fenboy

Hybridisation is a funny subject. There are some that say that if roach and rudd exist in the same lake, there's no such thing as a true roach or rudd in that water(I think that was Kevin Clifford and Len Arbury at the NASG conference, circa 1979). Chaning the subect... Allibee, Haven't been back to your mail on another subject because I haven't got email at the moment due to some problem with Virgin Broadband. Will sort it with my ISP on Monday and get back to you then. Might have some good news... In the meantime, I hope that everyone catches a hybrid and enjoys the fight... they do scrap harder than true species, you know!

Sorry yet again. Yeah, I blame the lateness for me not reading you properly. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Worst case of fish misidentifaction I've ever witnessed was about 1980 in the Fens. I was fishing a small drain when the angler in the next peg swung in small fish and said "fu***ng zander" before he stamped on it under his welly. After he left, I went to his swim and found a very flat daddy ruffe......

I don't use livebaits any more. My choice. But when I did, I did it wholesale, just as every other keen pike angler did in the 1970s. I had a string of oxgenated tanks containing hundreds of live fish that I could use as bait at will - and they included crucians caught in traps (great in warm autumn weather, but not so good in winter), bought rainbow trout (great free-roamers but useless on paternosters), roach that I caught myself, and chub that I bought from a bloke on the dole who used to feed his family by selling them at 50p each. I can't recall a single disease incident or fish mortality caued by this, even though everybody did it at the time. But I CAN recall a lot of serious big carp deaths over the last decade by greedy fishery owners who have introduced new stocks that have SVC'd the existing stocks. I do wonder if the EA have targetted the right people? Happily, the bits of wood, plastic and metal I use to lure pike these days are unlikely to harm any existing stocks....

Sorry, ferret, I got on my high horse without properly reading your posting - ie "roudd". Missed the joke. Got it now. Sorry again.

Dear Ferret 1959, I do hope that, by inference, I am not a know-it-all angler? I have landed roach to 2 lb 12 oz and rudd to 3 lb 1 oz. The fish in the picture is neither. Personally, I don't care much whether you call it a rudd (it's close), chub (laughable) or pike-perch (zander). It's a great fish, either way. One of which the young captor should be very, very proud. I would be. But if you know very little about fish identification regarding cyprinids - and it's clear you don't - it's best you don't knock others, eh?

Late joining this thread, hope you don't mind a couple of observations... 1. Graham X, what have you got against cats? They are fantastic companions for the old and lonely. I'm neither (well, a bit old I suppose) and I have two. Both neutered females, both have yet to kill a bird or rodent (a bit fierce on insects and balls of wool though). 2. Graham X, don't shoot Alibee down in flames unless you know what you're talking about. The domestic cat is descended from the Egyptian cat. The native wild cat is impossible to tame and a distinct species. 3. Slug pellets are bad news. I let song thrushes do the work for me on my garden and allotment. 4. The biggest current danger to angling is from Labour's nanny state attitude to government. There is indeed a danger of angling becoming illegal through the back door due to ill-thought-out but well-meaning legislation aimed at outlawing cruelty to animals. Remember, laws aren't only made by government (statute) but by precedent (case law) by judges. A dotty, gin-soaked judge (they do exist) could easily rule that an angler had broken the new law. Then we'd be buggered. 5. If angling is outlawed by default (see above), remove the treble hooks from your lures and use them as toys for your cat. They really are great ambush merchants... and much cuddlier than pike. 6. Dick Walker was a cat lover. 7. Cats aren't indigenous. Nor are carp. Nor are catfish. Nor are zander. Nor are orfe. Nor are ide. Nor are barbel apart from those inhabiting a handful of east-flowing rivers. Eels are illegal immigrants. And sea trout are asylum seekers. 8. I'm possibly insane. I blame the world, because it's going mad. This used to be a nice place to live, now it's peopled by nutters who want to change everything I hold dear. 9. Grey squirrels are the biggest menace to wild birds in my neck of the woods. They raid nests, kill young and steal food in winter intended for the birds. They are also non-indigenous (or is that indiginous? Too late at night for a spell check)and have destroyed the red squirrel population. But, you know what, I love seeing them in my garden. 10. Carp populations have destroyed indigenous populations of coarse fish in the UK. Does that bother you, Graham X? 11. This is written tongue in cheek. But the threat of legislation banning angling is very serious. Please don't get sidetracked by knocking pet owners. After all, if it wasn't for cat food the poor carp boys would still be freelining par-boiled potatoes...

Late joining this thread, hope you don't mind a couple of observations... 1. Graham X, what have you got against cats? They are fantastic companions for the old and lonely. I'm neither (well, a bit old I suppose) and I have two. Both neutered females, both have yet to kill a bird or rodent (a bit fierce on insects and balls of wool though). 2. Graham X, don't shoot Alibee down in flames unless you know what you're talking about. The domestic cat is descended from the Egyptian cat. The native wild cat is impossible to tame and a distinct species. 3. Slug pellets are bad news. I let song thrushes do the work for me on my garden and allotment. 4. The biggest current danger to angling is from Labour's nanny state attitude to government. There is indeed a danger of angling becoming illegal through the back door due to ill-thought-out but well-meaning legislation aimed at outlawing cruelty to animals. Remember, laws aren't only made by government (statute) but by precedent (case law) by judges. A dotty, gin-soaked judge (they do exist) could easily rule that an angler had broken the new law. Then we'd be buggered. 5. If angling is outlawed by default (see above), remove the treble hooks from your lures and use them as toys for your cat. They really are great ambush merchants... and much cuddlier than pike. 6. Dick Walker was a cat lover. 7. Cats aren't indigenous. Nor are carp. Nor are catfish. Nor are zander. Nor are orfe. Nor are ide. Nor are barbel apart from those inhabiting a handful of east-flowing rivers. Eels are illegal immigrants. And sea trout are asylum seekers. 8. I'm possibly insane. I blame the world, because it's going mad. This used to be a nice place to live, now it's peopled by nutters who want to change everything I hold dear. 9. Grey squirrels are the biggest menace to wild birds in my neck of the woods. They raid nests, kill young and steal food in winter intended for the birds. They are also non-indigenous (or is that indiginous? Too late at night for a spell check)and have destroyed the red squirrel population. But, you know what, I love seeing them in my garden. 10. Carp populations have destroyed indigenous populations of coarse fish in the UK. Does that bother you, Graham X? 11. This is written tongue in cheek. But the threat of legislation banning angling is very serious. Please don't get sidetracked by knocking pet owners. After all, if it wasn't for cat food the poor carp boys would still be freelining par-boiled potatoes...

Fantastic fish. Congratulaions. As to it's identity... If it's a chub, then so am I. It doesn't look anything like a chub. There's a lot of rudd there, but not QUITE enough. Are there roach in the fishery? If so, it's a roach-rudd hybrid or, possibly, an ide... although the mouth is a little too upturned. Is there such a thing as an ide/rudd hybrid? Tell us, Bruno.... It's not a rudd/bream. Nothing like. What a lovely fish, though. Hope she gets another...

John Sidley...yes, of course. What a loss to the angling world. He really was himself. He wrote as he spoke, in pure Brum. About 20 years ago it was my job to edit his work, which could be a nightmare at times because I didn't understand Brimingham dialect. Also, John had no respect for spelling, grammar, syntax - he just wrote as he spoke, just as he would tell a story to your face. I didn't appreciate that at the time (I still had a lot to learn) but I showed his work to a senior colleague who said - and I quote - "That is pure brilliance. If Geoffrey Chaucer was alive today, that would be how he wrote about fishing". At the time, I still hadn't completely recovered from the slog of studying bloody Chaucer at school. Olde English isn't much fun. But, in retrospect, I can see what he meant. Unlike some modern writers, whose prose goes through the word processor without touching the sides.....

You want Des Taylor mentioned, Peter? Here we go then... I think Des has fallen into the same trap as Richard Walker when he had a long-running weekly column to write - there are times when he hasn't got a lot to say, so he tries to stir up a controversy. As TV's Mrs Merton would say: "Let's have a heated debate!" Des is a very good angler and has been for at least 25 years. Don't forget, in the 1970s he was a very capable big fish angler who fished the circuit waters of the time and usually caught. He was certainly a better angler than most specimen hunters of the day, who'd turn up in a swim, chuck the baits out and fall asleep for a few days. That fact doesn't come out very well in his writing, which is a shame. In the flesh, Des is a big, amiable bloke who is good fun to be with. He can be a bit boistrous and argumentative at times, but can't we all? A man's man, we used to say in those days before Auntie Blair made such expressions a criminal offence lest it offended transexuals, muslims and Premiership footballers. Des isn't a great writer, because he isn't being himself when he writes. As a result, he's become a bit of a caricature. But if his aim is to stir up controversy and get up people's noses, then he's succeeded, hasn't he? Incidentally - and I am NOT trying to "do a Des" and stir up aggro here, a certain Peter Collins was a very good writer himself. Did you know that most of the classic Ivan Marks' columns of the 1970s in AT were ghost-written by PC? Well, they were. He too (PC) was a great all-rounder in his day - a top-flight match angler who also fished for big fish, alongside such pike fishing greats as Dennis Pye and Frank Wright. Oh yes, and despite coming from a Wroxham boatbuilding family, he fought long and hard against boats on the Norfolk Broads, which was a pretty radical and brave thing to do at the time. I know that Mr Collins did a pretty despicable thing on the Old Nene, whiuch as a predator angler I utterly and unreservedly deplore. But he's now an old man... and in his youth he did much more for our sport than many of his current detractors ever will in a lifetime. Call me soft, but I for one hope the Environment Agency lets him off with a severe ****ing and a warning that if anyone else tries it they will drop on them like a ton of bricks. I don't enjoy the pathetic spectacle of an elderly man being dragged through the courts. Changing the subject slightly, to put it back on course, we forgot a great writer: Mick Brown. Seen on TV as Matt Hayes' sidekick, he's actually a talented writer and angler. And he's a lovely bloke. Good night!

Sounds horrible, but the best place for mullet will be by the inevitable sewage outlet. Same everywhere on the Med and southern Europe. Best shoal of mullet I ever saw was in the middle of Lisbon. Dusk the best time. Sweetcorn on the bottom, under a float works well, if you're fed up with small sea bream ripping your bread to bits. Once, in Menorca, I got a very slow bite on corn fished on the bottom. I struck into something very heavy and slow - I suspected a German scuba diver - but it turned out to be an octopus. I think octupii (is that plural of octopus?) get turned on by the yellow end of the spectrum. ANother day on the same holiday I was talked into spending a day on the beach - my idea of hell. I took along a telescopic beachcaster, some frozen squid for bait, a bottle of vodka and a bottle of orange juice. I put the latter in a rock pool to keep cool. The fishing was hopeless so, after an hour, I decided a drink was called for. Reached for the OJ bottle and the bottle pulled back! The rockpool's resident octopus had wrapped itself around it. Yes, really. But I needed aq drink more than he did, so I won the tug of war. I realise that hasn't got a lot to do with this thread, but it seemed funny at the time. Oh, by the way, take some spinners if you're that way inclined. There are some predators around, too. Once, off the Canaries, I caught a fish that looked like a cod with a pike's head attached. Was it a young hake? I'm useless at identifying sea fish you're unlikely to catch off Cromer pier. Best of luck.

Warm welcome indeed, MuckyDuck, I still feel welcome myself, even though I do rant a bit sometimes. It's the Grumpy Old Man syndrome. However, I was worried about the title of your posting - "Hello" - for a moment I thought the famous celebrity magazine had finally come up with a six-figure sum to feature the incomparable and priceless Peter Waller. Turns out he'd already negotiated a bigger fee to appear in OK...

You're fortunate, because the shop is clearly making a loss on its maggot sales - hence the five pints maximum. It's a loss leader to do as you suggest - to get you into the shop to buy other stuff. I suppose most shops don't follow that example because they can't afford to. Some rely upon bait sales to survive... because they know that anglers will buy most of their kit by mail order to save a few quid. Long Live Steve Bruce indeed. His life expectancy can't have been helped by signing the blundering Heskey. Still, the consolation for City fans has to be that Villa are stuck with Vassell!!!

I wish you success. The fact that a wildlife group is involved is good news - more likely to get general public support and (dare I say it) a more professional approach to winning that support. The biggest threat to most small rivers these days isn't pollution, but abstraction. It's a gradual thing, undramatic compared to huge fish mortalities, but every licence to abstract (not just from the river itself, but from boreholes in the area) will cause the flow to dwindle, gravels to silt up, insect life to disappear and fish stocks to decline. Best of luck.

Nope. Trains didn't do it for me. There were no steam trains by then. Neville was into diesel locomotives - nasty, smelly things. A little anectdote: Neville's fanaticism for engines echoed his piking. Not content with hanging around on platforms and taking note of the numbers of passing trains like other train spotters, he sneaked into the sidings and noted the umbers while they were parked up. Akin to shooting sitting ducks, I'd say. Incidentally, Peter, it is King's Lynn with an apostrophe. A good Norfolk lad like yourself should know that!

For most of my adult life, my job has been to write and to correct the writing of others. Along the way, I've drawn a few conclusions of my own... To my mind, a good writer is one whose writing is an extension of their personality. In other words, it's genuine. Writers like Yates (dreamer), Gord Burton (loony), Rickards (scientific), Walker (arrogant), Peter Stone (modest) all shine through. It's also helpful to be able to write in plain English. If you own a Theraurus, throw it away. If you feel the need to use fancy words that some of your readers won't understand, then you're posing. So, I'm not dreadfully keen on Bailey: a lot of words for not very much information. Doesn't seem genuine. Sorry, John. Happily, angling has been blessed for centuries by great writers. We really are very lucky. But my all-time favourite is Rod Hutchinson. There's a writer who really knows how to tell a tale. As rich as Chaucer, gripping and 100 per cent genuine. He writes just as he talks over a pint at the bar. But some of the best stuff you'll ever read is on a forum like this. Why? Because it's straight from the heart and you're communicating directly with your audience. And that's how it should be. Lovely stuff.

I could so easily rant about the deliberate targetting of individual fish being bad for the image of angling. I've done that before. But as it was gently pointed out to me on a previous occasion, the general public don't care about recaptures. They would just consider it ridiculous. And that's the truth of it. The people whose lives are so empty that they will devote months of their lives living on a bankside just for the chance of catching a fish at a weight slightly higher than last time are pretty sad. But they don't harm me, the fish, nor the wider image of angling. So they don't irritate me any more. They're missing out, though. On what I would term real angling - attempting to catch big, unknown fish - and on life in general. I suppose the disappointing thing for someone like me, an angler for nearly 40 years, is the realisation that record fish captures aren't the heroic, epic occasions I dreamed of as a kid. As a kid, I could quote the record fish list. Still remember a lot of them now: Bill Penney's 3-14 roach from Lambeth Reservoir; Tommy Morgan's 47-11 pike from Lomond; The Rev EC Alston's 4-8 rudd from Ringmere; the three barbel that equalled the 14-6 record. Oh yes, and Neville Fickling's two record 12 lb-plus zander (can't forget them, I witnessed one of them at the age of 15). I knew Neville wasn't a hero, of course. I went to school with him. But having record zander on our doorstep at the time made the heroic dream seem a distinct possibility. Unfortunately, as the yeays accumulate, so does the cynicism. So, today, I'm cynical about the record fish chasers. But were the heroes of my youth any different? Well, yes and no. Yes, in as much as many of the record fish of that era were not caught by design. Specimen hunting (what for reasons that baffle me is today known as specialist angling) was in its infancy and most records were caught by accident. No, in as much as the anglers who did catch them by design were no angels, even in those days. I won't give details - some of the people concerned aren't alive to defend themselves - but let's just say there were some stroke-pullers around... At the end of the day, no matter how much you want to romance it, the record fish list is exactly what it says on the tin: a list of the heaviest fish landed fairly on rod and line. It is not a skill contest. The comparison with a top athlete is spurious. There are tens of thousands of anglers in this country easily capable of catching Two-Tone, or any other big carp, if they given the opportunity. Are there that many runners who could compete against Christie? The news that a lad had beaten the perch record, by accident, from a water where nobody knew it existed was simply brilliant. It put it all into perspective. That's what angling's all about. If I go fishing tomorrow and blank, but return the next day and fluke out a record fish, does that mean I had been transformed from a no-hoper into a superhero overnight? Mind you, if I did fluke out that record, I'd feel a bit smug.......

Used to fish wonderfully as a mixed fishery with a few huge pike in winter as a bonus until BWB did the usual - turned it into yet another artificial bag-up water. They've done the same all over the Midlands. ANd do they get the criticism they warrant? Of course not. ANd why? Because the anglers who fish it think it's woinderful having half-starved fish abandon all caution for the sake of a meal and crawl up the rods. Do angling a favour - stay away and catch some proper fish from a real water.

So Barbel anglers use cane because there's no comparison to how a barbel feels when hooked on cane? Mmm. On the other hand, if they were to try modern tackle and braid, they'd be amazed at how they feel hooked on THAT. So, recently I've been pursuing river perch with a 20-year-old rod (Tricast carbon), 25-year-old reel (my newest Mitchell 300) and lovely, brand-new braid and state-of-the-art lures. Mixed-up or what? Fact is, quality rods and reels of old are great. Modern terminal stuff is better. WHy do some of us use old tackle? Well, it can be memory lane stuff. Also it can be the Classic Car scenario. The reason there's a classic car scene soi big is because: 1. Nostalgia 2. Revolt against faceless modern cars 3. You can afford the vehicle you dreamed of as a kid Maybe some of that applies to fishing with old gear. The perch I was catching two nights ago I enjoyed, but one or two of them would have been the fish of the season for me when I was a nipper. Fact is, I don't appreciate what I catch as much as I did when I was, say 11, 12 or 13 years old. Back then a pike, any pike, was something you talked about for days. Today even a 20 doesn't give me THAT feeling. Bugger, I hate getting old.

One or two things I forgot... MORE WAYS TO ALIENATE THE GENERAL PUBLIC 1. Modern match fishing. Let's get hundreds of foul-mouthed yobs dressed in bright clothes, each with their own Meccano set of aluminium platforms and the like in the countryside of a weekend. Let them block the towpath with the thousands of pounds worth of kit that's apparently required to snatch out a few very small fish... and then curse at every passing dog-walker and cyclist. Oh yes,and while you're at it, why not urinate for the benefit of the public? 2. Pike anglers. Despite knowing that our target species is very fragile and likely to die if caught too often, let's lay siege on a particular big specimen if we happen to know where it lives in a fairly small water. A big pike dead? Well, at least I caught it before it snuffed it... 3. Carp anglers. Let's quit our jobs and live full-time on the lakeside, smoking joints and crapping in the bushes. 4. Barbel anglers. Let's make a mockery of river fishing and act like carp anglers (see above). 5. Angling politicians. We all hate each other, so let's each have a national organisation of our own (those suffering from scizophrenia are allowed two). That's enough. I'm off to bed.

Yep, it's all down to money at the end of the day. The angling/tackle trade didn't want a close season. Semi-pro match anglers need to win to get money. Fishery owners cash in on naive anglers' greed by stuffing more fish in... THE GREATEST SCAM OF ALL TIME Sneaky Sid comes up with a brainwave. He digs a hole, fills it with water and more fish than it can support. How does he keep his fish alive? Easy, he gets anglers to do it for him... and what's more, he CHARGES them for the privilege. Happily, he's able to cash in rather nicely, thanks to the vain anglers who kid themselves that they're superstars because they catch a lot of ish by supporting such places. You can just imagine them boasting afterwards about the haul they've had. Hate to shatter the dreams, but 100 lb of fish from an overstuffed carp pool means absolutely nothing if you are talking about skill levels, never mind angling ethics. It's like claiming you've run a four-minute mile when in fact you hitched a lift in a passing car. Dream on, lads.

It's not the antis I'm concerned about. They are a small, nuisance minority. My concern is the general public publis. Most don't care one way or the other anout angling - they see us as harmless eccentrics who sit out in the rain... never seem to catch much... and when they do they put them back... you know the sort of thing non-anglers say. But what if the general public was to be aware of some of the stuff that goes on in modern fishing? Don't you think their noncommital attitude might turn against us if they knew that lakes were being scraped out of the ground and stuffed full of fish so hungry that they are forced to eat our baits? And if that wasn't enough, that some anglers have to resort to pretty desperate tactics to haul fish out of the water as quickly as possible in order to stuff them into keepnets... and all for the sake of winning money? It all seems pretty logical and all too obvious to me. One August, when a tabloid newspaper is short of news, someone will decide to do a special investigation on cruelty in angling. Or, worst still, it will be something like Panorama on the TV. Millions will read or see it, be suitably outraged, and legislation will be introduced from government. I don't know how long these threads remain on the sytem, but just return to this one in a few years time and you'll wish you'd taken notice. I know it's not what you want to hear, but it's inescapable. Sorry.

OK, let's sort it nearer the time. I know a few spots...

Got two weeks off in late July. Obviously the Broads will be solid then. Long way for you to Northants. How about halfway, ie the Fens? Or can your sea legs take solid ground?

What worries me is the people who condone this stuff. They really do belive it's okay. And that's the problem. Like Monkeyboy says, go out and get a gillnet... or maybe go out and get a life. I'm sure those ingenious Japanese computer games inventors must have devised something much more appropriate. Just think: you wouldn't even have to venture out into the open air to do some damage to the fish. Crikey, it beggars belief... By the way, has anybody noticed that the AT coverage of handlining was a bit tongue-in-cheek? I got the impression they weren't condoning it, merely reporting it's existence. Here's a plea: Will those who think handlining is a legitimate step forward in angling techniques kindly form an orderly queue and get out of this sport while it still stands an outside chance of surviving a few more years?