The Flying Tench

I bought some in the angling shop in a tin, ready cooked. Seemed fine, and as I was just using them as hook bait, and feeding with hemp, I split them in 4 parts, and put three in the freezer. So enough for 4 outings, so there'd have been no saving by cooking my own.

I've still got a question! When pike fishing now I'll make sure I have waders on so I can hold the fish as required. But I was grayling fishing today and there was a high bank with reeds and bank foliage and it would have been difficult to get down to the water. I caught a half pound fish and lowered him into the water in my landing net. To my surprise he lay upside down. I was puzzled 'cos it was oxygenated water; I'd wound him in straight away, and he hadn't been out of the water very long. Still, I moved him so he was facing upstream, but I didn't know if it was doing him any good as he was upside down. I (probably wrongly) gave him a prod and he swam away. My question is: 'Is it absolutely vital that they are upright?' Won't the water flow across their gills even if they're the wrong way up? I realise, of course that they should be upright before they swim off. My problem today was that I wasn't sure if I was helping or hindering by holding him the wrong way up. I guess there's a general question about grayling here, too. I instinctively feel that they are a bit sensitive to being handled - I don't know if I've heard that somewhere, or if it's just that you have to grip them rather firmly to get the hooks out. I know most people fish for them in winter, and I wonder if that's a wise policy for their general health?

Thanks - all helpful stuff

I've found this a very helpful thread. I'm an occasional pike angler, but most of the pike I've caught have been small (4-7lbs) in an oxygenated river in the summer, and I've never had any problems. But I caught a 14 pounder a few weeks ago in a kind of mill pool. I got him in quite quickly on strong line, and he was out of the water a very short time. I lowered him back in down a steep bank in a landing net, but was puzzled that he couldn't get his balance for ages. He just lay on his side floating for about 10 minutes, then eventually swam off, and someone saw him a few days later and he was fine, thankfully. But was it OK to let him lie on his side? It would be difficult to support him in the water for long if one didn't have waders on - though I suppose I'd get wet if i had to!

I'm interested by Newt's theory that crays could attract carp or predators, but I've got to say I've never had a successful day when there's been a lot of cray activity. What have others found?

Thanks for all the info. Accepting that they eat almost anything, there must still be some groundbaits that draw them in more than others. Peter M mentions that they love corn. Liam, I guess barbel anglers usually bait up with hemp, pellets, or maybe bread. Do you find it makes any difference vis a vis the crays? Hope the fishing's going well by the way.

I've just had a session on the Kennet with sweetcorn flavoured with 'Floral Surprise' and I was pestered heavily by Reggie and Ronnie. I used to think that you'd get trouble if you were ledgering with maggot, worm or dead fish, but that vegetable baits would be OK - but it certainly wasn't so today. I don't know if the strong flavouring could have added to the attraction for the crays? I just baited up with a small tin of corn, and by the time the hook bait was in the water they were onto it. What's a strategy for the future? I realise I could float fish, but are there other baits that would have attracted the crays less? If I'd baited with hemp, for example, would it have attracted less of the blighters into the swim? What do otheres do?

The reason I find it helpful is that it's local to me and helps me to get realistic ideas about what can be achieved on some of the waters I fish. You sometimes hear comments like 'the Kennet's a dead loss nowadays, better to fish the lakes'; but hearing how Chris, who knows the waters round here well, is getting on puts these kind of comments into perspective. I also found a recent thread on 'fishing around Newbury' (or some such title) involving several anglers very useful. Of course, that's not going to be much help to those souls who live in more peripheral sectors of the universe, but there's nothing to stop others doing the same thing - indeed, people do from time to time.

I've just come back from Switzerland. Didn't manage to do much fishing, apart from a little bit of spinning for perch in Lake Neuchatel, but I had a fascinating meal in a restaurant in Berne overlooking the River Aar. It was an amazing river, tanking down at about 6 miles an hour, I'd say, and there was a constant stream of swimmers gliding down the river, some with their clothes in poly bags, and then they'd get out somewhere downstream and walk up past the restaurant and then leap in again and glide down the river to the entertainment of diners like me. But I couldn't help wondering what kind of fish lived in that fast, wide, even-flowing deluge of green coming down from the mountains. Does anyone know?

Chris, are you going to give us some excerpts for this season? I was certainly looking forward to them, though admittedly I'm biassed being local. Will understand if it's too time consuming, but if you were waiting to check demand, I'm a 'yes' - even if you can't manage it every week. Hope the fishing's going well.

Thanks everyone, really interesting, though it makes me realise I'm only just starting in this area. Rich, which part of the Kennet do you fish - the bits near Newbury where I am which can be fairly shallow and at least semi-clear, or further down towards Reading where I imagine it's deeper and harder for the barbel to see the line? The reason for asking is that I recently read an interesting article on this site on Barbel Behaviour by Mick Wood. He concluded, in one location, that because he was fishing with a bow the barbel spooked because they could see the line. It's a really interesting article, at least three quarters of the way down the list, and he bases it on actually observing barbel behaviour. in shallow water

3 questions, Peter: 1) How did you come to this conclusion? Watching pike in clear water or finding your catch rate went up when you used some buoyancy? 2) Presumably you're saying that you should always have neutralising buoyancy - whether ledgering on the bottom or hanging midwater from a float? 3) It could be quite a bother balancing each deadbait. It's easy enough to put on a 'pop up' piece of rig-foam to get the bait to float above a ledger - but arguably this would have the same problem as no buoyancy as the pike might think it felt too buoyant? Or maybe there's no need to be too exact, and you just push a bit of rig foam down the dead's throat based on experience, and you don't need to mess about testing each dead in the water?

Various people seem to believe in the value of having you bait have almost exactly the same density as water. For example Archie Braddock recommends a bait combining cheese and breadcrust to have neutral buoyancy, and some barbel fishers recommend using a hair so that the hook doesn't make the luncheon meat seem heavy. I can see this might be necessary fishing for big carp in a hard fished water, but I find it hard to believe in most rivers and even canals that it makes much difference for normal fishing. For example, if you get the barbel into your swim and you've got a big hunk of luncheon meat on the hook, isn't one of them going to take it regardless? But much better anglers than me obviously think it does matter. Has anyone any experience of changing to neutral buoyancy baits and finding their catch rate goes up? And does it always matter, or just sometimes?

Fred Guttfield told me about a stretch belonging to Old Windsor AC. Approx £3 per day, pay on the bank. I've had a look, but not fished it yet. Apparently you get good bream, and the Thames bream round there are apparently 6-7lb! You can park in Windsor railway station car park (though this will cost at least £3) Walk to the far end of the car park, and keep on walking with the river on your left. Cross the river when you can (I seem to remember you also cross a kind of canal cut also) and start walking upstream with the river on your left. That's where you fish. I looked at it a year ago, so apologies if my memory isn't perfect. I'm sure Fred will correct me if he logs on. Also you could phone Windsor Angling Centre, 153 St Leonards Road, phone 01753 867210. (Correct as of last year.) Let us know how you get on. Might get me up there if you get among the bream!

I was fishing fairly unsuccessfully by the canal yesterday, and there was a constant stream of people coming down the tow path. Plenty of joggers thumping the tow path and scaring the fish, plenty of dog walkers - though all very pleasant, and well inclined towards fishing. Then I heard a sound like the battle of El Alamein. It was 2 joggers, a man and a woman, but the woman had a thick rope tied round her waist. This was tied to a chain, which in turn was tied to 2 massive tyres which she was towing along. The noise these made was pretty amazing. I have two questions, not being a very experienced canal angler: 1) Is this normal? 2) Where would you fish in the circumstances?

About 30 years ago, just after 'Jaws', I read in the Angling Times that someone had made a freshwater equivalent about a man (and doubtless bikini-clad-woman) -eating pike. Apparently it was low budget, and the pike was obviously made of cardboard, but 30 years on it sounds wonderful and I wish I'd seen it. I can't imagine it got put onto video, but did anyone see it?

It seems to be tape-grass (vallisnaria spiralis). I'm puzzled that it shouldn't have fish holding potential. It provides cover, and presumably some insects must like it? But someone told me the caddis larvae feed on fluitans, and the barbel love to suck them off - and I can see that must be hard to beat!

I went down and had a look at one place today where i assumed there'd be some silt but there was loads of streamer weed last year. I'm pleased to say there was still loads of weed, but it wasn't Ranunculus - as you would guess from ajp's info. It just looked like very big bits of grass (half an inch wide, 3 feet long) waving in the current. No flowers. Not so different from the reeds standing up out of the edge of the water, but maybe slightly narrower, slightly yellower. AJP, have you any idea what sort of weed this would be?

Glenn, on an earlier thread you mentioned you'd had pike on floating deadbaits. Do you mean by that mid-water, or literally floating on the surface? For some reason the latter is something I've never heard of, but it sounds really exciting watching the takes, if it works. I'd welcome any advice.

AJP - thanks, but which is the species anglers are talking about when they talk of 'streamer weed'? Or are you saying thay can be talking of any or all of the ones you mention?

Helpful stuff. Thanks.

I was interested by Argyll's comments in a current thread on lure-fishing, saying that pike are likely to move out of the weir-pool when there's been rain, and are likely to have moved to eddies a bit downstream. I guess it will depend a bit on the weir-pool, but that was something i certainly hadn't realised. I wondered if Argyll or others have other information on where fish are likely to be in weirpools at different times of year and in different conditions. For example, I was told recently that barbel don't usually spawn in the weirpool, but in shallower water downstream, and are therefore more likely to be found in the tail of the pool or further downstream at the start of the season. I assume the implication is they concentrate in the weirpool later on? Having said that, I know one weirpool where barbel certainly are found in good numbers at the start of the season. Maybe it'll be hard to generalize, but my guess is I'm not the only one who'd appreciate a bit of knowledge from those with a lot of experience of fishing weirpools.

Related to the topic of this thread, i just typed 'angler' into a search engine and discovered that the Scouts have an Angler badge which includes stuff on looking out for fish suffering pollution, noting the fauna and flora, as well as some basic angling skills - sea, coarse or game. Good to see.

Streamer weed is considered good news for insect life and therefore fish. On the Kennet there's big concern that it's all but disappeared in many stretches, and many think it's particles of silt from the canalised stretches being suspended in the water and getting into the fast clear bits. I don't know if this is happening in other rivers? But I've got some questions. Am I right that by 'streamer weed' people mean Ranunculus? I understand that this will only grow in clear gravel, and won't grow in silt, so the theory makes sense so far. But it seems to be growing OK in the slower bits, but the fast bits are devoid. One theory is that the bits it's growing in were fast, but they've slowed because of the weed. I'm only half convinced by that. But there are other quite slow canalised bits where there's streamer weed and I'd have thought there must be silt. Is there another type of streamer weed as well as Ranunculus?

I was recently given a book 'Death, Taxes and Leaky Waders' - 'the best of John Gierach', a US fly fisherman. Lots of stuff on 'the smell of camp coffee' etc, semi literary but with stuff on fishing too. It was published in 2000, but of course the individual extracts may have been written long before. There's a chapter on fly fishing for Northern Pike, and I was a bit horrified. His friend caught an 18lb pike. 'The fish honestly scared the hell out of both of us. A pike is a fabulously ugly fish...snaky, but obscenely fat...chillingly slimy, with clear goo looping off it like snot.....Ed did a workmanlike job gaffing the thing, but then, after looking around to make sure no one was watching, we dragged it up the beach and beat it to death with a rock.' They then took it to the local fishing sop and had it weighed and photographed. Maybe the explanation is that it took place a while ago. 'The well equipped pike fisher carries a gaff, ...jaw spreaders and a short, weighted club.' But I wondered how pike, generally, are treated outside UK.