Latimeria

Tony Davies-Patrick. I made the mistake of buying one of his books.

Looks like the almost certain roach x chub or chub x roach hybrids we regularly see on the Ribble. Isolated examples are known from other rivers, will be interesting to see if they start to show up with more frequency anywhere else. The red mark could be an infected cormorant mark, something viral like lymphocystis or have various other causes.

Welcome to Lancashire, home of some fantastic fishing. I have a friend does a lot of u/l lure fishing for flatties, once you're settled I'll put you in touch. drop me a message or something, I barely use any forums nowadays though so I'll remind myself to check.

Exactly. Licence checks are paid for by anglers, yet we receive very little tangible benefit back, in effect we are paying to generate a funding stream for government, actually reducing the amount of money available to fisheries from the ring-fenced revenue. The licence should be binned anyway, clean waterways and a healthy ecology should be a cost borne by a developed and mature democracy (cynical lol), with access to inland fisheries potentially available to every citizen who obtains the required permission from land/lease owners.

The cost of the rod licence tax hasn't dropped (actually gone up this year), so anglers should be receiving virtually a stable level of service. The cost-cutting argument just doesn't work where that department is concerned. The contribution from government towards Fisheries has dropped it is true, but that was always the lesser sum. After higher water, fish may relocate and slowly repopulate from upstream, but if the entire ecology has been damaged they'll be struggling for food, and the habitats required for juvenile fish after any spawning just won't be in a fit state.

Time to get your money's worth for the rod licence tax. Ask when full environmental surveys are being carried out, tell them you expect a call to invite you as observer, ask to see a written recovery plan. Give the EA a chance and they'll do nothing of any value. I've spent 3 months getting answers out of them over a pollution near here where they seem to be functioning more as a PR body for the polluters than anything else. Twitter is a good tool for this, they can't hide or delete it like they do with inconvenient questions on Facebook.

Depends what the lighting is for. If purely to see the fish, and it's for freshwater, two of these will illuminate an aquarium that length, up to 80cm deep, very well. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JB12E1C/ref=s9_dcacsd_bhz_bw_c_x_2 They can be mounted in any way that suits. I'm going to assume this is approximately a 5' x 3' x 2' aquarium? The LED strips just won't have the punch to get down in a deep aquarium.

I was down the opposite end of the same stretch, t'other bank. Had a load of dace, small chub, roach, couple of trout and a hybrid plus three ickle barbel, biggest about 1.5lb. Still not really into the swing of it this season though.

30 minutes trapped tight by the hand with that weight? Don't think he'll be up to much with the magic tricks even if he keeps all his digits. Should have just given him a blunt penknife and left him to it.

It's a sod, it spreads out from the shallows over deeper water, breaking up easily and each fragment could become a new plant. A good dragging during the year when necessary might help, in spite of this. With a boat it should be possible to use a bit more care, netting any fragments visible. Borrow a manatee from somewhere. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/296857/geho0110brzk-e-e.pdf http://wric.ucdavis.edu/information/natural%20areas/wr_N/Nymphoides.pdf

Why does it have the aerators? I'd get some pike in there, they'll enjoy picking off the weaklings.

I'd also go with N. peltata, sometimes called Water Pest, it can be very vigorous http://www.mindenpictures.com/search/preview/underwater-view-of-fringed-water-lily/0_90149987.html

Who he? This time of year I'd go with post-spawning damage, maybe with some secondary bacterial infection. I was watching the roach spawn on a local water last week amongst the roots of marginal sallows, the margins were littered with spawned-out fish that looked like they'd been kicked up and down the bank, some of them looked like the fish above. I would have said that they were the females looking at the belly shape.

Next Weds p.m. at Croft, near Winwick. Whether a member of not, chance to ask some questions http://www.anglingtrust.net/page.asp?section=835

This coming Sunday there's an auction of fish and equipment with a focus on all things catfish in Darwen (easy to get to via the M65). Always some great buys to be had there. http://www.catfishstudygroup.org/core/events.php

Hope they finally get round to doing it instead of just talking about it, and hope it works, but all that might happen is heavier seasonal die-off. They could do with a dose of perch plague over there as well. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-13/murray-darling-carp-plague-release-fish-virus-farmers-scientists/7084586

I know that Savage Gear produce a very good bleak copy, various rigging options, might be possible to rig one so that it is only slightly negatively buoyant, retrieve as if it's already been whacked and is an easy target? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX-UsKIPAlo

Location is important, with a free-standing pool wind chill can lead to fluctuating temperatures, so it needs to be sheltered. If you can get bubble wrap or greenhouse fleece (or whatever) contained in a false liner between the wood and the main liner that will help, but the right microhabitat will make this un-necessary in anything other than the most extreme conditions. I've done really well with large wooden half barrels, although I tend to put exotics in them and bring them in or give them away for Winter. The larger you can go, the more stable the water temperature and chemical parameters. Any alternative if you're any good with wood is to get a large water storage tank such as might be used in agriculture and then clad it, probably significantly cheaper as well. I had one liberated from a garden centre that had been used for displaying aquatic plants.

That would class as use of an illegal instrument in inland waters I believe (can't be fussed to go check the exact terminology).

An Aco Plus? You'd have to have been levering a Land Rover out of a swamp!

Depends on species, but store credit is your best bet, even if it's only enough for the odd pack of frozen food or whatever. There's a website called Aquarist Classifieds, could try on there if you set the price somewhere reasonable, but if you're not bothered about what you get then stick with taking them back to a shop, less messing around.

At the moment I'd put up with seeing Dorothy whizz past in a twister if the rivers round here were low enough to enjoy fishing them.

I believe that there has been a halt to stocking of triploids on the Ribble, which I'm very glad about. Not necessarily connected, but this year I've had more trout when trotting than ever before, all very healthy and plump. I've only had one that looked like a grown-on stockie, as far as I could tell the rest were genuine Ribble fish. I recall a blog post from some tool from the EA Fisheries who was extolling the virtues of triploids in providing "excellent recreational opportunities", much like in the US where many public waters receive stocking in the expectation that there'll be C but no R. Personally, I want to catch fish with all their instincts intact, I don't want the EA masking their mismanagement of our waterways by throwing in eunuchs that will occupy the best lies and push smaller, wild-born trout into less-favourable feeding spots.

Lower metabolism means they're better able to live off stored lipid reserves as they adapt, lower temperatures mean they can be transported more densely and are less likely to be screwed over by the pollution slugs that can come after Summer storms, more reliable flow (in theory) means there's more water for them to disperse into, in Autummn/early Winter introduced fish are not competing with very small YOY fry, disease organisms are becoming quiescent, so the time of year makes sense for a number of reasons.

You'd be better off heading up to the Wyre from there, or across to the Ribble, although both the Tame and the Goyt do seems to be doing very well for "proper" fish, ignoring all those repeat captures of the same few barbel...