Tim Kelly

How does using wool make it different for the fish, other than a small hole in the mouth? I don't think the closed season was ever meant to stop fish getting punctured, after all, the damage pike do to each other during spawning is far worse!

I'm with Ken. Bass tactics will catch pike, obviously, but pike tactics catch more pike! Bass have an amazing ability to get hooked by the best hidden hook point and most unlikely looking baits, but pike are less obliging. Buzzbaits will catch pike, but if you want any real chance of doing it consistantly spring time gives you the best chance. Bass are much more up for presentations like that than pike though, even then. I personally don't have any waters where surface lures are particularly good at any time, but I have caught fish on them, just there's usually a better way of doing it with a greater chance of hooking the fish. Amazing the difference between a surface lure and one just an inch under the surface in the percentage of fish actually hooked as opposed to merely seen!

This dodgy Dutchman looks a lot like our very own Seb Shelton! Please don't say they're breeding clones over there!

If you ask an American guide which days are booked furthest in advance they will always be the ones where the moon is predicted to be at its most beneficial. I suspect it's one of thise things that becomes self fullfilling. If most people go fishing when it's predicted to be good, guess what? that's when most of the fish will be caught! The poor moon weekends have less fishing effort and therefor the results look that much poorer. If you look back over your fishing results and try to find a pattern of success in good moon phases during random fishing effort I would be fascinated to see and difference. I certainly haven't noticed the effect in any of my results. In fact, it looks as if most of my better fish have come in "bad" moon phases, but often because the days when the season started or the trout ressie opened didn't happen to be on a good moon day!

You'll get what you're given. Cheeky bugger! Anyway, your titchy lures have got to catch bigger pike than my less titchy ones, so we'll see......

I'll bring the beer in anticipation!

Sounds good to me. Just got to catch no fish smaller than Waller's and it will be a pretty cheap weekend too! Flawless.....

I'd be up for it. Be great fun meeting up with you guys, and especially Newt. I think I'd better pay for the full 1 hour arguement, eh Peter?.... :-)

You know me Peter. If I can't speed troll my 15" baits with 3 8/0 trebs at at least 8mph with my drag locked down tight I'm not interested. A good session is counted by the number of lower jaws and eyeballs littering the bottom of the boat at the end of the day.

Just goes to show how everyone develops different tastes in tackle based on how they fish. I had a six shooter rod many years ago and since using better rods I realise why it always seemed strange to me, the rod doesn't have a fast enough taper to work baits in the way I like to. I've also used the toothy critter jerkbait rods and compared to my St Croixs they are horrible too. I know the tart in me is showing up again, but it seems that there are so many blanks available from China these days that it shouldn't be too hard to find something appropriate. I know you disagreed, but I thought the Harris rods that I tried were far closer to what the rods should be for the price than many other things available at the time. I know the fittings were a bit odd, but the blanks generally seemed good.

I'm glad you're happy with your rods, but they are built down to a price and in comparison to good quality rods they are a very poor second. They have, or used to have, the knack of spotting a gap in the market very well, unfortunately what they used to plug the gap is usually pretty abysmal when you've used something properly designed for the job.

Not too sure Masterline produce anything worth a light. They do however control the import of some good lures. Good thing????? Hmmmmm

It was quite entertaining really. I spent most of the program shouting at the idiots on it and laughing at Nige's "guiding" service. He was fishing exactly where he always fishes and on day 2 he moved about 30 yards upstream! All with a 50hp engine and a seagoing boat. Bet he even charges petrol on the 2 minute drive from launching to anchors down for the day! Peter, I don't really remember the lures he showed, other than they all looked brand new out of the packet, just for telly. After all, he's not exactly known as a lure angler!

Don't say such stupid things! Peter you really should know better. I'm sure none of you have gone out fishing for pike, aiming for something large and had some tiddly pike, perch zander or chub take your lure? It happens, get over it. The hook was in proportion to the spoon. If it had been in the maw of a 20lb pike it would have looked no larger than a size 16 in the mouth of a roach.

Yes, lots of people who like to fish for other species in the summer and want the pike all nice and virginal for them in the winter.

The great Sir Matty will take you out for about £500 a day, and I think Nige Williams will do the same for the right price! I'm not sure Tony Cookney's still guiding, but he's probably your most reasonably priced bet.

Crucially, put a few yards of mono on first to stop the braid slipping on the spool.

That's probably half the reason they're so expensive in the first place!

They spent a lot of time on the series catching every different scale pattern and colour of carp they could, multi coloured tench, about 3 different colours of orfe (?????!!), so it's a fair question.

If anything a lure often stops smaller pike from fighting! Smallish pike on largish lures often get the bait across their mouths and almost go rigid, you can wind them straight in like pulling in a windsock as they have their mouths wide open. If it really took you 10 mins to get a 9lb pike in it is probably worth thinking about getting some more appropriate tackle for next time you go.

I've got a couple of B-trap ball bearing idler gears in packets here somewhere...

You ultra-tart! I think you've out tarted Gerry with his jap cuardos and made my collection look very pedestrian. Even Dave Lumb's tarted up 5501 looks a bit plain by comparison. I've got a 3601 Morrum with fibre brake block which I enjoy using for light lures. Seems to throw down to about 1/8 without too many dramas. Putting mono on instead of braid would help the casting even more though.

I think they must have recently gone from being 30lb scales to 40lb scales as some places seem to advertise them as 30lb and some 40lb. I got the 40lb options, but 50lb would be better as it's not totally impossible that one might get a 40+ pike one day, but a 50+ is stretching credulity a bit too far!

I bought a set of weymaster scales recently for about £26 and they seem very good and less easy to misread than Avons. I've weighed a 4lb perch very accurately and a 27lb pike with them since getting them and they seemed to do a good job at both ends of the range. They replaced a set of digital scales which I lost confidence in as they sometimes gave obviously wrong readings.

I make about 50% of my rods, mainly because I can't get what I want in the UK and have a company who will send blanks from America much cheaper than anyone will send the made up rods. I expect it works out about the same price as buying the same rod made up in the end, but at least I can get what I want. I get most of the components from the UK from sites like these: http://www.dlst.co.uk/components.html http://www.hopkinsholloway.co.uk/