBE SOME PRAWNS (COS THEY'LL TAKE EVERYTHING) AND A CATTY AND MAYBE A WEE BUCKET FOR LIVE MINNOWS.....DON'T LET ME DOWN....YOU'LL LOVE THIS SPOT AND ITS POTENTIAL

Angling Times always was a load of old arse.....

I would say so. Coloured maggots already have some pigment in them so when they turn, they're already heading towards the dark end of the scale. By using white maggots, you can turn them at slightly different rates, so you end up with a good range of colours, from near white to dark browny/red. When fishing for roach and rudd especially, you might find the fish are hitting one particular colour more quickly than the rest. I don't know that the fish are actively selecting a particular colour or that the conditions of the water itself dictates how quickly certain colours are seized upon but it's definitely worth having a selection. I also find that when freezing casters, it's best to have them in a loose bag, so it flattens out in the freezer. Not only do the caters freeze more quickly and retain their shape without splitting but you don't end up with a big solid ball of casters, which can be a nightmare to defrost without creating lots of moisture or damaging the skins.

Ideal mate. Let us kow how you get on and maybe if you catch some good ones, a little snap or two?? Nothing cheers me up like a photo of a good perch.

I have a Shakespeare Omni 12 foot feeder rod, on which I have a Shakespeare Mach 1 reel, Loaded with 6lb Drennan feeder braid. Rod - £25 Reel - £35 Braid - £6 It's a cracking setup for the money. I've had allsorts from little roach, to big rudd, to brown trout, commercial carp and wild tench and it's right on the ball. Both rod and reel look more expensive than they actually are and there are no zany decals anywhere to demonstrate what a cheapskate you are. It looks like a well thought-out and balanced outfit.

Plain brown crumb with say minced prawn...or Any of the strawberry groundbaits....or Sonubaits Fishmeal or Ground Pellet method mix. Lift method is an overdepth leger/waggler rig, on which bites are indicated by the float rising out of the water as the legered bait is picked up off the bottom. Look it up on Google under 'Tench Lift Method'

Minced prawn and crumb...ball it in round the margins and fish whole prawn on a size 10 under a waggler, hard on the bottom.

Maybe if we wish to play the numbers game but I'm not fishing for numbers. I've seen enough articles and programmes to know that many anglers, like Jan Porter as an instance, havn't or hadn't caught many fish of any considerable size until a specimen or species angler had show them a different approach to fishing. I'm not decrying Jan Porters skills by any stretch of the imagination. He'd kick my arse and then some but until Matt Hayes had shown him how to catch carp, he hadn't caught any of any particular size. Not being a numbers angler, I'd far rather learn from the species angler. It's only since I've wanted to catch fish like Rudd, that I've looked into how match anglers go about things and even then, I've actually stepped up my gear, caught less but improved on my size ratio, which to me, is the name of the game. My Rudd angling is looking less like match tactics all the time.

I've mentioned it before but I've been robbed whilst fishing 4 TIMES!!....which is more than on the streets of Glasgow.

This doesn't mean a thing. Pike heads vary considerably from one fish to another and the skull is no kind of guide when it comes to weighing up the species. Even pike with similar diets, from the same water can vary in shape considerably. I'm sure we've all seen pike that are all body and no head and vice-versa. We've heard of ancient bream-guzzling 20s with heads like shovels and 40s that are probably just a few years old that have fed well on a diet of farm-reared rainbows. I'm in no doubt that it's a big pike alright but to even try and put a figure on the weight of the fish is pointless.

I want to catch a bullhead for Andy_1984s tank. I think it would look brilliant and somewhat uglier than his other fish.

All I can suggest is you put a whole load of backing on, as level as you can, by hand or another winding device (I've used a turntable in the past) and once you get to the point where you're putting your actual fishing line, which is what, maybe the last 100 yards or less?...it should go on level enough not to make a massive difference.

I couldn't even muster the energy to take a telescopic outside to smash it to smithereens. It would be as much a waste of energy as it would be obtaining one in the first place. Never seen a nice one, held a nice one, wanted one or even considered buying one. I'd rather buy the flu.

How do you hold a carp vertically I might ask?

From 10 years ago... "Van Den Eynde Predator Plus. Useless for pike but arguably the best eel attractor ever made." I stand by that statement.

The video says it all. 100lb fluorocarbon CAN be bitten through. End of.

So, any conclusions on the best way to remove leeches??