Anthony78

I first started using vasaline a few years ago when I used to tie my floats up at home. I used to shot up in a large tub of water on a short length of line and just move the float up when I had got it sitting just right. The problem was that when I got to the lake the float would sink. I put this down to the weight of the extra length of line and the lack of water surface tension compared to a tub of water. I used to keep some vasaline in my box for keeping my line on the surface when float fishing with rod and reel. So just dipped the very tip of my float in this. It worked perfectly. If the water is a bit choppy then another good tip is to dot your float down as usual but add a very small length of pole float bristle tubing(This is used by alot of pole anglers to change the colour of their float tips as it comes in a selection of colours and thicknesses) Dip this in to some vasaline and it creates a bulbous top to your bristle and seems to catch the suface tension that little bit better, it will then ride the ripple rather than dissappearing in the waves. There are some products on the market that you can use instead of vasaline see here and here is the bristle silicone tubing I use. Hope this helps. Ant

Budgie, This time of year when I'm fishing very light lines and small floats less than 0.5g, conditions permitting of course, I will use a bulk of number 11's so that it gives me more options to move them around to create different fall rates and then a couple of 11's or even 12's depending on bristle material (wire or nylon) below that. I like to have my tip dotted right down even to the point that it would sink without the aid of a dab of vasaline. It means that I see bites that most people wouldn't. I would stress that I tend to fish for silvers this time of year but even in the summer I wouldn't go any larger than a no 10 as a tell-tale-shot. Ant

Effort=Reward Go buy some high tech line for rigs and hooklengths. Also grab some 10,11, and 12 shots. You WILL catch more fish if you put more effort into rigs, especially this time of year. Sorry to be so blunt but you can't expect to do as well as those around you when you make rigs from any old line you can find. Ant

I use a couple of different methods depending on wether I'm using braid or mono main line. With braid I use small elastic bands from Staples they measure about an inch and cost a £1 for around a 1000 bands. All I do is fold the band around the mainlind and then pass one end through the other and pull it tight. I must point out that I only use this method when I'm pike fishing and I use 50lb braid so I don't have problems with slippage. If you use a light bs braid then it may slip. For mono mainline I use electrical tape, I fold it around the line then cut it with scissors to make a flag. Ant

Does anybody know what time/day thinking tackle is on please. Thanks Ant

Hi Lucus, I, too, will be going fishing on the Teme Friday but more than likely over towards Tenbury Wells as I know a few spots which will produce when the river is running high, which it probably will. When it's up and coloured then forget your maggot and halibut pellets. I fish with large pieces of curried luncheon meat or cheasepaste, and Lobworms can work too. Find the slacks and drop a bait in behind them. Give it 20mins max then move on to the next one. If it's running low then I switch to bread flake and feed liquidised bread through a feeder. I don't catch many barbel on this but then they don't feed so much in clear water. I had a 3 1/2lb bream , a 1 1/2lb trout and a 4lb chub on this the weekend. The best advice I can give is to travel light and keep on the move. I have a rucksack with a stool built in to it so I don't have to carry a seperate chair (you could sit on an unhooking mat) a ledger rod a float rod, bank stick and landingnet and thats it. Good luck for friday Ant

Try this set up and see what you think. Unfortunately it is best fished with leadcore as you will see in a bit. Starting from the rod tip ok: Attatch your leadcore as you would normally. Now thread a tail rubber up the line. Now tie your leadcore to the ring side of a ring swivel(forget about the lead for now, it will become clear in a bit)now either quick link your hooklength or tie it to the swivel but tie it to the same ring end of the ringswivel as the leadcore. Now push the end of the swivel that isn't being used into the bottom of your inline lead. Run the leadcore up the outside of the lead and now push the tail rubber on to the top of the lead. Hey prestow! an inline set up which will eject if it gets stuck in weed. I've attatched a quick sketch to help.

Thanks for that. I will open it up and see if there's anything obvious that I can fix. I have a souldering iron so if it is that then it should be an easy fix. Ant

Hi, While carp fishing yesterday I happened to look up to see my indicator tight to my rod butt but my alarm never made a sound. After landing the perpitrator which turned out to be a carp of around 8lb I checked my alarm and it was as if I'd forgotten to turn it on but I'm possitive I did. I set it up and exactly the same thing happened again. I finally figured out that it was turning itself off and a push of the button would have it working again for a few minutes then it would switch off again. It can't be the batteries as I replaced these a couple of weeks ago, besides this the Fox's have a low battery audible alarm. It wasn't raining and it doesn't get knocked about as I have the hard case for it. Any body else had problems like this with the MX's? Shall I just throw it or would it be worth calling Fox?? Ant

I have a RT steelhead spinning rod which I have been very impressed with and my mate has a 13-15ft match rod which is beautifully balanced and is brilliant for long trotting. Just remember that you get what you pay for, and for 50 notes you will be getting a rod and reel for less then most people would spend on a decent reel alone. Ant

Ockeridge is situated on the A443 between Holt Fleet and Great Witley. I've not fished it myself but I have heard that it is getting popular with the match boys. The opens at Brockamin are organised by Alan's on most weekends. They may be able to give you a bit more advice on local venues too but call in on a week day as it can get very crowded on weekends and it isn't the biggest of shops. Good Luck Ant

The biggest problem you have is that those "seasoned proffesionals" will fish each and every open they can as thats there job. They get the sponsorship deals because they win these matches. It's easy money for them. My advice would be to pick a venue that is local to you and fish it as much as you possibly can and get used to that fisheries moods. Then you can start to compete with the big boys. The fisheries that run opens in the area that you might be interested in are: Moorlands Farm Larford lakes Brockamin pools ockeridge pools Tight lines Ant

While out fishing the river Stour just above Kidderminster the weekend my brother caught this very strange fish. I have no idea what it is though. Sorry about the crap photo but I only had my camera phone with me and it hates close-ups. Any Ideas??

Here's a few. Don't know if there what your looking for. first of all Top one, out of stock at the moment though and another and another and finally Hope these help. They were all found by doing a google search. Ant

Whenever I go to the beach for a holiday I will always call in to the local tackle shop and pick up a cheap spool of 20lb sea fishing line. They usually cost no more than a couple of pounds. You could use wool but you will need to put it on tight to stop the main line from bedding in. Ant

Hi Chaps, Sorry I haven't reported back sooner but BT decided they were going to cut off our phone for no apparent reason so I've had no internet for the last few days. On the boat front, we decided to take the plunge and buy it. It does need alot of work but we hope to give it it's first outing in the summer. It had 2 mojor points of damage which looks as though it had collided with something in the past but my fishing partner used to work with fibre glass and is confident that he can repair it. The trailor needs work too, it is a boat trailor but doesn't have a winch or rollers for pulling the boat out of the water, Is this common and can it be converted easily or shall we just look out for a new trailor??

Bl**dy weather!! Well the plan was to see it tonight but we are on the brink of being washed away. We've had so much rain today that the roads are flooded and I can't get through. If it dries up we will be going tomorrow. I will keep you updated. Now I need to get my head around prices of equipment so I'll put a list of things that I think we will need but feel free to add to it as I'm sure I will miss something. I can't afford top of the range kit but I won't skimp on safety so if you could give me some prices on the middle of the road stuff then that would be great. OutBoard Motor £ Life Jacket £ Oars £ Boat License £ (I know this varies from region to region so if anybody lives in the Worcestershire area then could you help) Anchor £ (Will a bucket of concrete and a chain do? 1 or 2??) Launching/parking fees £ Boat cover £ (are they worth it?) Anything else? Ant

Hi Newt, Unforunately there isn't an outboard included so this will be our next purchase. We will have to rely on oar power for now Hi StuGlynn, Would these be the bearings for the Road wheels or for the wheels that the boat is winched up? (Probably both but I just want to be sure) Why couldn't you and your dad change the bearings on your tralor as I would have thought it cheaper to do this than to replace the whole trailor? Ant

Thanks for the advice so far chaps. I'm starting to have second thoughts about this boating now. It's always appealed to me as I live so close to the river Severn. When I'm fishing for pike I always spot a fallen tree or a slack on the opposite bank which I haven't got a chance of fishing from the bank and thought that there might be a monster sitting there waiting for the next lucky chap with a boat to catch it. I want to be that lucky chap!! We have now discovered that it isn't an Orkney spinner 13. It is in fact a Dory 13. The pictures below show what it could be. We would be buying just the shell and the trailer. I have been told that there is some damage to the front corner but it doesn't go right through. I will keep you updated.

Thanks for that Newt, we are going to look at it on Fri night so will see what damage there is then.

Hi, My fishing partner and I have been offered a 13' fishing boat. We think it's a Orkney Spinner 13 but haven't seen it yet. Apparently it has some damage to the underside which would need to be repaired/patched with fibreglass. Is this an easy/cheap task or is it best left to the experts? Anything else we should look out for when we go to see it? The chap wants £100 for the boat and trailer so hopefully we can grab a bargain as long as there isn't to much work needed. I've never brought a boat before so any advice would be very much appreciated. Ant

Firstly I'd like to say a big thank you to Tony and Sue for setting this up and to Lyn for the hot chocolate and Mince pies. Well where to start, the plan was to meet up with everybody for breakfast but it didn't quite go to plan thanks to the AA routefinder sending us back to the same roundabout twice and my total lack of map reading skills. We managed to get ourselves lost and ended up being an hour late. I did have some bacon and sausage in the car but was so keen to start fishing that I decided to leave these till lunch time. We, my younger brother and I, started on the fast carrier where I wanted to give him some trotting lessons. I set up 2 match rods with 2SSG chubba's and cast to the middle of the flow to show little bro how it was done. Just at the end of the run my float disappeared and my first grayling of the morning made it's way to the net. Next cast and the same thing happened again this one was bigger at about a pound. Time to give bro a cast, unfortunately it took another 45mins before he caught his first ever grayling, all 6oz of it. He did manage a 4 half pound brownie which was extremely long for it's weight our final tally was 7 Grayling up to a pound and that brownie. We called it a day at about half 3 when my hands were starting to sting with cold for the first time and I was struggling to put maggots on the hook. After a very welcome hot chocolate and mince pie we were on our way home. I wont give to many details as to what happened later but lets just say that the snow was so bad here in Worcestershire that my car got well and truely stuck and we had to walk 4 miles through 6 inches of white stuff to get to a nice warm bed . Not a day I will forget any time soon. Roll on the itchen.

Hi Ollie, I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but I think a floating pole is a method of pole fishing where you use the buoyancy of the pole floating on the surface to set the hook. You don't use any floats or shot just a length of line set to fish at the depth the fish are feeding at, place your pole on the surface and feed over the tip of your pole continuously to get the fish competing for your bait. When a fish takes your hook bait it will hook itself against your pole. A bite is signalled when your pole is pulled across the surface by the bolting fish. I'm not sure how long the pole will float for as it will eventually take on water. Maybe a bit of vasaline in the tip of the pole will slow the water penatration. Hope this clears it up a little. Ant

I have been kicking myself after doing a stupid thing yesterday. Let me explain, I have a 48 x 18 x 15 tank with an external filter. On the intake pipe there is a series of holes and one of them was level with the surface of the water so it was sucking in air and causing the filter to make more noise than usual. So while doing my monthly 75% water change I decided to block the whole up, I got the pipe out, dried it off and filled it with some mixed Araldite( I can hear the gasps of horror I didn't even consider what effect it would have. I thought that once dry it would be just like a hard resin/plastic. Anyway 10 mins after refilling the tank one of my Zebra danios started gasping on the surface and darting around like it was injured. Thinking it had been damaged by one of the larger fish while the water was low I left it for a few minutes to see if it would recover, it didn't so I flushed it. Then another started showing the same signs. It took 2 more fish before it twigged and I had to do an emergency tranfer and water change. To start with it was just the small ones like Danios and Cardinals then the Denisonii Barb went and I was gutted. I honestly thought I was going to lose everything. I did a full tank and filter clean again reintrodused them all along with a good dose of Aquarium salt to help them recover. They seem to be doing ok now but I lost 6 Danios, 5 cardinals and my Denisonii. Thankfully it didn't get any of my larger plecs and Clown Loach, Verrry scary moments!!! Ok you can all start cursing now. I deserve it!

Hello, I use about 18inches of tubing as anything longer can be a pain to thread. I use the narrow tubing from ESP as I feel the wider stuff is a little to stiff. It should fit tight enough in to the tail rubber of the safety clip. If not then you can use a little bit of shrink tube over the joint to hold it in place. Please don't glue them together. I use flying backleads and normal backleads (as long as there are no snags between me and the rig) I used to use these backleads from fox but since changing my rods I found that they would fit through the tip ring so I had to change to these they dont slide back as far as the fox's but they work ok. Either one should sit on top of the tubing, however If you do find that they start to slip down then you can use a very small rubber bead at the top end of the tubing. I also use these once the rig is in place. All you have to do is slide them down your line after you have cast out. I try to slide mine down past any marginal shelf there may be to ensure that my main line is as close to the bottom as possible. I will use this nearly all the year through but sometimes in the winter I will leave both backleads off and fish slack lines and fish for line-bites to try and find the fish. Hope this helps a little. Ant