Brian Carragher

I know Budgie always reccomends fishing off open bail arms but it's not for me. I use the baitrunner for what it was intended for We fish in the main different types of water, Budgie fish's slower water and the rivers that I fish in the North are pacey fast rivers with plenty of pull You have to have the confidence in whatever way you fish but you must also be a bit practical in how you do it, no good fishing the faster pacier rivers I fish with open bail arm as the line will always be out of the clip due to crap coming down river, leaves on the line creating drag or bream shoal line bites when they move through giving you false indication Always use the Fox sliding drop offs (older type and better)and by adjusting the tension on the reel and moving the weight along the arm can cope with just about most flowing conditions

I once took my girlfriend out in the fog and mist

Theres an old saying ; what goes round comes round and in this instance it looks like he got what he deserved Should'nt be fishing even for pleasure before a match as it opens you up to a charge of cheating regardless of whether or not you do Anyway the bloke that got dobbed in by this years "winning" angler looks to have returned the favour, I'd say that was 1-1

I'd just like to extend my sympathies to you Newt can,t be an easy time for you right now so I wish you all the best for the future and whatever it holds for you. After taking the decision to enjoy life and see more of your country with Jan it must feel like you've been robbed of your retirement plans Good wish's for the future and deepest condolences to you

Can't explain the science but can say how it works The addition of the sterilising tablet just keeps the water pure and basiclly stops the water from going rancid while its stood, 2 pints of casters and a sterry tablet will keep your casters for a month in top condition, to keep them longer just drain the water and rinse the casters top up with fresh water and add another tablet. What you will notice is the lack of a foul smell from the water after everythings been stood for 3 or 4 weeks

To keep your casters in tip top condition keep them in water, preferrably in the fridge if not somewhere cool and add a baby sterilizing tablet to the water, it keeps your casters in tip top condition for weeks and weeks

Head pointing away from you and the barbs pointing towards you, working on the theory that deadbaits get picked up and swallowed head first so when you pull into a fish you set the hooks with your own force

Is that for real or a roundabout sort of way of attracting anglers to fish from his lawn

Mick Brown is due in Cleveland to present an evening about pike fishing Its just about a first to get a prominant name for a fishing evening, even rarer to get an evening dedicated soley to pike and pike fishing Should be a good night for all the Northern lads interested in the piking scene Details for the Mick Brown night are as follows Tue 1st Nov Green Room Billingham Synthonia Club Belasis Avenue TS23 1LH Doors open at 7pm for an 8pm start £4 on the door Under 16's go free For more information phone Phillip Dale 07787541357

I fish from upstream of the barrage to as far up as it goes before we lose the coarse fishing and it gets too trouty

It is a great river and probably one of the best fishing rivers in the country, I spend 95% of all my freshwater fishing time, fishing the Tees

I can ask around as its a little to the north of me but I won't find out anything before Saturday but seeing as how you've fished it before are'nt you best placed to answer your own questions

No surprise there really, used to be a member of New Galloway club for many years bank fishing Loch Ken and now apart from one visit for old times sake I have'nt fished it for nearly 10 years as bank fishing (for pike) has been ruined by crays Your baits have hardly settled and the crays are on them , bobbins jumping up and down as they devour the deadbaits, popping them up is no better as the b*ggers just swim up and pull the baits down on the deck and eat them

Thats one hellofa fish by anyone's standards and probably won't be bettered no matter how long he fish's, an absolute corker Funny how the Facebook members don't use the forums though, if you could crack that one Elton you'll be doing very well

I take it that this is the Whitle Dean in the North East then

I would'nt worry about "Megapike" getting bigger as it won't be too long now before its "Megadeadpike"

Livebaits will usually over a period of a day out fish deads so if the water you're fishing lets you livebait then I'd catch them from there and use the as live bait

I do a fair bit of chub fishing with dead minnows, the bigger the better, and I find that a good fresh big dead minnow will sort out the better chub. They have to be dead though as a live one will hide under any rock or cover and be pretty much useless as a bait but fresh dead ones really do produce the goods Fished in snags or deep pools or holes a big chub will confidently take a dead offering when it ignores everything else in front of it A size 6 Drennen specimen fished on mono with a swivel and free running lead id the method of choice and when you get a bite its not the tentative chub tap but a full on wrench down of the tip

Well its my local river but it might be helpful if you said where you're staying as the Tees is one hellova long river and whether you want to trot fast streamy waters or slower sections and what type of species you want to be catching

How did you get on with the bream then?

The difference is in their crushing claws and their tails Males have large crushing claws either left or right handed and the shell around their tails is shorter on the side of the tail and therfore more streamlined Females can be lef or right clawed and have much smaller crushing claws than males and the sides of their tails carry on down past the underside of the tail as thats the area where they carry and hold their eggs so if you're looking at the tail segments you should see what appears to look like crocodile type linked shell thats quite sharp when you grab hold of it Hope thats clear Loch Ken crayfish, very yummy boiled up on the bankside

Who are you going with, boat and skipper?

Preston Park and Bowsefield are two different venues on the same side of the Tees but with a fair distance between them, for a better chance of getting a pike or two, fish Preston Park (free fishing and good) parking in the park car park is free too

just to emphasise again how important it is to fish close in I caught two fish today no further than about 8ft from the bank, both cracking fish, one at 12lb 10oz and another at 19lb 6oz. No need to cast out as you could spit further than that if you wanted to but theres some very good fish to be had very close in The river will fish even better for pike tomorrow I'm sure ,as the colour in it is dropping out fast , very fast and river levels returning to normal

The river will fish its socks off this weekend after the run off of extra water The biggest nistake I see pikers make when they fish the Tees or indeed most rivers is to welly the bait into the middle when the most productive bits are from the bankside and no more than a rod a half lengths out, mind you there is one spot on the Tees that's the total opposite and most of the pike are in the middle where the silverfish feed is but generally, concentrate on the margins and in particular the marginal shelf and fish just outside of that as pike use it for cover to ambush their prey and if you get it right (you need to plumb the depth to find the drop off) you'll catch well