far bank stalker

hey. recently bought an 11ft 4-piece travel barbel rod from CFR. i got it second hand but in very good condition from ian at CFR. my intention was to use it for prawning and the occasional trip to shrewbury for barbel/chub fishing but i don't have the time to go fishing in shrews' or the patience for migrant game fishing so it burns me that my occasional rod is several degrees better than my everyday float rod. the rod is fitted with fuji reel seat and guides and was originally specc'd at just over £200. it would make a reallt nice rod in the right hands. if anyone has a harrison gti or a float rod of similar quality and interested please let me know, thanks

wow. i dream about days like that!

i went to the Dee and targeted grayling. got two brownies first, one wild and one stocked, which got a tap on the head and smoked. taken to returning the wild ones regardless of size. one small grayling which i got to the net then it got off. grrr! still i saw it!. going after roach this eve down the canal. yay!

zoinks! i'm scared!

personally i would either fish to an undercut bank or an underwater feature. all the stuff i learnt about course fishing seems to work across the board and fish holding spots invariably hold fish regardless. i don't think game fish are aware of their status and so don't seem to mind hanging out in the same spots as course fish.....erm maybe though they just like slumming it every now and then

just for the sake of it if the swim has been prepared properly and your fishing for fish that shoal then catching the biggest one in the shoal should be quite easy as they will be competing and the biggest usually win, it's the big solitary fish that are hard to catch. i would add that what i know about carp fishing could be written on a pin head and the same for commercials too, so what i think may have zero application

if the fish is as large as the line spool suggests then it's a weird shape for a roach, our local ones, like perch tend to have arching spines behind the head once they get over a pound or so, if that makes sense, like....the line between the head and tail is kind of smooth and un-interupted on yours without reading all the other threads it's also kind of silver orange, rather than silver blue. i'm certain i've had two roach/bream hybrids in the past few months

just out of interest do carp respond in the same way as perch to the release of worm amino, caused by chopping? carp are a totally foreign experience to me

hmmmm i used a slug once for chub, it was indeed vile and spewed like flouro green gunk all over me.

hmmm, would that be the glorious collection of human leeches and parasites we call our government trying to claw in every last penny from the working man as they slowly drag the country down into it's world of selfish greed? the question was rhetorical. bet they won't be in any 'put & take' fisheries, just canal and lake banks. not that you could accused the swine and effluent that make up the current government of being biased in any way

erm, havent read the other posts, but i would use either chopped worm, worms that are chopped, or little bits of worm that have been cut into pieces, for perch or chub. but thats just me have just got some 'Predator plus' but i haven't really tried it yet. have had some luck with 'bloodworm dna, amino complex' also, i'm sure you know this but catching bigger perch is often more about the spot chosen than bait used (thanks to other members for that pearl of wisdom!)

erm, i would add that if you do get told off best to never fish it again without permission. thats a good way to explore though

i dont know how it works these days, angling has become some horrendous marketing opportunity, but back in the 'good old days' (thats the 80's for me!) i would have taken a guess that if it's under a bridge carrying a public road then there's a good chance it's E.A. owned and therefore fishable with a standard rod licence. certainly there are a few rivers i see on the train to work in exactly the same circumstances and i intend to fish them. as long as you have your rod licence with you just give it a go. the worst that can happen is that you could be told off and frankly so what

last autumn i decided i'd try cake crumb as ground bait and asked here if it was any good. gave it a try yesterday and this is what i think. it's too dense and greasy to be used on its own so i mixed it with bread crumb and a touch of caramel brasem which seemed to fit the theme. when i put the first balls in i noticed that the breadcrumb clouds and the cake crumb sinks, which to my mind makes a good combination and i would guess that the cake crumb acts as a holding bait like hemp seed. obviously now the water is warmer i reckon that the oilyness is good and carries a sugary, buttery flavour the best thing for me though was that unless i'm mistaken it pulled in the roach, which when i'm fishing the canal is what i'm trying to do, and getting through the dace is not easy. anyway, if your lucky enough to have a girlfriend or friend that makes a lot of cakes then i would definitely give it a run as an additive to your usual ground bait p.s. the cake need to be broken into small pieces then dried for about a week till it's crispy then blended down to crumb

i don't know about hiring equipment but to be honest it's so cheap these days you could probably buy a rig or even two for very little, who knows you may enjoy yourself and want to do it again! as for venues, you have the gade running through the park in boxmoor, opposite the fishery inn and down a bit, the stretch on the other side, toward apsley has had me wondering for awhile now, i reckon maybe it holds some good fish. if you don't fancy the undergrowth and cow poo you should try the same river in casio' park in watford. tend to get quite a few other anglers there and if i remember it's on a day ticket. if you know watford at all you can access the gade for free in quite a few places and it holds good fish (or at least did!). the canal in hemel, especially around the lakes in kings langley used to hold massive carp, and there used to be a famously large pike by the fishery inn that outfoxed everyone for years, but i don't know how it is these days. the other venue that spring to mind is tring resi's. i watched a heron there eat about a 5lb tench. not a pretty sight! anyway the river season will be open when you want to go so good luck

anyone watch NatureWatch on BBC2? really good program featuring Goshawks, accompanied by some interesting research and data. the story goes that Goshawks where first off revered by the nobility, for their grace and hunting prowess and like all of our native hunters they flourished. then along bumbled the industrial revolution, the land enclosures act (thats the one where the business/political elite stole your inheritance, your birthrights to the land) and with them industrialised farming. farmers, in a quite uncharacteristic move, decide to just kill all the Goshawks because they felt they're a pest. by the turn of the twentieth century they're virtually extinct. then the first world war does for a massive percentage of the male population of Britain, the land is not used as intensively and the Goshawks start to make a recovery. cut to today. goshawks exist in Britain only in a few remote mountainous regions. this confused naturalists, because in every single other european country where a similar thing happened Goshawks have made an amazing recovery. they inhabit cities and parks as well as their natural habitats. in Holland they can regularly be seen in the big cities (my dad once saw one take a kitten!) so what was different here? why such a pathetic recovery limited to so few places, all remote and mountainous? there is only one answer, no conjecture just one solid reason. in this country as soon as newly mature juveniles move down from the highlands to the lowland, as they do elsewhere they are killed by a hardcore of gamekeepers who are involved specifically with the rearing of pheasant. this is the reason that whilst Goshawks have flourished in europe here they're still pretty much endangered. i don't expect this to be popular. but it is an illustration. my last two rants where based around water abstraction to feed 'put & take' trout fisheries, and how that is is in effect poaching an entire river system from those who have a right to enjoy it for commercial gain. this is just another example of those who tell us so boldly that they are the rightful 'Husbands' of our land are in fact little but low-end rapists, who steal it from us for forever for short term gain i would reiterate that i have no dreadlocks, don't smell (too much) have a dog, but never on a string, have never tried to re-align my karmic balance by chanting a mantra about beans in a retreat in totnes or anything else of that nature. i am a passionate angler, and have no qualms about hunting for food. i just hate the way our country has been turned into a big pound note machine by fat greedy whores

actually after it had recovered the first thing it did was swim off to and hug a rock

yes indeed. the exterior, was ratty when i got it but the actual movement was mint, with no wobble at all! i ran i in. very lucky ebay purchase

thanks

the picture i've linked here is of the hardest to catch fish i've ever caught. I ignored the staying in a swim for twenty minutes and kept running through a spot where i couldn't tell if i was getting a bite or catching bottom. after about an hour i was convinced i'd got it wrong and was about to give up when i caught this. http://www.flickr.com/photos/brigand_doom/.../in/photostream My favorite catch of the year so far. If i had to guess i would say it was a Bullshead, but i thought they disappeared around the same time as the Gudgeon. Funnily enough i had a wild brown trout from the same stretch of the shrops union a couple of weeks earlier

fish won't bite if i don't use a hooklength. the few times ive broken off on the bottom, forgotten my chameleon line and had to fish straight through it's killed the session there and then. also, though i guess it's just from my fumblings later in the year i sometimes fish a touch more over depth with no sinker so that the bait can move up and down a bit in the flow. to be honest i'm a total novice. i only started fishing again last year and when i did fish before i only ever used a centrepin once. i think i need to practice slowing the line down. i have been doing it via the line in my left hand

Wondering if anybody has ever had the same problem i'm having. Started out doing a modified Wallis cast and i can cast a fair distance but i just get the same tangle, which is the bottom weight whips up and tangles my hooklength with either the float or the bulk shot (stopped using buttons for anything but rod tip stuff) now i've settled with a standard Wallis cast, i think, where i bring my left arm in as the rod loads and the float goes out and although i can't cast quite as far it works out about 90% of the time, still usually at a critical moment the same thing happens. pretty sure its because the hooklength is so much more flexible than the mainline but they're evenly matched i think ( 3.2lb/2lb)? the only way i can think of to stop it are either to stop using a hooklength (never!) or stop using the bottom weight, which is out at this time of year and if i remember from last year not guaranteed to work either. anyway any help gratefully received....

not much to say here but that red worms are really good! if you haven't used them before they're quite hard to find, i had two choices after being told to use them last year, dig in big manure piles where they can be found at the bottom which is the traditional method or source them on the nintonet. they're not so easy to find and i'm not trying to advertise but they are there and despite being smaller than all the other worms generally on offer they seem to pick out the big fish

unless i've missed my mark Brace is a shooting term which generally gets used by a certain type who probably think of themselves as 'Game hunters'. the perfect Brace being a male and female. I fish for game around now and am guilty of calling my favorite swims my beats but the people who catch braces of stuff look at me in horror, stumbling along with a float rod, smelly jeans, trainers and polarised glasses, i must look some kind of low end celebrity fallen on really hard times, maybe living in the woods and fishing for food? loving the 'brace of Cod' remark....i may get an airgun, just so i can bag a brace of rats

ah thanks, i'll look into that. i think my cane rod will be ok for bottom fishing. erm...is that what matt hayes is always doing? rolling a bait into the creases for chub?