Rutilis Volaticus

The crucian looks a bit iffy. The Mullet, on the other hand, is genuine.

I'm not usually all that fussed about failing to weigh fish, but failing to photograph annoys me constantly. In fact, I'd say the happier I am with a given catch the less chance there is of me actually getting a snap of it, simply because I tend to get to wrapped up in the moment to think about getting the camera out. I'm almost tempted to get a GoPro with head mount to capture a few moments, even if it would make me look like more of a prat than usual (a challenge, is that).

There's got to be a natural mechanism of some sorts otherwise we wouldn't have the river species we do. After all, what's a river. It's a body of fresh water contained on all sides by stuff freshwater fish can't swim in (eg. mud, rock, air, Oxford, salt water). If it's possible to catch a bream in the Thames and Tees and it still be "a bream", then clearly there must be a means of transfering said fish between rivers. It therefore follows that said mechanism must also work for stillwaters. Either that or our current river species where distributed around their very large coverage areas by some exceptionally dilligent bods thousands of years ago.

It's not so much sustained effort that I think may be causing a problem, it's shock loading and contact patch. A stiff rod with a braid (or other not-very-stretchy) mainline is going to transmit an awful lot of force to a very small area of fish for a brief period. To use the 11lbs figure, that might not seem like a lot, but even assuming a seriously generous surface area for the hooks contact patch of 1/16th square inch, that's the equivalent of a couple of thousand PSI. Okay, a fair amount of that will be absorbed by the fish not being a fixed object (assuming the fish is, indeed, swimming freely at the time), but that's still a lot of pressure to apply to what might well be a hook held in no more than a millimeter or two of soft flesh. Or, from the other way of looking at it, if a fish that was considered to be on the hook is lost before landing, the hook has somehow been removed from the fish by the application of one force or another to said hook. This force could be a force applied away from the point thereby removing the hook back out the way it came in, or a force in another direction sufficient to overcome the ability of whatever part of the fish it was lodged in to retain it. For what it's worth, I'm certainly not disputing the damage that can potentially be done by mistakes made during unhooking and while the fish is being handled, merely suggesting that using gear designed to apply appropriate levels of force to 40lb leathery monsters could potentially result in hook pulls from smaller, softer mouthed quarry.

Personally, I reckon that's a very major part of it indeed. A human being can impart a hell of a lot of force onto the line, and without adequate shock absorption it strikes (no pun intended) me as entirely plausible that an over-enthusiastic angler with excessively butch kit could do a hell of a lot of damage to a fish simply by trying to set the hook and reel it in, possibly without even landing said fish. I'm pretty sure a little Mythbusters-style experimentation with rods of various test curves, lines of various breaking strengths, and a selection of fresh fruit would bear this out.

I'm afraid your problem there is the leaves themselves. All those small shapes protruding from your bivvy significantly increase the radar cross section as perceived by the carp, hence why having pictures of trees on flat surfaces is more effective at deceiving them than actual trees.

My experiences so far with pellets are, by the sounds of it, much the same as Fours. Pellets were a new one on me when I returned to fishing this year, but I decided to give them a go on the basis that they looked suspiciously like what my parents used to feed their Koi on, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. I've only used Swimstim Amino so far, hair rigged (or in a 'lacky band on the end of the hair) they seem to work depressingly well for pretty much everything I've presented them in front of, including some small perch much to my surprise. For feeding, what seems to work for me is leaving the 3mm variety (I'm sure it would work with other sizes, just haven't tried) in water from where you're fishing for a good while* before use, at which point they seem to be pretty effective as either loose feed, or as stuffing for a feeder (only tried on still waters, but cage or open ended doesn't seem to make any appreciable difference). I haven't as yet tried feeding them and fishing a dissimilar hookbait so can't vouch for that. I wouldn't bother with the soft hooker variety unless you're using a pole as they have a habit of not surviving the cast. That said, with a bit of rolling I'm sure they'd make fantastic immitation rabbit poo - a common domestic need, as I'm sure you'll all agree. There's also the obvious downside of them being soulless and boring. Then again, they're a doddle to store so make a handy extra bait type to cart about and try if other options aren't working. * So they end up somewhere between squishy-but-intact and total mush.

I've eaten plenty either as a student, a tent-dweller, or merely a drunk. Brown flavour is the Synthetic Lumpy Nectar of the Gods, other flavours are merely Althletes Foot in plastic wossnames. Never tried one on the bank, although am now tempted to. I wonder how well they'd work mixed with groundbait*? * For the fish, that is.

A few British possibles... Lee-in-Solent, Hants Ipswim, Suffolk Seabedford, Seabeds The Shoal of Wight, Hants S'underwater, Tyne and Wear

Total and utter stab in the dark here, but what the hell... I wonder if it might have something to do with water absorbing more oxygen under high pressure conditions, with that oxygen being absorbed entirely at the surface.

Have very recently bought the deluxe version of the chair (from Tackle UK) and so far am decidedly impressed - very solid, very comfortable indeed, easy enough to wipe clean, easy to assemble, and more bulky (takes up a surprising amount of car space) than heavy (would have no qualms walking a fair way with it as the strap's pretty good). As far as the feeder arm's concerned, I've got the telescopic arm sans tripod and I'm very much in two minds about it. Yes, it does what it's meant to do, but vibrations from movements made in the chair transmit themselves down the arm causing the end to bounce around a bit, especially when using a more sensitive tip. I suspect the version with the supporting tripod would be a better bet.

Hot water and washing (as in clothes) powder works for me. Discovered this one whilst cleaning a landing net that had reached a level of niffiness beyond which I wanted nothing further to do with it. It also removed the niff from the net very nicely indeed. I suspect steam cleaning would also work, albeit in a somewhat North Korean Prison manner.

I'd say "perfectly hooked" implies hooked the mouth area from the inside with the minimum amount of damage caused as a result of the hooking and its subsequent removal, with an absolute bullseye being a "came out on it's own in the net".

Definitely maggots. They'll catch pretty much everything bar larger predators*, they work in a feeder, they can be catapulted in, thrown in, and the need for a larger hookbait can be satisfied with.... more maggots, Igor! Oh, and they're pleasently wiggly, and you feel like marginally less of a plum talking to them than you do talking to 6mm pellets... ...I'll get my coat. * Smartarse award for the first poster to come up with a rig to catch pike via chase-ins of maggot-caught livebaits.

Concrete wouldn't bother me as long as there was at least somewhere soft to use a bank stick or two. What does bother me to an extent is a lack of surrounding vegetation - totally clear banks are visually boring, take away some of the challenge, and do very little for privacy.