Paul Boote

Not at the lodge (there wasn't one when I fished down there, for many months, over several years), just a LOT of the Cauvery river (and also happened to hire and train JL&R's lodge / general manager, in, er, 1980...). This might be of help - http://flyforums.proboards53.com/index.cgi...74173335&page=1

Veiled threats? Oh dear. Another aspect of so many people on the Internet: paranoia. No, Phil, whoever you are, I was merely suggesting - not just to you, but to everyone in Angling - that a bit of judicious tongue-biting and courtesy to one's fellow fishers might not go amiss now. You know, in order to do our pastime a BIG favour and make it appear to non-fishers as summat populated by sane, easy-going human beings, and not so many extremely prickly, half-barking, possibly certifiable, certainly to be pitied, trainspotters...? Still, Dave is sorted for his fishing next year, and that's why I ventured back into this madhouse!

I don't know who that comment was aimed at, Brumagen Phil, but if passed on any of the waters that I was helping Dave with above, it would almost certainly see you on your way seaward by the watery route. And yet, as Dave I believe will very quickly discover, if you make an attempt to rub along with people and get on with them - show them none of the silly, posturing 'side' that we so often see on Internet forums - what you can learn and in turn be led to can be simply amazing (as I found as a youngster years ago). It's the old sowing and reaping thing, plus Respect in the old, not the aggressive modern Street, sense. Angling today would be a much nicer pastime for rather more of it.

Time? From early June onwards right through to the end of September. A few fish (sea-trout and salmon) run the river in April and especially May, and they tend to be large (but difficult to catch). There are always resident brown trout to try for in the early season - March and April can be excellent months for these. Book? Look no further than "Successful Sea Trout Fishing" that heads the list on this page: http://www.fishing.visitwales.com/fe/default.asp?n1=3&n2=310 Wonderful book, wish I had written it. Read it several times, and digest well. You are starting on quite a journey, Dave! PB

Go for Llanilar (the club has among its members some almost legendary names in Welsh flyfishing) and the Ystwyth, Dave. The river is a lot easier (and safer) to fish, not being subjected to the periodic releases of water from a hydroelectric plant that the Rheidol gets.

The Dyfi / Dovey is an arm and a few legs, but this isn't: http://www.aberystwyth-online.co.uk/fishin...sociation.shtml

Dave, I have long known and fished the rivers up and down the coast from Aber. Do one thing: get in contact with Aberystwyth Angling Asssociation. Join it, indeed, next season. The Association has some of the finest fly-fishers in Britain in its membership, and you will find them encouraging and VERY helpful to someone living in the area as you do. I envy you the wonderful learning curve that you will be embarking on. Good luck. PB

I posted the above in good faith, Sonny Jim. Think I'll leave you and Angnet to it.

Just received this from a normally dependable source: Please Be Extremely Careful especially if using internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on. This information arrived this morning direct from both Microsoft and Norton. Please send it to everybody you know who has access to the Internet. You may receive an apparently harmless email with a Power Point presentation "Life is beautiful." If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and delete it immediately. If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying: "It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful." Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC and the person who sent it to you will gain access to your name, e-mail and password. This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon. AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the antivirus software's are not capable of destroying it. The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself "life owner." PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THIS EMAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS and ask them to PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY

In the right spirit, Budg'. I can see where you think I am coming from with this, but believe that you're still being a tad unambitious... I intend to end up OWNING the few bits of India still worth having on the back of what well-duped British anglers (with the aid of a complicit Angling Trade and Press) will be bringing in for me / us. Surely you can see where I am going - Total World Domination...? Get on board whilst you still can. Those who don't now won't just be left behind but could very well be in serious trouble...

Got this one already well-covered, Budg'. My fcukUKfishingforever Inc / .com / .org / .net (a registered charity, too - tax-deductible donations very welcome) operation already has well-grown Goliath tigerfish up and ready and waiting to go into selected British stillwaters just as soon as 'our' engineers (b'stards!) have got a decent water-heating system together (or when the new-generation nuclear power-stations go online, whichever's the soonest, I ask you..). It's the future, lads. Only way to go, as I see it: WE make a pile of money; your spawt and future (wozzat?) gets fcuked...

All I can tell you "at this moment in time", Budgie, is that the names "Minnow Master" and "Bullhead B'stard" are now both nationally and internationally registered. Well, you HAVE to, don't you...?

Nah. The biggest I have seen (and caught) were on a CERTAIN stretch of the Surrey Wey. I'm talking about fish now that many a self-respecting, Spessie Stripey thought twice - nah, make that thrice (and then some more) - before engulfing. I am sorry, Godalming A.S., but you are just about to go Syndicate. You know where to contact me, would-be Small Fry Heroes... Yours in Spawt etc, PB

No sacrilege there, Steve - I am of the same mind. I have used a centrepin reel longer than most people; have Wallis Cast longer than most people; am able to Wallis Cast FURTHER than most people, but I know the centrepin's limitations and will only use one when conditions are right. A few years ago I fished with someone who was to become something like a fishing pal for the very first time. As we tackled up beside a river, he appeared almost outraged when I produced a Daiwa Match fixed spool, then later in the day an old Abu 506 closed-face. He has seen me use a centrepin a number of times since, however.

Luv it!

Such a lovely little reel, made then for small stuff, attracting so many sharks now...

Know the 'mind' of the STA? I once knew one of its chairmen pretty well (Or was it Secretary? I can't remember - pecking orders and honorifics bore me.), Lee, and 'that' was quite enough... All I know is that rocky, rainfed, rapid-flowing rivers (many of which also happen to be salmon and sea-trout rivers) are must-do things for many canoeists; how they would love to be able to access more of them, and for free... The pic? Pretty fine work if it's a fake.

Plus how, years ago, I found a couple of these goons canoeing down a salmon nursery stream in the winter spawning time? Well, this is what I meant - they're still at it, in the here and now (clock the photo). http://seatrout.proboards21.com/index.cgi?...32783866&page=2

Here's the story: http://www.llanegwad-carmarthen.co.uk/fishytale.htm The Towy coracle-fishers used to have occasional encounters with sturgeon, too - something I saw on a coracle site (love the names of the old netsmen): In June 1896 on the Afon Tywi (River Towy) at Carmarthen a Sturgeon was caught that weighed 320 lb, was 8 feet 4 inches long and had a girth that measured 3 feet 4 inches. It was caught by Billy Boy and sold to Slippy Dick and during the netting two coracles were overturned and three nets broken. It was written in 1955 of coracles catching Sturgeon "twice in living memory" and also when "…a dozen coracles closed in on the bigger fish and brought it ashore"… This fish was exhibited at three pence a viewing. More recent confirmed sightings on the Tywi were the 4th June 1986, 11th June 1990 and the 25th June 1993.

Not to mention completely and utterly NAFF.

Fishing itself, probably, too...

Oh, the usual, bathing with several women...

And catch them in real weather (not hiding from it and the world and 'the wife' in a bivvie, with wiring and a TV on some outfit's dinky little table etc), in swims that THEY themselves have found and figured (not cadged / ripped-off from others, or merely been directed to or read about), having begun at the beginning with an unknown water before them and something as dauntingly simple as a single FLOAT (not a heap of lead and a cats'cradle of silly, read-about rigs etc) first...

Axes of Evil (East and West), Opus Dei, David Ike and his lizards etc? Paranoid fantasy. Here's the real thing... http://education.guardian.co.uk/print/0,38...-111051,00.html Be afraid, very...

Very promising, jabee. Expect to hear from some friends of mine in due course. They are people whom that attention-seeking Illuminati rabble would just love to meet and network through, but, of course, never will...