Peter M

nice to see a positive article about our sport

Well done Andy, i was walking over the Regants Canal in East London and saw some guys and they had a goodish looking Pike on the bank. i never see anyone fishing this canal and i walk over it every weekday. its very clear and the bottom is strewn with bits of trolly etc. Plus its in a very urban location, still it holds pike. Any neglected canal is worth a try in my book.

To start with i am going to target chub on my local rivers until the end of the season, i want to fish our non carp pond for silvers and crucians in the spring Hopefully going to get a night ticket for one of my clubs and target a twenty pound carp in the summer on a gravel pit along with my brother.

Well the large lump of bread did not work for me today although in the end i only fished for a couple of hours and did not fish into dusk as the rain was coming down in bucket fulls, that was a shame as it was nice up till then being out on the bank. one other angler was out trotting maggots and it had about 10 fish all roach and dace, No chub for either us. Thanks for all the advice especially about how to make mashed bread in the landing net I did it fine and the mash was good. The river was surprisingly low considering the rain we have had.

The upper river roding is very narrow and twisting, in the summer it was so low it was not worth fishing, in 2010 summer i had chub to over three pounds. it should have risen with all the rain. i am going to have a long wander and travel light. i am going to target bends particularly where there are overhanging trees. Nicepix do you fish the BDAS stretch at passingford bridge?

Those are lovely chub, wow this is really getting me in the mood

Ah thanks, interesting read. i bought the bread today so i am just going to go down and take some out of the packet and leave it out over night out so it goes stale. thanks

Going to go to a stretch of the river roding tomorrow that Ongar and District run. i will use a small cage feeder with mashed bread in, a quiver tip rod six pound line size 8 hook and a lump of flake on the hook. i will be after Chub. i want to have a good wander as i have rarely fished this river. Does anyone have any watercraft or tackle tips that they would like to share. I would be very grateful. thanks in advance.

That perch looks really nice well done mate

sounds like you had a very good day, tight lines

very sorry to hear of your loss Newt my condolences to you and those who were close to her.

thanks for the help guys, food for thought about the spinning rod.

hi i am in the market for a new 10 foot float rod, my old one seems to have given up the ghost. i want to fish a club water for tench bream and carp. trouble is the lilies are a haven and you need to get control quickly before the fish finds the roots. There are over hanging trees hence the shorter rod and any way its mostly margin stuff. i have been looking at the shimano force master as its two piece so easier to keep made up. Also seen a nice TFG rod Any suggestions greatly received

just my bit. when i started in psychiatric nursing the pay was awful the hours long the work often thankless, but i felt i was doing a valuable job. On the plus side the job was secure and the pension fair . That was the deal. private sector jobs paid better but were less secure and pensions not as good., in the last few years a nurses pay is now better, but the job is less secure and we were being asked to pay more into the pension and work for longer. Fair enough i thought maybe that is fair. But now they want to rip the guts out of the pension and hit people who have been in it back when we were being paid peanuts. Many people (like me) stuck with our public sector jobs (nurse, teacher, police officer, social worker) because we were committed to serving the public. I hope the bleating right wingers have enough money so they never need to use public services seeing as they do not value it.

you might want your memories to be fish filled so i would go the maggot route and try to catch lots of fish rather than hold out for a bigger one. good luck mate

what a great read

Done, we anglers need to stop local authorities preventing fishing, many have an anti angling bias.

Sooo back to the Perch! i have used cockles on a lake after tench in the summer and more often than not caught perch up to 8 ounces. And what about prawns? i will be going down to the river Roding in essex this weekend and want to go after the perch.

Really that is a bit hard, free lakes and bits of canal or river do exist in the southeast of England but to be honest are often rubbish, no one cares for them and they get robbed of their fish and litter is all around, really you should think about investing in a reasonable club, that can work our cheaper than always paying day tickets. The thing is you get what you pay for and if you pay nothing that is often what you get.

No i can't get on either!

I always have but i may not from now on !

this is why (unfortunatly) while i do now rarely fish public fisheries. even yesterday when i was on the river stort there were kids chucking in bricks into the river. its getting worse, my thoughts are with his family

Hi i dont go in for casting to the horizon and use small shimano baitrunners. they really good reels so if you have made your mind up go for it.

There are times when only boilies will do. At other times other baits come into their own. It depends on the time of year the weather conditions and things that differ from water to water. To give you example my brother and I were having difficulties catching carp during the day last week. Some had come out at night but we could not get anything. He was using two types of boilie and I was using 12 mil Halibut Pellet and cockles on the other rod. Fish were in our swims, so I changed to a sweet boilie as I felt that they were not hungry (there were in a pre spawning mode) but might be tempted by a sweet. Five minutes in the water and I had a double. The usual two types of boilie are bottom baits and pop ups. In terms of flavour it can be confusing so start off with sweet ones when they are not really having it and fishy ones when they are really hungry. There are some really experienced anglers who can give you more advice. Hope this helps.

Ha Ha way too wimpy for that! thanks for all the help i really have some thinking to do. my brother has just got into night fishing he has a Daiwia shelter and over wrap but i did like the look of the TFG force 8 as it looks easy to put up. i am going to take a look and get a shelter as they are more stable than my old fishing brolly. i may get a night ticket for my club but want to see how my brother gets on first