fenboy

Too true, Phil.

FOAGAL

Osaeru, As has already been suggested, the Argos deal sounds great. ANd at that price, even if he loses interest in the next year or so, you haven't lost a load of money. And, as has also been suggested, if he does get the bug again he can upgrade at will. Even cheap tackle today is better than the best tackle of yesteryear. And I should know, because I've been around a bit... and caught plenty on rods made of (horror of horrors) fibreglass and reels that just aren't in the same league as even the budget stuff you get today. Go for it. You'll make your old man very happy.

Thanks, Newt. But I'm sure I'll find it easier on my brain to use normal speak than try to remember the acronyms. Or... THNX NEWT. ECR 2 US OLD SPK THN NEW TXT 4 ME. LOL!

Yes, Chester, and it's scaremongering like that that makes parents stop their kids from fishing/playing football/doing kids' things. Instead they stay at home, play video games and get obese. And then they all die young. Also, I'd suggest that homosexuals prowling Hampstead Heath are probably more interested in fellow homosexuals rather than an angler. I'm led to believe that they are no more likely to pounce on you that red-blooded straights?? I'd say you're in more danger from a gang of lads who have had too much lager/drugs. Or thieving scumbags.

Perch apparently taste good (never tried - couldn't). Zander are good (tried a few casualties in the 70s). But pike are awful - full of tiny bones. Even Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall couldn't get a decent meal out of one. I find cod and chips rather nice, though.

Join a club. In most parts of the East Midlands it's only £20-odd for a year/season. And once you've shelled out that giddying amount, every session is free... and you'll have loads of waters to choose from.

We need an expert like Bruno in on this one. From what I recall, closely-related fish that hybridise don't necessarily produce hybrid offspring (which was believed to be the case until the 1970s). That means that a roach/rudd hybrid can be 75 per cent roach, 25 per cent rudd, etc. Do genes come into this? If the parents of a roach/bream hybrid are a male roach and a female bream, does this make it significantly different to one with a male bream father and a female roach mother? What is the extent of cyprinid hybridisation? Can a roach/rudd breed with a chub/bream, for example? If you're around, Bruno, please tell all...

Problem is, kids are lazy - something that's encouraged by teachers and examinations boards. I'm informed that English excepted, entrants are not being marked down for poor spelling and grammar. Now, I'm aware that English has always been an evolving language. It has been made all the richer because of that. However, lazy text speak, as Mr Waller rightly says, does not enrich it - it impoverishes it. I work for a publishing company. Happily my remit is on a motoring magazine with an adult readership. Elsewhere within the company is a magazine aimed at the teenage market - fast cars and girls - which has been increasingly dumbed down over the years to the point where market research has shown that the readers don't want words other than captions to pictures. And they have been pandered to, accordingly. Text speak is pure laziness. I use the text message on my mobile and don't find it at all difficult to express myself in plain English. If you are really lazy, you can use the predictive text facility, in any case. On a broader note, it's my opinion that this country will fall apart due to idlesness. Kids expect everything on a plate - which is why instant-success commercial fisheries are so successful. You don't have to be a good angler any more. Just hand over the cash and pretend you're a star. Incidentally, forum speak is getting just as bad. Can someone tell me what "lol" means? It's used all the time as some form of exclamation, but I haven't got a clue...

balls of wool

If only angling had a natinal body as effective as the Ramblers' Association to represent them. That's the difference. The RA is so effective that it has already won politicians round to the Right to Roam legislation and is now trying its hardest to get everything else barred from the countryside. 4x4s first, then horses. The fact that most ramblers you meet are the most boring prats ever isn't the point: they have a politically-powerful represntative national body whose influence is out of all proportion to their own importance. Believe me, they are the sort who could get anglers banned from canal towpaths and riverbank footpaths if they had their way. Yet they are of little economic importance to rural life. If they turn up at the local pub, they drink halves of shandy and consume a packet of crisp, while dropping mud all over the floor. And the red socks they wear outside their trousers upsets the regulars. At least match anglers drink and eat a lot.

I do hope that nobody reads the above thread from Simon and follows his advice regarding the timing of a strike when pike fishing. You should always strike at the first indication, otherwise you risk deep-hooking.

Tonight, Matthew, I dumped three gallons of bait into my local river, which has been in raging flood since Monday and is only now fining down. It has got to be my best bet of the big barbel I suspect lives there, but have never caught ( and nor has anyone else). The bait I sumped comprised 70 per cent hemp, 20 per cent maple peas and 10 per cent maize, soaked and boiled on Monday/Tuesday then left somewhere warm to ferment since. Tomorrow evening I will fish it into dark, with meat and corn over fresh hemp. I expect I will have chub crawling up the rod as usual, but you never know. The maples, by the way, are part of a long-term strategy to catch the resident carp this autumn. I've been trickling them in for a few weeks, but will step it up in a month to a couple of gallons a day in the weeks leading up to actually fishing for them.

True, most lakes these days are stocked. One or two in my area aren't, but the rivers are better. If you ever fancy some great mixed fishing in Northants (River Nene) let me know and I'll put you onto something.

Interesting thing about pins is that they get better with age, as the metal-to-metal surfaces run in, like the moving components in a car engine. So, far from worrying whether a budget pin will last, you can be pretty confident that it improve and last much longer than any fixed spool. There are more moving parts in a fixed spool, hence any wear is exaggerated through the gear train until you reach the point where it has to be shimmed up. That won't happen with a pin, but keep the spindle lubricated with a light (ie low viscosity oil). Something simple like 3-in-1 is ideal.

Didn't need the hound of Hell with him. That part of the Fens is haunted by Old Shuck, according to folklore. Old Shuck is a great black hound that, if seen, causes the death of its witness very shortly. Beware nocturnal zander anglers...

Ali, no carp because it was a decade or two shy of their introduction to the UK. Argyll, a lot of pike anglers are currently "stringing lampreys". Chris, was there anything about set-lining a zander?

Steve, who used to nickname you Upstream Worm? Sounds a bit offensive. I do hope you sued him! Seriously, I agree that small streams are the very best fishing of all. And not just for small trout, particularly in the lowlands. There's one close to where I live that holds bream to 8 lb, tench to 6 lb, carp to well over 20 lb, chub to 5 lb, perch to 2 lb and double-figure pike. And I usually have it to myself.

We all know the CA is desperate to get angling on its side. What we need is a national angling body to stand up and say: "We want nothing to do with them"... and make it plain we are not the CA's allies. Er, trouble is we haven't got a proper national voice to do that. And the general public will see angling as supporting other field sports (which I, for one, don't). Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't want to join the self-styled anarchists on the hunt picket lines. I'm pretty ambivilent about hunting and shooting. I dislike the hooray henrys from the city who pay £2000 a year to shoot the local tame pheasants then come into my local on Saturday afternoons in winter and generally bray, get ****** and drive off drunk in their Range Rovers, but that's nothing to do with so-called blood sports. That's me disliking rich city types that descend upon the countryside. I'm happy to eat the pheasants they've shot, which are in such a glut mid-season that the gamekeeper flogs them for 50p a brace. But that's me being a bit political. Truth is I'd rather have that crowd in my local than Phoney Blair's shallow cronies. And it's politics that this is all about. Hunting looks like being banned because it's a class thing more than anything else. It's seen as upper class and something for the envious lower orders to sort out. At the end of the day it's tradition, so I don't really want to see it banned. But neither do I want to see angling get tangled up in it through Mr Jardine's own crafty agenda. How can me make it clear that we are not pro-CA? Urge everyone to write to their MPs? If anyone has a good idea, please share it. This is a very important issue.

John, if it encourages people fishing rivers rather than lakes, then I have to admit I'm wrong. Sorry if I've caused any annoyance. I'd rather fish moving water every time.

Now that is interesting! They should grow big on all those stocked carp...

I used to fish with multiple rods - maximum four but usally two - but these days mostly stick to one. I know that in experienced hands more than two rods is usually safe, insofar as an experienced piker will reduce the number of rods he's using if sport gets hectic (commonsense). These days I catch enough on one not to need more, on most occasions. Also, fishing just one and travelling light makes it easier to move on, which I think helps me catch more fish. The whole PC/DM saga annoys me. The outcry for PC to be hit with the full weight of the law was crass, if not bloodthirsty, while the Dm issue was, I fear, politically motivated. I suspect the EA took up the PC prosecution reluctantly, under pressure from predator anglers, then felt obliged to deal with DM equally to appease the anti-predator anglers. I just wish neither had happened.

It's not just the internet, Newt. I picked up the virus from an email purporting to be from my service provider. I suppose that's an occupational hazard, since I work from home a lot and a very large number of people have access to my email address. Yesterday, talking about it with colleagues, I discovered that several others were similarly affected (infected) last week, by the same virus. But I do wish I could meet one of the perpetrators, face to face. I just don't understand where they get their kicks... although I know where they would get them if I got my hands on them...

I did read it through, John. But it didn't do it for me. Sorry if I caused offence. The fact that the vast majority of readers like it should be reason enough for you to continue and forget about the critical minority (me). You have to be thick-skinned to write. Luckily I am. Best of luck with both your fishing and your diaries.

That stinks, Mark. Do you think the bailiff was under instructions to get him? DM has been fishing for pike even longer than me. I know that, because he used to stop and check us out when we were kids. (I'm 48 now). He's a smashing bloke and a great angler, largely unsung except by those in the know. His Fenland 30s book is a little cracker. Ironically, having rods TOO close together is in theory more damaging to pike than the sensible distance DM chose. After all, a tangle could result in a pike breaking free with trebles in its face. Now all my respect for the EA over what I considered to be its sensitive handling of the PC case has evaporated - and I'm fuming. They've picked on one of the real good guys. DM, if you're reading this, I'm with you all the way.