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The Flying Tench

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Everything posted by The Flying Tench

  1. Welcome from me also Peter. I also really like roach, though I am a very unsuccessful roach angler! Until 6 years ago I lived in Newbury (Greenham) and was a member of Thatcham and Newbury angling socs. Doubtless you are aware the two main blogs on this site are from Newbury. Now I'm on the Thames near Wallingford where I've found it quite hard to adapt to a much wider river.
  2. Hi Bayleaf Interesting to hear you had a crack at link-ledgered cheesepaste. Having talked to one or two Thames anglers I intend to give it a try too, I'll let you know how I get on. It's interesting, successful chub anglers use and swear by different methods. Some invariably float-fish. Others feeder fish, often with bread. Others insist that chub feel the resistance of a feeder, and link ledger, often with cheese paste. Each to his own, I guess.
  3. Ian, I see that even in bad conditions and a deep swim you fished float. Is that always the case, or do conditions sometimes mean you resort to feeder and big baits? I ask of course with reference to my local Thames where my success with the chub is limited to say the least!
  4. Thanks WNB, I use them up to size 14 or 16, but the bigger sizes seem to be geared to carp with line strength of around 8lb, unsuitable for roach. Let me know if I've missed any
  5. I used to tie them using an old hook tier I had, but it wasn't a Matchman. Maybe I should get one and have a go? Do you do it at home or on the bank? The Drennan Sweetcorn range provide a reasonably fine barbless eyed hook. I can't understand why it's so hard to get similar barbed ones. Maybe I'll hear from someone that there is something out there.
  6. My eyesight and dexterity no longer allow me to tie spade ends, but I want some 8, 10, 12 hooks for roach fishing with flake. Can anyone recommend some fine wire eyed hooks I could use?
  7. So, in the article, what he seems to be saying is that the punched crumb will be more filling, which you don't want in cold weather. But isn't it the other way round? Surely the individual pieces of liquidized bread will be bigger and therefore more filling than the punched crumb, which is why many anglers fish punch on canals in winter? Neil, I must take another look at the Passion for Angling video. Can you remember which episode it is? So what do you do when tracking big roach in winter? As you say, Neil, if you put the sliced bread through a fine riddle it'll tend to draw the smaller fish. Maybe not sieve it but put in a limited amount? I've heard of people using a very small 10gm feeder, cast in and see where the current takes it. I plan to give it a try this winter.
  8. This article How to catch canal roach on punch | Advice | Angling Times says that punched crumb is 'too positive' in the cold weather, so use liquidised. I've no problem with liquidised bread, but in what sense is punched crumb too 'positive'?
  9. Stupendous, Steve! I don't know how you do it catching so many solid pike! I'll be interested in how you approach your chub hunt. Round here the favourite bait seems to be cheese paste, and the surprising thing to me is that quite a few anglers use straight lead rather than feeder as they reckon the chub feel the resistance. So for attractant they have to rely on throwing in a few scraps of cheese paste. Surprising to me that it works, but it seems to.
  10. Welcome to Anglers Net Maximus! And good to hear you fish the Thames, as I do, though I am a fair way up river at Wallingford which I guess one could call the Middle Thames. Personally I find the Thames a tricky river in term of working out where the fish are. I had some nice 2lb perch on lobworm a couple of weeks ago close to the bank, but when I went today not a bite. But there was very little flow, it was almost like summer, and I'm convinced in retrospect that they are back in the middle of the river. It would be good to hear what you've been catching. In the 6 years I've been here I haven't caught a huge amount compared with my previous years on the Kennet, and I think this is because I've been slow to understand the much bigger river. I had a fluke 20lb pike on deadbait. I do think the pike fishing is good here, and quite a few people lure fish, though that may not apply down river. I'm told there are a lot of roach up to about 10oz (a few bigger ones of course), and looking at match results not too far from here the winners get up to 50lbs in the summer on hemp and tares, though my best is only about 5lbs I have to admit! The chub grow big, though in my judgment there are not as many of them as there were on the Kennet. There are a lot less bream than there used to be. You ask about best fishing times, Well of course dawn and dusk like anywhere else. I don't know about the night. It's hard to advise on baits as it may be very different where you are. The favourite bait for chub here seems to be cheese paste. The most unfavourite bait in summer and autumn is maggot because of the bleak! Let's see what others come up with. I'm not aware of anyone on AN who currently fishes the lower Thames, but who knows. Do let us know what kind of fishing you do and what you've been catching.
  11. Thanks everyone, I hadn't heard of Felindre. That's the answer for me, they sound great. John
  12. Neil, congrats on your pb perch! How big was that? I was using a free running rig with feeder and liquidised bread. Hook baits 4mm and 6mm pellets, also bread and I did briefly try maggot. The hook length was about 12". I'd be interested to hear how critical you and others think hook length is. Yes, on reflection I hear what you say re using a bolt rig. I can see it could have converted some of those cautious bites. Grrr, silly me! I'm also interested in what you say about 'fishing for bites.' Take the Thames here as an example. If I'm not getting bites on a bigger bait I could always switch to maggot feeder which would get me bleak and other micro-fish, but what's the point of that? I accept that there are rivers where eventually bigger fish would come into the swim and push the tiny ones out, but that certainly doesn't work on the Thames when the bleak are around. Still, maybe the Thames is an exception. Oh, I forgot to say, what's wrong with a bobbin on a river? I'm not just thinking of the River Severn. Locally, on the Thames I've had some reasonable perch recently using a shaved down quiver tip, but I'm still aware of the need to minimise the resistance and I'm wondering if a bobbin with the rod pointed at the bait would be preferable
  13. After 25 years my trusty Shimano Exage 2500 RA reel has packed up. Or more strictly I bust it up when taking it apart for cleaning, and couldn't put it together again! It's been a good reel, so I'd like to replace it with something similar, but the range seems to be discontinued and I can't work out which of the current Shimano reels is the equivalent. Can anyone advise? I think you'd call it a match reel, but I'm not sure. I use it for general ledgering and float fishing for roach, perch chub etc John
  14. On the trip referred to in the last post about angling footwear I was getting a reasonable number of indications on the (sanded down, very sensitive) quiver tip, but didn't manage to convert any into hook-ups. The indications were more than a rattle. Often the tip would move a couple of inches and then stop. Would that mean the fish was feeling the resistance? Has anyone any idea how to respond to this? Does a bobbin create less resistance in your view than a quiver tip? I realise a float would often be the answer, but sometimes that isn't possible - in this case there were a lot of swans! What about a longer tail? Do you find this makes a difference when the fish are in a cautious mood? How do matchmen respond to this kind of thing?
  15. I've just returned from a rather unsuccessful roaching trip on the Severn, and part of the problem was coping with the high slippery muddy banks. At the time I thought the problem was that I'm not as young as I used to be, but on reflection, even for a fit 20 year old, some of those pegs would be a challenge. Maybe I have the wrong fishing shoes - I did slide into the Thames once! So what do you wear for slippery, muddy banks? Do your shoes have studs?
  16. I booked myself a couple of nights in a B&B in Bewdley in the hope of catching some Severn roach and maybe beating my river roach pb, a modest 1lb 2oz. Alas, things didn't go to plan, but as with all failed angling trips I'm hoping I can learn from the experience! Wed: arrived at 2pm at a BAA water, Blackstone Farm where I'd been reliably informed I could drive along the bank, only to find BAA hadn't sent me the lock combination. Just past office hours so I couldn't phone them up. Grrr. Hung around for an hour till a friendly BAA angler let me in. Oh dear, I'd forgotten how high the banks of the Severn tend to be! In light rain the overall impression was 'mud, mud, (in)glorious (very slippery) mud!' With difficulty I somehow got down to a fishing point, but was at a loss how to approach the fishing. The river seemed to be belting through, even though the height was normal. Where on earth would the roach be? When dusk came I felt outclassed by the river, and had no idea how and where I would catch any roach. Thurs: The fishing shop manager cheered me up with the assurance people were catching a lot of good roach, and put me onto a couple of swims where the flow wasn't too fast and where, despite my dodgy back, I could handle climbing down the bank without falling in - just! The first one, in the town centre, looked particularly promising. I fished feeder, trying both bread flake and pellets and started getting tentative bites, but never hooked a fish, despite fishing in this swim most of the day. One point of interest was that bites normally came after feeding liquidised bread, though, strangely, bread flake on the hook was ignored. In fact the best bites came on 6mm halibut pellet immediately after feeding liquidised bread! I was fishing an in-line feeder (is this the right term? I mean the line went through the swivel, not through the feeder itself.) I had sanded down the quiver tip so that it was, I thought, super sensitive. So the question for me is how I could have converted some of those, mostly tentative, bites into hook-ups. Then I spent an hour exploring the other peg I'd been given to no avail. Friday: a partial answer that had come to me was that, as the pellets were attached by a hair, the roach were holding the pellets cautiously in their mouths without engulfing the hook. So I planned to spend the morning experimenting with sweetcorn. Alas, there had been heavy rain in the night, and I knew the banks would be more slippery than ever, so decided to call it a day. 2 questions - I'd appreciate any thoughts 1. How could I have converted some of those bites into hook-ups? 2. What footwear do you use when the banks are very slippery? Thanks John
  17. 25th Oct Same approach (lobworms on straight lead and Liquid Worm attractant). 3 nice perch 2lb 6 oz, 2lb 8 oz and a smaller one approx 1lb. 28th Oct and 1st Nov Just when I thought I'd got the perch sussed, 2 blanks. Today it felt very cold to me, I'll have to get the thermals out. I got several bites, though. In two cases they bit off the worm just below the hook!
  18. Interesting that they had time to print books on angling in the middle of WW2! I guess it was a source of food in that difficult time, or maybe it was just a case of 'life goes on.'
  19. Re-printed 1968, but I am sure originally published a fair bit sooner, with contributions from Eric Parker, FWK Wallis, Edward Ensom ('Faddist') etc, I think this was a bit of a coarse fishing 'bible' in its time. It was passed to me by a friend whose late husband was an angler, but I have now finished with it. Is there someone with an interest in traditional methods of coarse fishing who would like it? I'd be very happy to post it to you. Hardback 350pp.
  20. Sounds like the catch of a lifetime to me, well done!
  21. Yes, I get the paperclip symbol. It makes sense what you say about Thunderbird not downloading it, but I forwarded it to my wife and she was able to print etc OK. It must be some other problem. Thanks for your help, I'll take it to a computer repairs shop I've found and see if they can help. John
  22. As you say, Chris, a good start to your campaign. I shall watch with interest!
  23. Superb Rainbow, Bayleaf, congratulations! Surprised to hear the chub are evading you, though I must admit they are evading me on the Thames. When I was in Newbury a place I never heard talked about on AN but where I couldn't fail to catch a chub or two was the side stream north of the river/canal just below the A339. I realise you may already have enough on your plate, but PM me if you want any more details.
  24. Thanks, Chesters That could be useful generally, but to use it wouldn't I need the document in pdf to start with? My problem at present is that it's not getting through at all even though the email says there's an attachment
  25. Attractor groundbait dowsed with liquid worm, hook bait lobworms, straight lead. On Wednesday I found a new swim where I was getting bites from good perch. I would play them for 20 seconds or so and think they were securely hooked, and then they got off. I just landed one of about 1.5 lbs, but lost 4 or 5 good fish. Today, Friday, I tried again with the same approach. 4 small ones and a lovely 2 lb 9oz. It started well, but after the 2 pounder the swim went dead. I assume the fight spooked the rest, as I didn't think to draw him out of the swim asap. Will do so next time!
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