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Rice Crackers

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Everything posted by Rice Crackers

  1. Thanks for your thoughts everyone...
  2. Hi.... I'm just about to move to a house about 400M from the Ivel in Sandy. Anyone know how the Ivel fishes through the summer? Is it choked up with weed? Thanks Pete
  3. Hi everyone. Not been on here for a while as I've not been fishing due to gear in storage ahead of a pending house move, anyway... I've lived in flats for ten years, but now having got married and with a little lad on the way, we've just exchanged contracts on a house, which means for the first time since I was a kid I'll have a garden, which means I'm going to do what I've always promised myself I'd do and get a shed just for my fishing gear. Probably with a table, chair, a little bait fridge and a radio too... Just really can't wait to have all of my stuff organised, accessible and in one place... So does anyone out there have any advice as to how I should go about doing it? Any ideas about storage? How do I stop mice destroying my nets for example? Anything I should completely avoid doing? Any kind of storage system worth getting hold of? Hope this doesn't seem like a silly question but I don't really know where to start... Thanks Pete
  4. Hammer - That's the River Lea. And having been to the Olympic park I'm pretty sure it's fenced off as it's a secure area. The area of the Lea above the Olympic park was home to quite a few of our travelling friends last time I looked so I wouldn't be heading down there with fishing gear. There is a stretch of canal that links the park to the Grand Union and can be accessed from Victoria Park in Hackney. There's even a lock (which looks weird in East London) but not sure what the fishing situation is.
  5. Is it me or has the notion of going to a naturally-occurring body of water to try and catch some naturally-occurring fish that are there because of nature a completely prehistoric one? Is the modern angler only prepared to wet his line in a water whose fish are tailor made to his needs? Why the hell are we moving fish around? They must be happy where they were or they wouldn't have been there in the first place... I strongly suspect that by 'un-fished' they mean 'free'. So our license fees are paying for the EA to move fish to areas where we have to pay again. Cheers EA
  6. OK so the close season is well and truly upon us and with rivers in lockdown and club waters shut I was thinking of heading off to one of my local day ticket waters for a day’s fishing (yes I know they’re over-populated mud puddles full of exotic non-native species but I want to go fishing) in a few weeks. The thing is I’m aware that we have a close season for a reason. It’s there to allow fish to spawn unhindered by anglers so is it morally OK to fish just because a loophole in the law means it’s allowed on land-locked waters? In the past I’ve always justified it to myself with the knowledge that when fish are spawning they are impossible to catch because they are completely uninterested in food, therefore at any given time you can theoretically only catch fish that aren’t breeding but this is a simplistic view based on my own experience (which isn’t huge compared to some on here) so is there more to it than that? Should I leave it until June?
  7. I've got a set of those Fishtec ones and whilst I don't use them often I think they're pretty good. I have no basis for comparison though
  8. I took a walk this afternoon along the River Oughton in Hitchin. It's a trickle of a chalk stream that feeds a nature reserve and feeds into the river Hiz, then the Ivel, which holds a good head of fish. I've lived in Hitchin for seven years and never once witnessed a fish in there. Anyway I saw a swirl in the water that could only have been a fish and when I moved near to the water to investigate, a Chub of about 1-2lb swam off upstream. As I walked upstream I saw 4-5 more. My only theory on this is that the winter floods swelled the rivers to the point that fish felt comfortable moving upstream from the river Ivel, which can only be a good thing provided the poor little fellas don't get stranded as the level drops. Has anyone else noticed similar patterns?
  9. I’ve never really understood the whole specimen carp angling scene. I can’t really understand the point of casting a boilie out 40 yds then sitting behind shiny, expensive buzz bars messing around on an iPad for the next four hours. It clearly suits quite alot of anglers though and seems to carry with it some kind of macho ‘my kit is more expensive than yours, I can cast further than you, my Fox rig is trendier than yours’ mentality with it. And the money they must spend on their hobby in which rigs, boilies and bite alarms do all the work for them could probably keep Concorde in the air. I have a club lake near me however that is full of carp and crucians up to 4-5lb and it is my favourite lake in the world. Shallow, with an acre of lily pads in the middle during summer you can just turn up, cast a float out and reel in fish pretty much all day. It is great sport. The specimen guys don’t touch it as there are no specimens in there but those who do love the place and I really feel that these specimen guys miss out on what I feel REAL fishing actually is. The point I’m trying to make is that while I really like this forum and understand (and largely agree with) the disdain toward specimen carp anglers, there seems to be a dislike of carp themselves which I don’t really get. I understand that some commercials are all about carp but there are plenty of waters with a variety of species into which carp are a valuable addition. On a day when I’ve had a few roach, bream etc, picking up an unexpected, hard-fighting, 7lb carp is a huge bonus and usually the highlight. Let’s give the poor carp a break....
  10. The thing with a property like this is that a large part of its assets are the fish, however the description of what it contains is so vague. "Several hundred carp up to 37lb" could mean anything and i would want to be far more sure what was in there before I spent three quarters of a million of my hard-earned on it...
  11. Think you made a wise choice Jack...
  12. or until they stop nicking fish...
  13. Thats quite a range of climates the tough little buggers can withstand. It's no wonder they're spreading so quickly...
  14. I haven't been on this forum long having just got back into fishing but one thing that's obvious is how invasive species in British waters has become a real issue in recent years. Seems it's even worse in Chicago, where they're seriously considering blocking the ship canal system (at tremendous economic cost) to prevent the spread of Asian Carp into the great lakes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26017956
  15. Its funny... It doesn't seem to matter how many times the experts repeat "dredging would not have helped alleviate the floods" people still keep banging on about it as if the EA deliberately laid waste to hundreds of acres of Somerset and Oxfordshire by flicking off the 'dredge' switch. I think its got more to do with human nature - and wanting someone to blame for this - than any kind of reality... And the 24/7 media encourage this nonsense because it gives them something to talk about...
  16. Assuming it's a crocodile from another country, lets just be grateful the mail didn't describe it as an immigrant
  17. Despite that the carp I used to take out of the upper Lea as a kid gave considerable more fight per pound than their lazy lake cousins...
  18. Some guys I know were fishing Manor Farm in Biggleswade over the weekend and were told by the management that they had an hour to pack up and get out as the River Ivel (which runs next to it) was about to burst its banks and flood them out. No doubt both bodies of water have exchanged fish. Bear in mind also that this area of the country is one of the less-affected and you can only imagine what its been like in the west... Plenty of exotic species finding their way into our rivers...
  19. This could be biblical given the amount of water there already. When you think about the number of fish lost to the floods a few weeks back it's bloody worrying...
  20. Let me know when you go and I'll see what I can do as I'm determined to have a successful day up there at some point. Can't do opening weekend though as I'll be on my hopneymoon! As regards the weed, I was up there on a camping holiday in July and at that point the river looked great. Could see Roach, Tench & Pike cruising around too. When I went back to fish about 6 weeks later it was totally different and completely choked-up. Given that the weed arrived so quick I'd imagine it's gone now. Hope so as it's a cracking little stretch... Boats are a pain though.
  21. When you going ND? I had a go over the summer near there (at Floods Ferry) but the place was completely choked up with weed and apart from some half-decent Roach I didn't get too much. I'd be interested to hear how you get on...
  22. Hi... I'm curious as to why you're travelling to London to fish when you presumably live out nearer the countryside where fishing is far better. I've never attempted to fish in town but I imagine it's fraught with all kind of restrictions and possibly the danger of being mugged (although Little Venice is pretty upmarket as the name suggests). I can't imagine trying to carry all your kit on a bus or the underground is very practical either. There's some useful info here, turns out you can fish in LV... http://www.londonangler.com/venue_display.asp?articleid=7
  23. Everyone knows dredging will achieve nothing. It may give a river slightly more capacity but in the event of a flood the effect will be minimal and will just mean floodwater gets downstream more quickly which will exacerbate the problem further down. The problem here is people are angry that they've been flooded out and they want someone to blame and direct their fury at. This, therefore has to be the government's fault as it's difficult to sue the weather gods. The ill-informed public perception is that the river needs to be dredged and hasn't been. How the river and all around it survived for the tens of thousands of years before the dredger was invented isn't clear, but who cares about that when a scapegoat is required? Lets put aside for a minute the fact that these people willingly moved to a flood plain and are now mystified as to why they're knee-deep in water. In situations such as this the government wants to be seen by the public to be decisive and acting in their best interests. The ill-informed public has demanded as course of action that any idiot can see will be futile but in order to score political points the government has agreed to it anyway at enormous public expense in order to score some points with the electorate.
  24. Last time i crossed that border (about 5 years ago) the only thing that told me it was a national border was a small sign with "BELGIQUE" written on it on either side of the motorway. The border is completely open. Unless something has drastically changed since then you're about as likely to get your car searched during a trip to the shops...
  25. I have to say I'd never heard the term 'Somerset Levels' until this week but I thought the very term 'levels' speaks volumes about the kind of terrain we're dealing with here so I looked it up on Wikipedia: The Somerset Levels, or the Somerset Levels and Moors as they are less commonly but more correctly known, is a sparsely populated coastal plain and wetland area of central Somerset it goes on to say: One explanation for the county of Somerset's name is that, in prehistory, because of winter flooding people restricted their use of the Levels to the summer, leading to a derivation from Sumorsaete, meaning land of the summer people. So this is a natural wetland that has regularly flooded in winter since at least before pre-historic times. Back then people were clever enough to avoid the area during winter but mankind has since decided to build all over it then act with total shock when it floods and start blaming the government and a lack of river dredging. This is just bonkers in my opinion. It's like moving to North Wales then demanding the government does something to alleviate all the rain
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