The Flying Tench

Extremely interesting, but it brings another thought to mind. You clearly rate the power of smell to bring a pike from a reasonable distance. This raises the question of groundbaiting a number of swims with bits of sprat. I'd assumed this was only worthwhile if you did it with a lot of chopped fish over several days, but if the smell of one sprat can attract it must be worth baiting up a few swims when you first arrive with a few chopped up sprats, on the basis that the pike they attract are reasonably likely to stay around? On the matter of temperature, which you mentioned earlier, I assume it is vital to check this in the winter and maybe in the spring when the margins are warming up, but it's not really an issue in June to October?

Thanks, Leon, 2 really interesting posts. Out of interest, do you find it worthwhile injecting a deadbait with sardine oil etc to get a greater trail of flavour, or do you reckon the deadbait gives off enough flavour of it's own? It occurs to me the points in the last post about where the scent is going applies to much bait fishing, not just pike, but I've never heard it mentioned before. One small point. Is it necessarily true that the undertow is going the opposite direction to the surface? Might all the water just be going round and round the lake, with the lower layers going slower?

AJP and Cyranne, thanks for the info on the Hants Avon. Do you know if those stretches are still good for roach? The guy who's half persuaded me to go there is a good angler, but is relying on trips 15 years ago, and I thought I heard somewhere that there are a lot less roach in the Avon now.

Fordy, do you mean where the small sidestream from the weir at Colthrop meets the canal? Thats a Newbury AA water nowadays. How long ago was it good for roach? I fished it a year ago and got dozens of very small ones, but admittedly that was in the summer.

I guess I've probably been gullible. I still meet people who say 'Roach - you want to go to the canal at X - can't fail, bite a chuck. Don't even need to take bait, mate, get some elderberries off the trees, you'll get them up to a pound and a half easily' etc etc. But when I go and watch someone fishing it's usually 'Only small ones today, mate, but I got a 2 pounder yesterday!' OK, taking Leon's point seriously about needing to find the shoal, what's the best approach? Ideally you'd bait up in advance, but that's not practicable for many of us. What I normally do when I get to a gravel pit, say, is to choose a suitable looking swim (in winter where I know it's reasonably deep at the edge, and facing into the prevailing wind), put in a little groundbait, start loose-feeding, and start fishing. But if the shoal's not there, how likely is it to arrive in the 3 hours I've got? I've heard of an approach where you cast a maggot feeder in lines across the lake, and wind it in leaving trails of maggots leading to your swim. But won't the maggots soon crawl away? Would an alternative be to tackle up, and move round the lake, moving say 2 swims at a time and giving 5 minutes or so at each, in the hope of bumping into a shoal? I've never heard of anyone doing it. My instinct is you'd be most likely just to contact small ones that way, but maybe a swim where you got a small one within 5 minutes in winter would be a reasonable place to start? Otherwise, my impression is that, even if you found the shoal one week, roach move around and you're not much better off for the next? Are there any clues I'm missing?

There's a lot of useful info there that I'll take time to digest. The dormitory theory certainly explains why a mill pool I know seems to have more pike in it than the bait fish population could support. But it would still be interesting to hear what experienced pike anglers normally do in practice. In a fast river, where you've got a nice eddy at the side (Leon's ambush case), and you catch a female pike it seems to me you'd normally move on as there are unlikely to be any more big pike there for the next half hour or so at least. In lakes, some anglers fish the same spot all day, and they'll stay put anyway. But others will fish a spot for 20 minutes and then move on. Say, just before you move on you catch a nice pike, what do most people do? It's unlikely to be a pre-spawning gathering, as it's just a normal peg round a lake. Maybe the right strategy is to cast a spinner around. Suppose that doesn't yield anything. My impression from what I've heard is that you should probably move, but maybe come back later? (On the basis that, if it's an ambush pike you've caught it, and you're as likely to catch a patrolling fish at another peg as much as the one you're at now)

The trouble with exceptional fish is that they're hard to catch, hence my comment about legering through the night. I was wondering if anyone gets easy fishing for middle size roach. I'm interested in the south of England, but others might like to know about other parts.

I live on the Kennet at Newbury, so really I'm a spoiled so and so, but though I've had good fishing for most species, the one that largely eludes me is the roach. There still are good roach on the Kennet, but I'm told not like there were, and I don't think I'm very good at fishing for them! Am I deluded, or used there to be places where you could go down to the river and have comparatively easy sport with roach in the half pound to a pound bracket, with bigger ones if you were lucky, without having to fish all night with a ledgered piece of breadflake? And do such places still exist? One person assures me that one such place is the Hants Avon (I think he said a park at Fordingbridge with free fishing, and a feeder stream at Ringwood with d/ticket, or it might have been the other way round). I've provisionally arranged a trip there in the new year, but this friend hasn't been there for 15 years, and I'm a bit worried things may have changed! Any comments would be welcome.

When you catch a pike, is it the signal that you should move on or stay? And is it different for rivers from lakes? I met a guy today fishing a corner swim on a gravel pit, and he stays in one swim the whole day, and often catches half a dozen pike. Now presumably these fish aren't all in the swim at the start. So maybe it's a place where patrol routes coincide, and it's wise to stay. On the other hand, if a reasonable proportion of the pike stay in the same swim, he/we would presumably do better to move on after catching a fish? Though, am I right in saying this applies more in rivers, where you might have a nice hole under a bank where Mrs Pike is waiting for what the flow brings by, and when you catch her the swim is empty, so you neeed to move. Going back to the pit in question, the guy I met said he caught most fish if he put the bait about 3 feet from the bank, but bigger fish if he went out a few rod lengths. Does this mean some of the smaller fish patrol round very close to the bank looking for........... not quite sure what, while the bigger ones... Well, I just ask ze questions round here!

Why do roach vary so much in their colour? Sometimes they're a)slim almost like a chub or dace with greeny-brown backs and not much red colour in their fins; fat, half way to a bream, with silvery-blue backs and fabulous red fins; c)fat, but almost albino My impression is they're most often like in clear water, specially in the summer; like c) in murky water or deep pits, particularly in the winter; but they don't always seem to follow these rules, and you can get all three types in one swim. Does the gender make any difference? Does anyone have any ideas?

I was watching a guy fish a canalised section of the kennett in the summer, and he's caught some good roach of around three-quarters of a pound, which was impressive as it was a boiling hot day and there were loads of boats. I asked him where he was fishing, and he said 'By the cabbages there', and pointed to a spot near the bank. But he explained he was casting to the middle, and letting the current bring the feeder round. I didn't see the point. I thought 'if the fish are in the middle, why not use a heavier lead and fish in the middle? And if they're by the cabbages, why not fish there in the first place?' At long last i fished here on Monday, and cast to just where the cabbages had been - just one or two minnows. Then i cast to the middle, and let the feeder come round, and started getting bites and caught a few roach on a bright cold day, though nothing of any size. Most of the time i was fishing with maggot feeder, and I wondered whether it was leaving a trail of maggots which attracted the fish - though, actually, the efffect was immediate, so i almost wonder if they were following the feeder round! Is this a recognised technique?

I got bitten by a pike today for the first time! I got a smallish fish, about 4lb, and put my gloved finger up inside the gill, as you're meant to, but didn't lift Mr Pike off the ground properly, so he could close his jaws. Alas the gloved finger ended up between his teeth, and he bit right through the glove! I'll do it properly from now on and lift him/her off the ground like they tell you.

Is there a web site which gives international records for our coarse fish? I'd be interested, for example, to know what the international roach record is. And do we hold the international record for any fish?

There was an intersting TV programme today which told how the clear water and good fish life of yesteryear had been destroyed by de-oxidisation by nitrates, though it said a programme of improvement which would take many decades had begun. But it said there was ONE BROAD where this hadn't happened, and you saw wonderful shots of fish in ultra clear water. Does anyone know which is the ONE BROAD?

Congrats to your brother Liam! Hope the fishing's going well with you. I'm afraid I've been lured away by perch for the moment. Got a 2lb 12oz, and aiming for a 3lb. Different league from Paul's fish, I realise.

Good to hear, but most of the £50,000 a year will be needed to pay the fund-raising officer plus on-costs, so there isn't really any money in the bag so far.

Cyranne, is this something you fix to the end of a keepnet, and then fish right next to it? Anything that almost guarantees a specimen perch on a river sounds amazing! More generally, there seem to be 2 different theories here, which I suppose could both be right. One is that that you need to keep the perch away from the shoal, as they'll scare the rest. The other is that you keep the perch in a net and they'll actually attract other perch. Where I'm fishing is a bit shallow, and I don't think the latter would work as they'd see me, but I think I'll use a keep net in future as there seems a pretty clear view that a released fish will spook the others. But why just perch? Andy's comment about release of a hormone should imply it'll affect all fish, but I've heard it mostly about perch. And since I'm talking about a shoal of BIG perch, since it attracts predators.....

I went worming for perch last Monday, and to my joy caught my pb at 2lb 12oz and another at llb within the first 20 mins. I didn't catch any more in the 2 hours I was there, but certainly wasn't complaining. It occurs to me, though, would I have been wise to use a keep net? I remember reading that if you put perch back they can scare the shoal.

Bradford Angler, do you even know whether the winning angler fished deliberately for pike from the start? I'd never heard of that in a general match. In fact, in most of the pike matches in newbury where I am, even though the general fishing is good, they only seem to catch a couple of pike and most people blank!

My most local fishing shop no longer opens on a Monday, my main fishing day, and it's sometimes inconvenient to travel a few miles to get maggots. I'm wondering about getting a small fridge to go in the garage. About how long will maggots last in a fridge?

A thing I've strangely never heard comment on in articles etc, so I'm asking you guys. When I get home from a spiining trip I sometimes take the trouble to try and dry the lures with a tissue, other times I forget. I suppose the main thought is to stop the hooks getting rusty, but they seem OK even when I forget, so maybe there's no need?

Steve and co, I understand about flavouring the maggots, but what about the fine crumb? It occurs to me that if it's fine it might not attract the crays as much as maggots or sweetcorn. Or maybe I'm wrong. Do crays normally grab their food in their pincers first (which wouldn't work for fine crumb?) or do they eat it straight up with their mouths?

There was a recent thread singing the praises of expander pellets for bream - on the pole. I don't have a pole and would ledger, but I like the idea of using pellet for bream in a weir pool near me. I assume on the ledger I'd need to use hard pellet drilled through, and mounted on a hair? I'd welcome any advice on this.

A friend told me he'd bought some perch groundbait - and he was convinced it had worked as there were swirls in the water with fry jumping out - but he didn't catch any perch. I'd find this very useful if it really worked, as I'm not keen on chopped worm, but you could argue that the groundbait just attracted the fry, which attracted Mr Perch. Has anyone else tried perch groundbait, and does it work?