davidP

If they strapped my bo11ocks up in the same way they do the bulls I dare say I might make the same move! [ 10. June 2004, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: davidP ]

Extremely helpful and interesting site for learning about ADSL & finding what's available : http://www.adslguide.org.uk/ Personally I've been a customer of Entanet for over 10 years now, right from the days of 14/4 modems through ISDN and now on ADSL. Not the cheapest but excellent quality of service.

Yes, some companies have indeed moved back to the UK, but few have come back completely. More often than not they've tended to move the more technical aspects back because that's what was causing most issues, but in the majority of cases a lot of the bulk is still in India.

I will probably be buying a new PC (maybe 2) in the near future, and was wondering if there is any great advantage to be had by getting XP Pro as opposed to XP Home. I'm certainly not a power user in terms of wanting to perform huge numbers of complicated tasks, but I will be running a network of up to 4 PCs (2 XP, 2 Win 98) plus a print server via an ADSL router. I'm used to working with NT & 2000 and have found that I miss the additional tools like task manager when I use my home machines on Win98, so is it worth the extra outlay for XP Pro over XP Home? ps. No, I'm not interested in getting Linux even though in your opinion Microsoft are the spawn of the devil. I simply can't be arsed to spend my time learning something like that when I can buy a product I already (probably) understand to the level I need it [ 08. June 2004, 01:21 PM: Message edited by: davidP ]

The easiest way I've found is to put 18 inch stakes plus three strands of wire right round the pond perimeter. This means the heron can reach the water but it can't actually reach over to fish. If you have a shallow area where the heron could land then a couple of judiciously placed wires across the pond could stop him landing, and another set along the depth drop-off would stop him being able to fish in the deeper water even if he managed to land. Yes, it's not the most attractive solution but it does the job, and there are plenty of different stake designs out there so you should be able to find something that doesn't stand out too much. Just remember not to put stakes through the liner! Another option is an automatic heron scarer. These detect movement and direct a jet of water in the direction of the movement. This will stop herons and cats, but unless you're carefull will also get the dog, kids, granny etc if you forget to turn it off when they're in the garden.

As mentioned previously, I inherited a pond when I moved into this house. As also mentioned it's a pre-formed glass fibre pond about 12 feet long but it is now at least 6 inches lower at one end than the other. I've come to the conclusion that attempting to level this pond would be to court disaster, so given that the current pond only uses a relatively small amount of the available space I've decided that it would probably be better to remove the pond and create a new one that utilises the space better. As the space available is relatively long and thin (14' x 5.5') there don't seem to be any suitable pre-formed ponds on the market so it's probably going to have to be a butyl liner pond. I'm happy with the principals of creating this type of pond, but I have a couple of questions that I would value your opinions on: 1. Does anybody know a company that makes custom built or unusually shaped pre-formed ponds (ie not Oase, Bladgen, Dragonfly, Atlantis)? 2. What is the best time of year to replace the pond, given that it contains a fair number of fish, frogs etc? 3. What would you do with the fish during construction? 4. Would you attempt to save all the water from the original pond to act as a starter for the new pond? Thank you for your indulgence

I'm a contractor - I work for whoever will pay me, good or bad. I've never noticed a difference in the money when I come to spend it

Fujitsu (who I'm currently working for) have a policy of instant replacement for any new PC that has any problems. The returned machines are then given to a company who totally refurb and test them, and you can see them for sale here (click on the 'Grade 2 PC Base Units' link). At £249 for a 2.6ghz AMD with 512mb RAM, 80gb disk, DVD & Rewriter plus fairly decent sound & graphics card and a 6 month warrenty they're almost a throw-away PC. No screen included, but many people have them anyway. Even the more expensive ones are good value - £549 for a P4 3.2ghz with 1024mb RAM, 250gb HD, DVD ROM, DVD+RW+R, card reader & various other gubbins - I know where my next machine is coming from If you're up for a laptop they do them as well, although I can't comment on the prices as I'm not up to date. [ 03. June 2004, 07:35 PM: Message edited by: davidP ]

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When I was a lot younger a local lake stocked 100 4-6 inch golden orfe. 2 days later my mate and I caught 47 of them in a day by following the shoal around the lake and casting casters fished 4 inches below the surface in front of them. One other point of interest (maybe) - two seasons later we started catch small carp that were bright orange!

If you can find one at the price than a Shimano Curado takes some beating. There's one on Ebay at the moment here, or there's a few more in the USA on ebay.com Agree about the Abu rods - very nice. Might even have a bid mysef

I've got a little Silstar 3m telescopic whip that I bought maybe 15 years ago and it's been all over the world with me and caught fish on 4 continents. Not bad for £6.99.

Actually now I've looked at the site they sent it's clear that anybody who buys a signal crayfish from an aquarist and stocks it in an outdoor pond is definitely causing an offence. Presumably the shop would be guilty of aiding and abetting if such an offence exists in this part of the law. Something else I noticed on the site was in the list of fish it is illegal to stock - the Burbot is listed. So it's now illegal to stock a fish that was until comparatively recently a native species. Wonder why?

OK, I've had a response from the EA - it's a bit non-committal but they're looking into it. Hope they do it better than their spelling "Thank you for your eqnuriy regard selling/stocking of signal crayfish. We have spoken to an officer at the Fish Health Inspectorate, who is checking on the legal implications. He will also check *shop name deleted* as they may not be breaking the law, if the people they are supplying has a licence for the crayfish. (very technical minefield) If we here anything further on this matter, we will inform you of the outcomes for the legal implications. For your information, you may be interested in the following website, where you can find all the information about signal crayfish. http://www.efishbusiness.co.uk/ Follow the links for "controls of non-native species" Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Regards National Customer Contact Team" [ 08. April 2004, 08:35 PM: Message edited by: davidP ]

John Wilson Heritage £187.71 at Devon Angling Centre. Very good value JW Young reels all round

Thanks for the answers chaps - you've echoed my own thoughts I think. The brickwork is a little frost damaged but otherwise sound and I could definitely fit a much larger pond in the area, so I think I'm leaning towards removing the existing pond, digging out all the soil and installing a larger pond, possibly a larger pre-formed one as it'll exert less outward pressure than a liner would just in case the brickwork isn't as strong as I think (or I could put a second layer of bricks on the inside perhaps). As for fish, there are probably too many at the moment - tench, golden rudd, orfe, comets, shebunkins, crucians & carp (mostly bought as crucians!). Biggest fish is a mirror maybe 12 inches long, the rest are a lot smaller.

Was in the Iver branch of a large aquatics chain at the weekend and they had a big tank of fully grown signal crayfish for sale. I didn't say anything at the time as I wasn't 100% sure, but I've since checked and confirmed that it is illegal to stock signals into any water in England and Wales, and presumably this would include garden ponds. Do you think I'm correct in assuming that anybody who buys them and puts them in an outdoor pond is committing an offence, or are there different rules for ornamental ponds. And is it legal for the shop to even be selling them for anything other than indoor keeping or eating?

When I moved into this house I inherited a pond. It's a fibreglass liner in a raised bed, maybe 5x4x2 the main part but with a 4x2x1 shallow arm. When I moved in I noticed that the liner was not level, being maybe 4 inches higher at the shallow end, but I wasn't overly concerned. Since then however the imbalance has got worse such that it's now at least 6 inches out, and that quite a substantial amount of volume that's now getting lost. I'm not sure how to go about relevelling it however because I'm worried that it I put any uneven stress on it it will crack. Even if I remove all the fish and the water I'm still concerned about damaging the pond and then getting stuck with all my fish in buckets. Do you think it's possible to level an elderly fbreglass pond without damage, or should I just bite the bullet and either buy a new one or replace it with a liner. Not the best pictures, but this is as it was when I moved in and you can already see how much of the liner was sticking out at the righthand end. I've since removed most of the surrounding plants as I'm fairly certain it was the roots of the bushes and the like that were forcing the one end up: [ 29. March 2004, 08:12 PM: Message edited by: davidP ]

Plenty of spawn and last night when I went out after dark I found a golden orfe struggling in the embrace of an amorous male frog - took quite a bit to pry him off after I netted them out. I had frogs on the tench last year which I could understand with them both being green, but a golden orfe??? That's one seriously frustrated frog!

I spent a day out bass fishing with a guide on Lake Tohopekaliga. Not the cheapest days fishing and the lake was a bit off colour that day, but learnt a lot about fishing artificials. If you're at all interested in lure fishing then it really is worth going out with a guide. They'll provide the gear as well which means you don't have to take it with you. Do a google search on 'fishing orlando' and you'll get plenty of guide-sites.

Thanks for organising again Chris, I had a really pleasant day and the big perch just made it an even better day

Told you I'd seen some roach that made the jaw drop! The annoying thing is they were within inches of the bait and simply weren't interested

Go to www.google.com and do a search on 'miserable failure'. Interesting result

Fished with John Wilson a few times. Met Fred J Taylor and would have fished with him but for a sudden bout of appendicitis. Once fished a match with Frank Barlow on one side & Ken Giles on the other, plus Dave Berrow, Dave Harrell & several other Shakespeare Superteam members all around (& I beat most of them!)