far bank stalker

hmm, that looks like pure fish harassment! all it needs is for robson greene to show up, squeal a bit then bang the fish on the head

lovely pictures. It's hard to know what to stare at most, the fish or your rig. both seem equally beautiful.

Ha! Guilty as charged! I am an insufferable nerd! Some times it helps, other times not. I've been going out on days when the temps three or four degrees above the previous day, which i suppose is more hopeful than realistic. At the risk of sounding even more silly i don't know how to fish any other method than trotting and i only own centre pins and two float rods ( built cane for the river and carbon for the canal). pretty sure i can fish the bottom with my cane rod but really i'm relearning to fish after twenty years of absence. I got put off a bit in the mid 80's when it was all going super tech and i like the simplicity of float fishing. I have thought a few times though that i might be missing a trick so maybe i'll look at some simple ledgering rigs

hi watatoad and thanks for the reply. fishing my local canals at the moment, the Llangollen canal and the Shropshire union where it meets the Llangollen canal. The Llan' canal is fed directly by the Dee and really has all the characteristics and species of a small river ( barring the Salmon family and Barbel, none in the Dee here either, they were introduced but never took) the same is true of the Shropshire union for at least 6 miles, past that i'm not too sure, but i think it becomes more canal like. The bottoms are strating at the Llan end stones with patches of weed and silt getting more and more silty as it reaches the aqueduct. Where i've been fishing about 50/50 silt and stone. The width varies from 15ft to 25ft and the banks are mostly concrete with small area's of natural earth bank or rockface. I tend to fish these natural banks as the fish holding spots are easier to identify The area i have been fishing recently, on the Shrops end due to the dreaded E.A. hopefully not vandalising the Llan end, it varies in depth from two to four feet probably averaging at around three and a bit. lots of Dace, some decent Roach, small chub (up to about 2lb, that subject will make another thread actually) specimen perch and pike and i'm told Ruff in some tucked away spots. Oh, big bream in any of the marina's or basins too. I don't really target these due to the 'snotty bin lid problem' but i get a few now and then. They seem to be all a large percentage of the local anglers are after and to be honest living in the current seems to make them fight well. The cold weather has made me a bit lazy and i've been fishing pot luck for dace and chub, which i was getting up until the first big snow. I've been using either 50/50 brown crumb/dynamite baits silver x river or 50/50 brown crumb/van den eynde river ace and baiting in my usual method which is three or big balls of groundbait followed by smaller regular ones for half hour or so then start running through the swim with one or two maggots (colour usually on a whim but red and white or plain white have proved best) with a small ball of groundbait on every cast, switching to just a few maggots once the swim is on. As i write this it's actually occurring to me that that's probably alot for winter? I tend to fish about two to three inches overdepth and maybe move an inch or two either way, i will definitely try all the suggestion regarding depth. i've been using crystal loafers mostly for awhile but i found an old broken crystal stick which i was thinking of modifying as a very small stick, will it work in a slow current? I know where the chub hang out, i think i probably need to target them more specifically. Past experience seems to point to them not really accepting some of the more obvious meat baits, just worm and maggot, but that i think is just due to size, not sure really. Anyway thanks for the suggestions

i'll give the line weights and hooksize a go definitely, thanks and i'd be happy with a stickleback at the mo'!

My last three sessions have all been heartbreakers. Today and one other session though i had what i thought were bites. Today i had a maggot taken of two on the hook and what i thought at least were two really definite slow suck downs. Again on the other session pretty much the same. If i had to guess i would say the bites today were maybe bream, the water was cloudy from yesterdays rain. It was the third spot working down stream, i was float fishing over depth and holding back, but it definitely wasn't the bottom as after the second bite i increased the depth by an inch and run through the swim holding back the same amount to test if it was and it ran through fine. Nothing for the rest of the day. I'm averaging two bites every other session, but hooking nothing! I tackled down in the autumn to 2.4lb mainline and 1.5lb hooklength and generally speaking 16 and 18 hooks, is this too heavy now? there's always the possibility of 4lb + bream so i don't want to go too much lighter Any other advice on shy biting winter fish?

thanks, sounds like a solid idea. i'll give it some perusal. just noticed i posted this in the wrong forum!

erm, maybe rod geeks is not the best description, but hopefully you know what i mean. just under 5 mnths to go till the trout season starts and i've started to think about tackle for some planned brook fishing sessions, the most important bit being the rod. really because the brooks i plan to fish are in places only a few feet wide i won't be needing either of my float rods for control but i do want to float fish, so my first idea was to get a ratty, short light line weight fly rod and refurb' it with low bells guides in a decsending pattern, like a float rod. is this a stupid idea? does anybody know if the action will suit the method? my other idea was maybe to do the same with a short fibre glass spinning rod will either of these ideas work? if not any suggestions? my biggest worry is being over gunned, i could tell you a story about the flying carp i caught when i was about 10 on a 6' solid glass boat rod with twenty lb line but you wouldn't be impressed!

am going to refurb' my cane rod in the next month or so and was wondering weather or not to re whip it against the set. the set is only in the final 4'' of the tip section, a slight droop as you'd expect in a 60 yr old rod. i've heard that the weight of the guides will re set the tip straight i have taken a set and twist out of a milward floatrover very effectively with my girlfriends hairdryer, but i made it worse twice before i made it right and if i can avoid it i will!

off topic i've turned down a few spanish reed rods because they sound so fragile, but they seem to go for no money (ish), would you recommend one? i spend a lot of time fishing for dace and roach. i agree, hooking dace gamely is difficult but when they are they fight beautifully

the advice so far is brilliant. it really is mostly down to experience, but one other thing touched on is angle of the rod, the higher the rod is in the air the less the rod is 'playing the fish' and the more strain on the line, the same for too low, also try not to lock off your rod arm in a right angle at the elbow, easy to do if your nervous, remember the range of movement in your shoulder and use your arm as well

hmm, i suspect my ineptitude plays a part but the bit about water craft and knowledge of feeding lanes, fish holding spots and behaviour etc is right? probably dry fly is the only sporting way, but no one does that around here, just wet fly, or spinning as i like to think of it you can spend a lot of time casting at nothing in a 40' river, i see a lot doing just that, or you can spend spring summer and early autumn taking the dog up and down the river, in flood and low, marking spots, rocks, pools etc...establishing estimated feeding lanes and weather, water condition watching. then i'm with you, it is indeed easy, but it's all this extra stuff that makes it a challenge for me. in america trotting for trout is a big deal, i suspect they look at it more pragmatically than us brits' who tend to look at everything through a very particular lense 'Bait fishing' is an insult in some circles

totally down with this. i'm a course fisherman and i can see the beauty and elegance of fluff chucking and water flogging, but trotting for trout is as good as it gets for me. if you love all those fish that are too brave to to realise how small they are, roach, dace etc... then you've got to try fishing for some 'spotty 'erberts' don't be fooled by the hype either, dry fly fishing is a thing of beauty but trout will take a worm on any given day and trotting for them is no pushover, you need all the same water craft and bait presentation effort if you want to catch anything

but surely there are as many positives as negatives in doing you shopping on a bicycle?

thanks for all the tips on reel refurbs. i'm going to start looking into it!

it was actually on an American rod building forum looking for tips on whipping that i picked up the idea that there was an alternative opinion on glass. it makes sense that its for shorter rods because it was a fly rod thread. doh! thinking of a tiny rod to float fish for brook trout, something very forgiving, was thinking of maybe refurb'ing a 5'-6' light line fly rod with more guides than it had and low bells. sometimes it seems a good idea, others stupid!

i haven't read every reply here yet, hopefully i'm not going over ground covered, but i'm goin to enjoy this thread at my leasure!. recently i've been looking at old float patterns, picking up on a point already made that at one point all reels where centre pin and a lot of course fishing was on rivers. it is my aim next season to get a real wild brownie from a real mountain brook by means of trotting, so i needed a float that doesn't really exist anymore. the patterns i found where 'stream searchers' and 'elfins' designed for the kind of conditions watatoad layed out for dace also the array of 'avon' type floats is mind boggling compared to today, with the body being pretty much anywhere above the centre line of the stick, i suppose to catch sub surface currents at different depths another nice tip i've seen is to cut the bottom stem off of a drennan crystal avon and replace it with a brass or stainless rod, then adjust it with fly tying lead super glued to the top of the brass rod where it joins the float top so that it self cocks and sets, then you can 'freeline' a bait and have the float indicator as well. this really is for trout fishing but it may work for other stuff too

hey. have used the rod on three occasions now. all heartbreakers i must add, with nothing but dace! what i can tell you in terms of performance is limited, but so far of the fifteen or so dace that i've had none have bounced off and around 95% were 'gamely' hooked, rather than around 60%. the strike is pretty much telepathic, think it and it happens. my built cane rod only really comes to life with fish over 1lb, then i can use the rod to play the fish, the youngs rod is really sweet with small fish. looking foward to knocking into something better! now the easy bit, why the discount? i am fairly familiar with the bicycle industry and i know the biggest problem there is manufacturing. good, trustworthy chinese factories are the holy grail! take your eye off the quality control for one second and you will receive a container full of badly finished stuff. i have no doubt the blank is good and the fittings, but finish could be way better. there are a few bubbles in the varnish in a couple of sections, there's no excuse for that. the cloth bag fell apart on contact with riverbank air and the cork handle is b grade at best, also while its made up mostly of even shivs, there are some random sized bits too. there are also some nice touches, the rod tube is really nice and some aspects of the finish. if it had been made in england it would have deserved the ticket price, as it is it's worth what i paid (80). also it seems stupid on a rod thats openly made to hold in the hand to have a fuji style reel seat over a full cork handle, but they seem hard to find anywhere! my okuma aventa (the silver one) turned up also. are they really trotting reels? it would need some serious inertia to get it running. it 'spins forever' but doesn't turn back slightly after stopping. i've taken the handles and central bar off and that seems to have made it feel nicer to use. in terms of bicycles open bearings (old fashioned) beat sealed bearings (modern) evry time in both performance and weight, so i should have guessed i suppose in the end the rod is really nice at what i paid. if i'd paid the 190 or even 130 that some are charging i would have been upset though http://www.flickr.com/photos/brigand_doom/5168553335/

every time i catch a fish i think i've learned something. the next trip out puts paid to that! i am however amazed at the venues i quite often see people fishing on my local stretches. you can actually predict, if any, where they'll be. in the three or four stillwater basins along the flowing canal. they're much easier to fish than the moving water. it seems a strange method of fishing to just chuck stuff in and wait. it cheers me up though. all the obvious spots are generally free and under fished. my best chub yet came on the second trot the one person i've met who obviously knew his stuff was a great help and led me to my new favorite beat. i'm trying to think on some kind of exchange so i can get him to teach me to cast a fly! erm...on topic i saw a cormorant over the dee last week. it's about the only time i've ever seen something and genuinely hoped somebody nailed it! i'm sure i read it's something to do with marine stock levels

don't know if you have this book, theres a link to it here. the links clean according to my computer, but you can get it the same way id did, Google 'angling book pdf' then click on the wikipedia link, if old pictures of floats etc.. show at the top scroll down to the bottom. there are three versions there. this one is the 1920 version http://ia341324.us.archive.org/1/items/boo...i00franiala.pdf its really good, a bit like an up date of the compleat angler. theres some stuff about using blackberries for chub. will try the crumb the next time theres some about

the recipe i mixed today pulled in a lovely silver bream, maybe 1 3/4lb-2lb. never much fancied bream but this was the biggest silver i've had and it gave a really good account of itself, shook its head from beginning to end. i think it must have been the ground trout pellet but i fancy putting more in, maybe garlic spam?

will do. will try it on the next cake, a few weeks i think

just making up todays mix (red and white crumb+hemp+crushed trout pellet) and whilst i was at it i put some cake sponge off-cuts out for the birds. my girlfriend often makes fancy cakes for friends so its around quite a bit. anyone ever used it for groundbait instead of standard crumb?

erm...we got paid in shells. last i remember shells cost money. they were destined for the table in france, at that time in Britain pigeon was considered trash by anyone not living in the country, and i think your suggesting that doing the farmer the favour that we were was wrong because we didn't own the land? maybe the farmer didn't either, maybe he was a tennant farmer i don't know. whatever the pigeons had to go. the deer didn't. deer do not come under the label 'vermin' in the same way as say squirrels, rats, pigeons etc.... Behind the 'trophy hunting' scene you will find a bunch of professional stalkers, who routinely cull deer in the time honoured way. i genuinely don't care if people hunt deer or not, the deal is though that this was an unusual set of circumstances right? otherwise it wouldn't have made the national (and international?) media

i suspect i am more inarticulate than 'anti' really. i am surprisingly un-anti. i get rabbits from one of the local old boys. it's more a general moan about the age we live in and the way money has replaced effort. it's a very diffuse moan and whenever i'm called to task on it i mumble and look foolish. the only form of hunting i really don't like is fox hunting, but thats just because i feel it has nothing to do with hunting for some of the participants, never the less it doesn't offend me enough to really do anything about it, so.... the thing about karma was not really meant to be a direct link to either the souls of hunters or mine, just an abstract way of saying not everybody's in it for the same reasons. there are a myriad of reasons our friends and associates pursue these sports, most are good, but way too diffuse to pin down, how do you explain to somebody that doesn't understand that something strong draws you to water? that there you find peace with a crazy world? but some reasons are not so good, and these are the people who damage the reputations and fabric of these sports most of all though i was interested to discuss the whole thing and its cool to see that even in three fairly opposed views there is common ground