robtherake

I thought that using a lead eject system meant that if the lead jams then you still get the fish out, but I take your point - It's always seemed strange to me that it has become acceptable to use hooklinks with a greater breaking strain than the main line. Surely it can only increase the chances of fish trailing great lumps of terminal gear, leadcore and all.

Howdy Cupra. I live just down the road from you, at sunny Saltburn. Small world eh? Your point is valid, notwithstanding that fish safety is of prime importance and that lead ejection largely prevents the tethering of fish, it doesn't paint a very pretty picture for the non-angling public.

Same here. On the float, hitting one bite in ten. On the feeder, rod pulled off the rest. Thank heavens for the bolt effect, eh? Gonna have a dabble later, nothing ventured and all that...... One thing that has become obvious though is that the bigger fish take up to 15 minutes to revive - something I've only previously experienced with big grayling.

Revisiting a local water last October (after an absence of ten years or so) I had several crucians over the 3lb mark in amongst bags of carp to low doubles. They're the survivors of the same fish we used to catch in the late 80s/early 90s, when they used to average 8 to 12 oz. Typically the biggest came in a session when my scales had been left in another bag and my phone battery had died so no pics but can't have been less than 4 and more probably 4 1/2lb. It almost filled the bottom ring in a 30" pan net, and I'm absolutely convinced it was a true cru. Anyway, musing aside, does anyone have any experience of catching crucians at this time of year, or am I best off waiting for a month or two for the water to warm up?

Hard to be exact, we had so many holidays in that area when the kids were still at school age, but the missus reckons it's about 9 or 10 years ago . Rob.

Thanks mate.

They smell weird though, don't you think? The jackets that is, not the occupants. Rob.

Some good advice here from the guys on the forum, particularly with respect to fishing in the colder months. Fish quite often need very little food at this time of year. They're cold-blooded creatures - the colder it is the less they move around, and so need to eat much less to replace the energy they've used. With this in mind, cut down they amount of bait that you introduce. You should still feed regularly, just use a smaller feeder so that you're not filling them up as quickly, just piqueing their interest so to speak. If the fish respond well you can always clip on a larger feeder to introduce more bait, but you can't take it back out if you've already overfed! I find that bread is as good as any other bait at this time of year. Liquidise the best part of a loaf to use for feed. This can be squeezed in your open-end or cage feeder just like groundbait, and since it's dry particles will move up and down in the water, making it very visible. Keep several slices back for hookbait. Hookbait can be a pinch of flake or one or more pieces of punched bread. Two or three pieces of punched bread fished together on a hair rig can be deadly, especially for the carp. It's cheap too, compared to bags of pellets, boilies and maggots. It can pay to begin with just a bomb on the line rather than a feeder, with a single, highly visible bait like a piece of corn. You can cast this around your swim to locate the fish, giving each cast a few minutes. Once you are getting line bites (usually small, juddery movements of the tip), you've found the direction. Then cast slightly shorter and shorter until you're on the fish. If all indications stop you've come back too far so return to the last casting length that you were getting indications on. Once you've found them (and bear in mind that sometimes you don't need to feed at all to get bites) you can clip on a small feeder and introduce feed in small amounts, building up gradually and maybe going up to a slightly larger feeder if they're really having it. If bites slow down or stop altogether go back on the bomb - the fish may have had enough feed, or have backed off the feed. Either way, you can use the bomb again to find where the fish have moved to. Finally, just to reiterate an important point, unless you know you're likely to only catch large fish then fine down to a lighter hook link. Be sensible here - if big fish are present you'll need to go a little bit heavier - but 3 or 4 lb is probably sufficient in open water. Match your hook size to your bait size too. Oh, and perhaps most importantly don't be a slave to any single method. Popular wisdom states that fish live close to the bottom in cold weather, so you would expect to catch fish on or close to the deck. This is rarely true - they can be present at any depth - and quite often a floatfished bait higher in the water will do much better. Keep your eyes open and copy the methods of the more successful anglers, but be prepared to adapt. Tight lines , mate, and good luck for the fishing year to come. Rob.

Any attempt to aid novice anglers is to be applauded, although there is only so much to be learnt from a pictorial representation and a practical demonstration of technique is more readily absorbed. This is why I've never minded being "pestered" by young anglers. As the saying goes, we all have to learn somewhere. Anyway, I digress. A few things I would add to your list are; Basic fish care and the use of an unhooking mat - Times have changed and a young angler's first fish is as likely to be a carp weighing several pounds as it is a tiddler (not that the tiddlers deserve any less respect, mind you). Respect for our surroundings and fellow anglers. Stealth. Tread lightly and don't stand up in full view of the fish, especially behind other anglers. Observation. Think about where the fish are likely to be. Spend at least a few minutes watching the water for signs of fish. Watch what the successful anglers are doing and give that a try. How to choose a swim. The hows and whys of baiting-up. Use of a catty, spod, feeder, pva and so on. Basic float shotting and sensitivity. Casting mechanics and the proper filling of a reel's spool.

Phone, I'm sure that's true. But the individuals I'm talking about (and we all know one or two) , despite possessing no apparent skill, technique or forethought and fishing in the crudest manner, always catch more than anyone would expect - quite often the biggies too. The fish may simply be attracted to the pheromonal signature present on the things they have handled. Bait and lures in particular. Rob.

Robthe, I have a pal, a scientist guy although not in fish, who swears carp can recognize human female hormones (not airborne). Phone, This might go some way to explaining why some anglers (not exclusively female, I hasten to add) , have luck far exceeding their apparent skill.

State of the art float factory. Work in progress, honest.

Not really a rare sight any more, but I had a 4lb fantail from Hemlington lake (near Middlesbrough) back in the late 80s. In the water it looked like a big,orange jellyfish. More recently, my son's friend tagged along with us to the Woodlands complex at Thirsk and had a 20lb Asian carp out of Cock Pheasant on a single red maggot on a 20 hook. Didn't have a blind clue what it was without looking it up. Proper weirded me out at the time - pretty they aint! I had a ruddy big rat from the same place on breadcrust fished sub-surface. Had to grab it through the folds of a doubled-over towel and use the forceps on it. Lucky for me (and the rat, incidentally) it wasn't badly hooked. Do rats count as fish, then?

I moved on from a standard 50inch brolly to a Korum day shelter. It must be said, the extra space and stability made the change seem like a no-brainer but there are so many venues where the paths and pegs have been "improved" by laying down gravel that it's a toss-up whether you can get the pegs in. Whacking them in with a mallet isn't an option, for obvious reasons. It's a pig to get in tight swims, too. Also, it's impossible to get the shelter in my favourite quiver and it's length and weight cause balance issues in the other one. Not such a problem, I suppose, if you regularly use a trolley. I suppose that some of these problems are unique to the Korum shelter and it's banana-like shape when stowed away, but the upshot is that I wish I'd kept the brolly. In your position, I'd make room in the garage for both.

It's a wonderful tool in the right circumstances, so I would be unsurprised if you turned out to be right. But with the proliferation of carp in almost every stillwater we fish nowadays it hardly ever comes out of the bag. Shame, really.

I've just checked postage cost, and at £2, it's double what I expected, so price for a pair will have to be £6. Sorry for any confusion, gents. (PMs sent to Adam and Maddog). Apologies, Rob.

Thanks Newt.

No, mate. It's definitely from one of the major manufacturers. From a time when Used Tackle sold off "end of production run" rods at daft prices. I seem to remember the vendor saying that it was an unbadged Blue Diamond, but I thought those rods had a diamond cross-weave overlay, hence the confusion. It's far too nice a rod to be an early(ish) example of Used Tackle's own brand. Balance is superb - it's one of those "extension of my own arm" rods that you know is right as soon as you pick it up.

Can anyone put a name to this 13ft float rod? First thoughts are that its a Leeda rod, but the A7000 series rods I've seen have been designated A17**, so perhaps not. It's a belting silverfish rod, fast on the strike but bends to the corks on a good 'un. Too soft for anything bigger than 5 or 6 lb - it just stays in a ruddy big hoop for the whole fight. Blank looks dark blue, but it's 2 tone in the right light. Weight is 6oz. Screw down reel fitting. Cork handle with duplon fore and aft. Lightweight single-leg silicon carbide rings. Put-over joints. Bought it from Used Tackle at Skegness market maybe ten years back for £30 (supposedly reduced from £150).

You have my sympathies - I must have the worst ratio in existence for landed versus lost biggies. Nice consolation prizes though, and great dog, mate.

Never, not even SEEN a bailiff in nearly 4 decades of angling.

Fishing on the Ure on the day ticket stretch below the town centre bridge, I'd got a good shoal of roach and dace lined up on the long trot, but couldn't pull them further upstream than 25 yards or so. Fine tackle was the order of the day. My Shakey Boron float rod and Abu 501 with 1.7lb perlon main line/1.1lb hook link/fine wire 22 (no microfine lines in the 80s, 4lb line was like baling twine back in them days!) were just the ticket on a cold day when the river was carrying a few inches of extra water and I was justifiably proud of my ability as a float fishing supremo par excellence. A few decent roach over the pound had begun to grace the net, and it struck me that a couple of longer trots might just pick up an even better fish hanging deep at the back of the shoal, so I let the float travel a few extra yards and sure enough it pulled under. A firm strike, cushioned by the boron's fine tip, connected with a much better fish which held station in the extra flow. Feeling sure I was connected to one of the mighty bream fabled to live on this stretch, I took it easy, becoming more and more aware of the fine sliver of steel connecting me to this unseen denizen of the deep. Every time I gained line and the fish came up in the water, it turned its flanks to the flow and took back some of the ground I was making up, but by degrees it came closer until eventually it was just beyond netting range, although I still hadn't caught more than a glimpse of its wide flanks in the turbid water. Now by this time, and I'd been playing the fish for the best part of an hour, a small gallery of intrigued locals had gathered behind me, fascinated by the action. I'd even begun to have visions of my picture in the angling press, when it finally surfaced on the edge of the net - a Hinton's carrier bag, fairly hooked in the handles but in poor, discoloured condition and carrying a gallon or so of putrid water. Well, you could have cooked an egg on my face. I took a small bow to the audience, who were by this time breaking up with one of the best bouts of uncontrolled mirth I will ever witness. Several of them actually had to sit down, real tears streaming down their faces."Does tha want us ter gerra pic, young 'un?", said the only one who still had the power of speech, "Yer might never see it's like agin!" I saw the funny side later on, but I've still not been back there. After all, it's only been 30 years and I might still be recognised.......

Cheers Brian. Are you the Tees croc hunter who I used to chat with at the (now defunct) tackle shop in the middle of Redcar High Street? If I remember rightly, I was after details of Thornaby club membership at the time.