Gaz51

I say, steady on Chris, that's no way to speak to a fellow member! I know what you mean though, to many the name means everything.

I'd be tempted to go for the EB40 or smaller. I think the EB50 may be a bit on the heavy side for use with a 9ft stalker rod. The Okuma reels are spot on for the price, well engineered pieces of kit. You could buy Shimano but expect to pay twice the price as an Okuma. I've also heard that the new Shimano GTE baitrunner is not all that good in terms of normal Shimano quality.

Some good points raised on the pros and cons of pole fishing. In quite a few circumstances the pole is a deadly method of fishing, especially on stillwaters. As regards buying a pole. Firstly get yourself down to a good tackle shop where there are made up poles on display. Sit on a seatbox and have a play with them. I see many pleas for suggestions for poles. I also see many recommendations. Good stuff, but you really have to try them for yourself. Ask yourself what length of pole do you need. To be honest I would say many anglers don't fish much beyond 14 m. There are 16m poles out there but many of the cheaper ones are unfishable at such lengths without a support of some kind. Decide how much you want to spend. Price does make a difference, especially if you are looking at the 14 - 16m length poles. The money is reflected in the stiffness and lightness of the pole at long lengths. Most £200 poles will fish nicely at 11m and below. Put the butt section on and there will be a difference. The pole will feel heavier and in a lot of cases will feel ungainly and unbalanced. Beware of the budget poles, yes they are cheap but they are cheap for a good reason. Look for a pole that offers plenty of top kits. The spare top kits allow you to fit different grades of elastic for different target species. ie a number 3 elastic would be not much use if fishing a commercial carp venue. The carp would pull the elastic until taught then snap it. Not good for the fish. In the same breath too heavy elastic eg No 12, wouldn't do you much good if you were tackling small silver fish. You'd bump more than you would catch. In summary, visit a good tackle shop, have a touchy feel of a selection of set up poles. Narrow down your choice then ask the dealer for the benefit of his experience. Honestly, only you can tell if the pole is feels right. A pole which suits one angler may not feel right for you. Next thing will be rigs. To get you started I would recommend Drennan rigs. They are fully made up good quality rigs which should see you ok for a wide range of your fishing requirements. However, you willl find it vastly cheaper in the long run if you make your own. There is a good explanation of how to do it in the Bob Nudd Pole fishing book. (Well worth buying for anyone new to pole fishing) Fishing the pole is an exciting method of fishing and also gives you a further method in your fishing armoury. Hope this helps you a bit. Another thing, have a practise with your new pole before using it in matches. It sounds like you are an accomplished rod and reel angler. Stick with that until you get to grips with your pole. Good luck and well done on your match success so far.

Hi Stan, get down to the Docs mate. He gave me a prescription for two weeks supply (14 patches). Prescription cost £6.50. Checked out the patches in the supermarket before getting them. One weeks supply (7 patches) costs around £12 - £13. I reckon I've passed the first hurdle - fishing without the fags, the next one will be down the pub. I'm avoiding it for a week or two until I'm well into my regime. Good luck mate, you'll save yourself a fortune, I know I am and I didn't smoke half as many as you by the looks of it.

You can't beat watching a good fishing programme on the telly on a cold winters night. Top marks to Discovery channel for giving us something "fishy" to watch on the tv.

Sounds good to me. Any fishing on TV can only be good. As long as it's not that daft fish kissing Aussie!!!

I agree Elton. I love reading Nige's accounts. The addittion of photos makes the blog very interesting. Well written, good photos, he obviously enjoys doing them. Well done Nige, keep it up mate.

Feeling pretty good about myself, am now 5 days a non smoker. Slapped a patch a day on and it's looking good. Had a my first non smoking fishing session yesterday, thought it would be torture but did fine. I used to smoke a lot whilst fishing. Quite determined to kick the habit so I'm going to have to resort to strong willpower as well as the patches. At the moment though............so far so good!

I have a small jar containing halibut pellets soaking in salmon oil. They've been in there for just short of 12 months now. To be honest I forgot all about them. I fancy giving them a go for a winter barbel or carp campaign. Do you think they may work or are they well past it?

For my two penn'orth. Sometimes anglers are their own worst enemies. I fish a private members only water. The water is surrounded by high fencing with a permanently locked iron gate. (members hold keys to gain access.) I haven't fished it for a while but did call in the other day for a quick look round. In short it's in a pretty bloody disgraceful state!! Empty sweetcorn, meat tins, discarded bread wrappers, bottles and allsorts of unwanted packaging fishing related. The point I'm making is that as a members only venue what hope is there for public access venues if it's left in a state such as I found it to be in the other day! I left there with a couple of bin liners full of crap and deposited them in one of the several wheelie bins PROVIDED ON SITE !!! I was bloody livid I can tell you!

A tidy bag of roach Terry, more so in the cold weather conditions. Well done.

Ive also heard peanut butter works a treat although it can be a bit messy to deal with. I can't see it being any messier than marmite or syrup. Worth a try though.

Oh dear I wondered if it may come across as controversial!!! It was not meant to be. Apologies if I have offended. I simply don't think it fair that these or any other market stall holder should be able to buy up large amounts of sale stock to sell on at profit to themselves. To me, the sales are there for the general public. Many woman actually look forward to these sales and my wife and her friends have also like Kens wife, got up early to go to them. The main bone of contention with many of the shoppers was indeed stall holders virtually scooping up vast amounts of clothing. I'm not having a pop at Asians, just so happens the vast majority of stall holders round here are Asian.

I dunno Ian, the terrestrial TV stations have completely ignored angling for many years. If a fresh new angling programme were to evolve from this form of tv I think many people may well log on. Let's face it, the satellite companies haven't made many new angling programmes have they? They still churn out the John Wilson and Matt Hayes stuff. Saying that, there is a new Matt Hayes Total Fishing on now.

Just goes to show, never underestimate the logic of a woman!

She woke at 4:30 !!! She'd have to get up earlier than that round here, she'd be way down the queue behind the Asians. They come out every year and scoop up armfulls of clothes to sell on their market stalls. Not fair in my opinion!

I've almost had pole sections snapped in two by rampaging dogs running mad as hatters up and down the bankside, eventually followed by their daft as a brush owners many yards behind. Excited dogs can and do cause damage to tackle on the bankside. Not the dogs fault, it's purely an animal given a bit of freedom when it is let off the lead. I've had bait waiters knocked over with the scattering of bait an invitation for the dog to wolf down whatever bait they take a fancy to. Sometimes the owner (if they're near enough) may apologise. Many times they just pass by as if the dog had done nothing wrong. A dog is a naturally inquisitive animal and will investigate anything out of the norm, be it lures or even bait waiters.

You might try a set of hangers to fit on your pod. These will register a drop back or run. With many drop backs they won't register on your alarm. The fish picks up the bait and moves toward you, all that happens is that the line slackens. With a weighted bobbin holding the line tight you will spot it easily as the bobbin will drop with a drop back bite. Hope it makes sense. To be honest you've picked a bad time to start carping. Find your feet with day sessions first, catch a few fish through the colder months if you can to better your technique. Don't target the biggies yet, get used to catching and landing moderate fish. Come summer you'll have a bit of know how to go for the larger fish and decided which baits suit your style of fishing. As Josh recommended don't discount the humble maggot, especially in the colder months. Present a good few on a good hook or hair rig and you may be in with a chance.

I love wandering down the canal towpath flicking the spinner here there and everywhere. It's a pleasant way to fish especially in the colder months as moving about keeps you warm. The only problem I find with spinning/lure fishing on the cut at this time of year is the fallen leaves play havoc with your retrieval. You'll find a "fishy" looking spot to cast to only to see your line lay on a load of floating leaves mid way across. It tends to be clearer come mid January and onwards when the foliage has either blown to the sides or sunk to the bottom. Now that is the time when you can exploit the better water conditions and catch those good perch and pike. Saying that, the lovely looking perch nifty captured is quite a tidy fish.

My young son just told me that this morning! I honestly had no idea.

I bought the wife a pressure washer for Christmas once! Her face was a picture when she opened it. Bloody useful household equipment I told her. She got her own back the year after, she bought me a bloody bread maker! I have to admit using it once, I made some bread to use to make groundbait. It was chuffing useless, or should I say I think I made anerror somewhere in the manufacturing process.

I think you can safely say you'll be getting it for Christmas Phil !!! Don't read it all at once, save it for those bitter winter evenings where you can sit down and relax, to me that's the best way to get the most out of a book. On no account use the book as lavatory reading!!! It won't do you any good, you'll stay on until you've finished the chapter you're reading!!! lol

Does anyone get fishing tackle as Christmas/birthday presents? I used to always get some form of fishing tackle from well meaning relatives (usually in-laws). For quite a few years I received these gifts with gratitude. Eventually I raised the courage to inform the wife that the well meant gifts were not quite what I needed. I hate to upset people and hurt their feelings but quite honestly, a lot of the gifts bought for me were to be brutally honest "tat". I still have them lying around the garage. I still receive tackle as Christmas presents but nowadays buy my own. The wife then whisks it away to a relative for me to receive on the 25th. Apparently I'm "hard to buy for" and that is why I was bought tackle I didn't want or need. With the buy it yourself approach I'm keeping myself happy (I get something I need or will use) and the relative hasn't the headache of deciding what to buy the grumpy fisherman!

I've not seen one, does anybody have any further information/ pictures, perhaps?

That's a very interesting article Leon. Strange how action is taken to reduce the cormorant numbers to protect other birds yet absolutely nothing is done with cormorants to protect the fish stocks at waters up and down the country. It would appear that fish come way down the priority list when it comes to wildlife issues.