Tancho

I will be working in Chester/Nether Alderly for a few days next week, will be taking a small amount of fishing tackle with me, does anyone know of a good carp lake nearby? Also any good/cheap hotels?

A couple of questions: What is the legal situation on fishing from a boat on the Thames? Can you tie up to the tree lined banks and fish or maybe drift along the bank? Does anyone lure fish from boats on the Thames? if so what are the best areas, methods and lures?

If the lake is heavily fished on the surface, try a running ledger with a tail a foot over depth so the biscuit pops up to the surface. Another good method for 'surface wise' carp is to squeeze a piece of bread hard on the hook, then hook up your crust as normal, the carp will often nose the crust to break it up and take the bits as they sink, this way you will have slowly sinking piece of bread still on your hook when the main crust has gone.

Spent a VERY frustrating afternoon trying for the mullet in West Bay, they are right little buggers arent they? I can see how you can get addicted to catching them, or rather trying to catch them! No I didnt catch one.

At last my outboard is repaired! Hopefully back on the river this weekend. The starting problem was due to the charge-coil under the fly-wheel, cost me £93.00, dont know if that is a good price or not, seemed a touch heavy to me but there again I am a tight git! Saying that the owner of the shop (in Abingdon) was very helpfull and gave me a lot of info and good tips. The work I did on the impellor etc was all ok, due to the advice from some of you lads, thanks again and hopefully I wont be boring you with my outboard problems anymore.

Off to Weymouth tomorrow for the weekend, hope to get some pier fishing in, taking a couple of carp rods/reels, any tips on where to go, baits rigs etc. Are there Mackeral about yet, or is it a bit early?

Unfortunately I have had to give in and take it to a specialist for repair (wont say where, dont know if naming companies is acceptable on this forum, perhaps I will if they do a good cheap job). I traced the fault back to one of the coils under the stator (correct term?), I think the heat must of melted them. Anyway, for the life of me I could not get the stator off, tried everything available and with the coils being too expensive to buy on the off-chance that nothing else is faulty and making the engine scrap, I decided to let someone else have a go. Thanks again for all your help, will either post to tell you how good the repairer was.....or asking if anyone has a second-hand outboard for sale!

So.....All my new parts arrive, Saturday afternoon is spent feeling very pleased with myself as everything went back together perfectly, until interupted by the rain. This morning I finished off, filled the bin with water and guess what? The bl##dy thing will not start! Turns over, petrol seems to be coming through ok, pulled out spark plug and there doesnt seem to be a spark when I pull the starter cable. So here I am appealing for help again, its a Yamaha 5cs and yes I have replaced the spark plug and all the wires seem to be in good order. What is the next step?

Thanks everyone for all your help, have got all my parts by mail-order and I am set to re-build tomorrow so I may be back looking for more help!

Dan, Thanks for the advice, stripped the gear-box out today found the impellor, or what was left of it! Along with the most foul smelling liquid pretending to be gearbox oil and a drive-shaft so solid with s##t that i'm suprised it could turn at all! Next problem....where to find an impellor in Buckinghamshire! Back to surfing the net.

I ran the engine in a barrel when I first got it, and there was a good flow of water out of the tell-tale pipe. When it broke down on the river I left the motor to cool down then I started it briefly and the tell-tale pipe was dry. How do I find the impeller? I have had a good look and cant see see anything obvious to remove to gain access. Is there likely to be any other damage seeing as the engine overheated?

HELP!!!! Bought a small fishing boat a couple of months ago to use on Thames, first time out the outboard (Yamaha 5cs) overheated, I think I started it too close to the bank and sucked some s##t up the water intake. I know nought about outboards and where I live there is no-one I can find to repair it, so I was hoping some you sea-fishing lads might be able to give me some advice on stripping it down. I am ok with a car engine but I dont want to start ripping this one apart with no clue. There is very little info on the internet about outboards, unless you can tell me any different! cheers Loony.

Saw a article about 17ft rods last week, are they usefull bits of kit? Are they versatile? What make and model would you recomend? Confused Loony.

My pond has suffered from blanket weed for the last 2 years, I tried all the usual cheap remedies and none of them touched it, so I went against all my principles and spent £60.00 on a Blagdon electronic weed controller, guess what? it only bloody worked! All that remains to be seen is if continues to work during the summer.

Leon, just read your article....first class. Is there any more?