kenj

I started a personal blog style website http://www.urbanfieldsportsman.com/ in December, following encouragement from others, after flyfishing forum posts and emails to friends. You put it online and see what happens. I already have a healthy, growing readership, who like my style, but also those that have gained from the information posted. It's not a commercial site and cost little to set up, as my son is a software developer, it still being a work in progress. Bloggers feel they have something to share and I enjoy reading them. You are never too old to learn.

Having fished in the rivers of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, small bubblefloats are part of the standard rig for most flyfishermen and recommended by guides. I tried it on tailwaters, trotting down a team of nymphs. a bit like trotting a stick float. I saw large bubble floats used to cast a "washing line" with the bubble at the end on a lake, but they were using 6 ft rods and fixed spool reels.

Hi arbocop, Try to get some grey mullet flyfishing this summer. Beats rainbows hands down. I used to have the Saturday fishing rights on the Waterloo Stream, an offshoot of the Avon in Christchurch and first caught a 2 lb mullet, when catching big dace on a Peter Ross sea trout fly. Fantastic long leaping runs in the shallows with the tide going out. On another day fishing from my boat, I had a fish on every cast with an old Jersey Herd, but lost all but one, a four pounder, due I think to the soft mouth.

The third Peter last night, the youngest, was brilliant. They ought to give him his own show. John Bailey was just a bystander.

It's a difficult one, but if they didn't feel anything and just swam in for a pleasant chat, we wouldn't do it, unless we wanted them for the pot.

I shoot and fish, which in my view are classed as hunting, either stalking a trout in the river, or crawling within range to shoot a rabbit. I have a Firearms Licence, which allows me to shoot fox. On most of my permissions, I am there to shoot vermin as required by the landowner, usually rabbits, rats and feral pigeons, but if required will shoot fox. In one such case, the farmer's wife bred show chickens, helped by her young children. Despite a German Shepherd loose in the yard, a fox got in and killed the lot. They restocked and he kept coming back at a certain time on his travels, so I shot it. If I am out in the field after rabbits and I see a fox, I'll let it be, unless we have unfinished business on that land. I have a website http://www.urbanfieldsportsman.com/ and have a lot of response from the US, where they have not lost the connection between fishing and shooting to put food on the table. I did not support the ban on hunting with dogs.

The first episode had me cringeing at times. Taking the rod from the Peter, THEN loosing the fish. I bet he dosen't dare go down the pub now! The second episode was much better with some beautiful fish.

The Thames of over fifty years ago was the first river I fished, a piece of flake, or crust for roach, while a worm from the garden would tempt perch, but more likely a daddy ruffe, or pope. Later I discovered the river Colne ten miles above it's confluence at Staines, where with school friends, we would plunder the stocks of dace and roach, only for it to turn black one summer's day, as we watched fish after fish rise to the surface to drift off gasping. That pollution killed off the Colne for over a dozen years before it recovered, by which time I was married and living a mile from it's banks. The first fish to reappear were small roach and chublets, followed a few years later by shoals of dace. One day I was fishing alongside a road and a car stopped. The driver getting out, asked why I was fishing there, as there were no fish in it. I lifted my keepnet, which was boiling with dace. He got back in and drove off, returning an hour later with his rod. The following ten years put the Colne as my number one river. After a hard match on the Thames, or Grand Union, I would often stop by to "get rid" of my bait, piling it in to bring on the chub and often barbel to my stick floated maggot. The Colne was a well kept secret for a long time, but as reports of it's barbel grew, so did it's decline in my eyes, as PVA pellet became the method on this shallow stream. On my last visit, I was asked why I was using the stickfloat, when I should be on the feeder, if I wanted to catch fish. I have no more visits planned.

I have fished the Thames and it's tributaries around Windsor since I was a kid and have witnessed the improvement to water treatment, that has transformed the general water quality. The "Sewer Stream" at Eton Wick used to run black into the Thames in the 60's, although if you could put up with the smell, we kids used to stand shoulder to shoulder against the hand rail swinging in roach one after the other. Today the brook runs clear and supports all species, even trout and was a brilliant stick float venue, before a change of ownership restricted fishing. It has been badly polluted a couple of times. Who by? Thames Water.

Cheers for that. Better get posting then!

Hi Elton, I've just joined the Forum and would like to post a few blogs of my own, but even my computor wizard son can't figure out how to get one on. Help please. You've got some really eloquent bloggers on here and I'd like to join them.

Like most, I've read quite a few posts on this forum and decided to sign up. Covered all aspects of angling in the past, apart from Salmon fishing, so may have some advice to offer, while always keen to learn a few new tricks. Started a hunting and fishing website in December 2012 http://www.urbanfieldsportsman.com/index.php/category/fishing/ Would appreciate any comments good and bad.