Steve Walker
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Posts posted by Steve Walker
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My old marine biology lecturer told me they were fantastic sauteed in a bit of olive oil. This was in the minibus on the way back from a field trip, where we'd caught loads of them. He could have mentioned it earlier...captain cojones:
the thing you really need to try is razorfish.
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Southend Pier? Sure it wasn't the outflow at Sellafield?sam-cox:
Fished Southend Pier today with pals Tim and Matt.
Tim caught the above poor fellow on rag, i caught a 3lb bass and a 5lb bass both on live pout.
It hasn't done too badly for itself, mind.
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Depending on how the law is interpreted, it may be illegal not to. It is against the law to release a signal crayfish into the wild. It is illegal to keep them (alive) without a licence.Tyke:
Im going fishing to furnace mill where there is a thriving population.
The question is if i catch any can i kill them?
The illegality of trapping them is a legal accident. Crayfish are considered fish in law, and trapping fish is illegal. The EA are reviewing the situation and hope to allow trapping.
There is a concern over the "jack pike effect". You know the way that removing large pike from a water relaxes the cannibalistic pressure on small pike, leading to a population explosion? Well, crayfish are also cannibals.
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I'm not sure they even get that. Most stocked fisheries are stocked by the owners, not by the Environment Agency, and the money coarse anglers pay to get exclusive access is to the club or owner, not the EA.Socksy Squirrel:
At the moment the freshwater anglers pay a licence, in return they get stocking in the case of the trout anglers and exclusive access in the case of the coarse anglers.
It's hard enough to make a case for the trout/coarse licence, really; I think it's a fair point that cleaner rivers are something everyone wants, not just anglers, and that lots of other activities benefit from facilities funded from general taxation. You don't get football licences, rambling licences or birdwatching licences, so why should there be fishing licences?
I also wonder how much of the licence fee is spent on administration and enforcement.
It's just a tax, and sea anglers should fight it tooth and nail.
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We're going to follow Ken's suggestion of Black Head; if he gives me a hint of how to find it, that isScotty T:
The weather looks damn fine for the bank holiday weekend, so lets hear what everyones got planned on the fishing front.
Ken Davidson and myself are out on a charter trip from Poole after Bream and Rays, and anything else thats hungry.
Scotty
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Sounds perfect. Thanks Ken, we'll give it a go.
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I'm not too bothered, to be honest. The mate I'll be fishing with hasn't been fishing for long, and I think could do with a few fish to keep the interest up. His casting range is about 80 yards. Ideally, somewhere he's got a good chance of picking up a few fish close in, size and species immaterial.
If I can pick up some better fish by sitting it out with a bigger bait or getting some more distance, that would be grand, but it isn't essential.
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I'm thinking of doing a beach session this weekend; I'm considering:
South Wales
Bristol Channel
Solent Area
Catch reports are slow for the Solent, and the tides aren't ideal. I don't know the other areas well enough to say whether the tides are good or bad. I quite fancy trying South Wales, see if there are any rays about.
What do you reckon? Anywhere else within a couple of hours drive of Swindon?
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The Green party seems to have thoroughly lost its way. It has become a ragbag of "radical" politics.Tog:
Could you ask Hugh about his 'support' for the semi-vegan anti-angling Green party?
There is nothing intrinsically left or right wing about the principles of the Green movement, yet the Green Party's manifesto is the most left wing of the national parties. Animal rights has absolutely nothing to do with environmentalism, yet they feel the need to take a strong stance on the issue.
It's just a directionless agenda based on pandering to the prejudices of a bunch of urban crusties. Someone like HFW who is trying to promote a genuinely more environmentally sensitive lifestyle is far more in touch with the original point of the Green movement than those jokers, yet they wouldn't like his hunting, fishing, meat-eating, 4x4 driving, entrepreneurial way of life.
They should be ashamed of themselves, and he should have told them to get stuffed.
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Ah, so it isn't just me being a Grumpy Old Man then? FFS, the diameter is a secondary consideration, I want to know the breaking strain. I may *then* decide to find the thinnest line I can for that strength.Peter Waller:
Have to say that I have wondered the same thing. Surely both b.s. and thickness are equally valid? I read articles now where just the diameter is refered to, to me its meaningless.
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Rats? Good for entertainment on a slow session... When we were teenagers, a mate and I night fished Stamford Park boating lake in Ashton-Under-Lyne. In February. Seemed like a good idea at the time. surprisingly enough, it was very slow.
The banks are shored up with cages of rocks, which are infested with rats. We ended up slipping a Starlight onto a spare spool of line, tieing a chunk of Mars bar onto the end and seeing how close we could pull a rat before it let go and scarpered.
*Very* close is the answer.
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Promising, although the implication that angling is a rural pursuit is interesting; I've caught fish in the centre of Manchester before now, and I understand that there's a lot of fishing in the London parks.Leon Roskilly:
From: THE LABOUR PARTY
Support for both sports was made clear in our 2001 manifesto. That commitment not only stands but will be built upon in Labour's
Perhaps the angling constituents in urban seats ought to gently remind their MPs that they have an interest too...
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Exactly. That's the reason I think that having year-on-year data would be useful. You can bag up one day and blank the next, the idea is to get an objective view of the seasonal patterns in different regions.spasor:
Fishing reports can only ever to allude to what happened on a certain day, and in that days conditions.
<...>
Sometimes, the magic fishing continues for days. A catch report can only ever indicate that the fish are `there`. Whether they`ll be feeding or not, is something that still puzzles even the best anglers.
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There seem to be reasonable catches of smoothhound from the Solent area; one of my targets for this Summer, I think.
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Rigs
in Sea Fishing
The perfect rig, in my opinion, consists of the line and a hook and nothing else. Unfortunately, it can only be used in perfect conditions (i.e. hardly ever), and at all other times you must compromise. Usually that means at least a weight, for casting and holding bottom.
If you are casting any distance, you will be using a shock leader which is stronger than the mainline, and you will want to tie the weight to the end of it in as strong a way as possible; the weight is the priority, not the hook, because the weakest point when a fish is on will be no stronger than the weaker of the trace and the main line.
So, you have a lead attached to the end of your shock leader. You now need to attach the trace somehow. You could just tie it to the eye of the weight, but that's likely to tangle. The simplest thing to do is to create a loop in the shock leader using a blood loop and tie it to that. Repeat for additional hooks. That, I reckon, is the simplest rig.
You might add bait clips (definitely help keep the bait intact, reckoned to improve casting distance). You might want to put a split ring between all of the above and the rest of the leader, to allow you to swap rigs quickly, and to attach the lead via another one for the same reason.
As an alternative to blood loops, it now seems fashionable to thread a swivel on the line and trap it with a bead and a crimp either side. It looks a lot neater, it might weaken the leader less than a blood loop, in theory it ought to tangle less. Can't say I've noticed the latter, to be honest.
There are then a whole range of other rigs and bits of tackle designed to overcome specific problems, some very useful, some less so. The two things you can guarantee an extra gizmo will catch are a) weed and
anglers in the tackle shop. It may or may not also catch you some more fish. -
Dunno about that; last time I was buying bait, the bloke in the shop said "you'll struggle today". He was right as well...kentangler:
You won't find a site with up to date reports. The site that can do this will be a hit. the only sure way to get true reports is to contact tackle shops in coastal areas. They have the latest catches. Only problem is, they do tend to paint a bright picture to sell bait.
I agree with you, though, that it's hard to get good up-to-date information. The real benefit of this would be in pulling out patterns and trends from previous years.
Hey, I wonder whether it would qualify for some kind of global-warming-watch funding :cool:
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Yeah, there is thatSpur-Hound:
Great idea, though maybe if it was available for all to merrily look through the data it could be too much like handing commercials valuable info for free. Perhaps some sort of secure member access control?
Shaun
I think it would be necessary to keep the geographic granularity fairly low, simply to get enough results in a group to say anything meaningful. It could still take the venue, and display individual catch reports for people interested in the detail, but I think the real value in the project would be in providing a kind of regional angler's calendar.
I think the big difficulty is getting people to record their blanks, which are as important as the good days in terms of calculating what a likely catch will be.
I reckon the commercials already have a pretty good idea of where the fish are
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I've recently been digging around the various sites that carry catch reports, with an eye to predicting when various species are likely to turn up at different venues. Yep, it's that time of year
Many of the sites don't display much archive data, and many just don't have much data at all.
I've been kicking around an idea to put up a site to capture data in a more structured way, and then provide some analysis. If I could get a reasonable amount of data for region, species, number caught, session start and end time (to calculate catch per unit effort), the system would be able to answer questions like "what can I expect to catch in the Solent area at this time of year", "when will the cod arrive in the Bristol Channel", etc.
It would be hard to generate enough traffic to get data initially, so I was thinking along the lines of providing a simple mechanism for established sites to be part of the system.
What do you think? Good idea, rubbish idea?
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See also:
www.epa.gov/waterscience/presentati...2/turnpenny.pdf
I also thought about bubble curtains, and googling
bubble curtain fish intake
gets lots of hits.
Asking the anglers to come up with a solution to the power plant's environmental problems is the height of cheek. There is clearly plenty of established work on these systems. They need to commission an engineering consultancy with experience of doing this.
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I think I'll trust the boys at Daiwa, they probably know what they're doingNorm B:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Walker:I was a bit surprised to find that the first ring is on the tip section; none on the butt at all. I can't say I've noticed that before.
:cool: Nothing to stop you having one whipped on if it makes you feel better.
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Unfortunately, I live some way from there (and the sea generally), and the local shops don't stock much sea gear. I make a point of shopping locally for coarse kit.Norm B:
:cool: No, but I do know that some of the tackle shops in that area do price match so you could have picked up your rod the next day instead of waiting for it.Norm B:
Now waiting impatiently for a Daiwa SuperCast to arrive, and hoping it comes in time for the weekend. Does anybody know how long Spotty Dog Tackle usually take to dispatch?
Anyway, it arrived this morning, and I'm having trouble concentrating on work and not on the idea of finding a wide open space to give it a thrash...
I was a bit surprised to find that the first ring is on the tip section; none on the butt at all. I can't say I've noticed that before.
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We had a beach session at Lee-On-Solent on Sunday night; parked up, got changed, wandered up the beach and then found the red flag flying for the army range. Back to the car, further along the coast, found out from some locals that the flags aren't a problem if you stick to the beach.
First cast resulted in a beachcaster broken at the reel seat. Cobbled together a makeshift repair, but couldn't really cast any distance with it. Got the lamp out as it went dark. Mantle broken. No spare. End result: one very small pout.
Now waiting impatiently for a Daiwa SuperCast to arrive, and hoping it comes in time for the weekend. Does anybody know how long Spotty Dog Tackle usually take to dispatch?
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Ah, you would be applying logic there. It doesn't work with these people. They don't think, they emote.crab master:
they wont ban sea angling because people eat fish it would be stupid to say ban sea angling because its cruel because there is no other more humane way of catching and killing fish for human consuption what will you be saying they will try to ban next beef burgers?
As for their next target, they went for foxhunting not because they wouldn't like to ban shooting, fishing and eating meat, but because it was a battle they thought they could win.
My worry is that the rent-a-mob hunt sabs will now be looking for someone else's expense to have their fun at.
1st day of the new season
in Coarse Fishing
Posted
Grabbed a couple of hours on the upper Thames at Cricklade. One small chub of a couple of pounds on link legered breadflake. Not a sniff on my "special" cheese paste experiment, but then flake tends to outfish most things there.
I've got plans to try to find barbel this Summer, but looking at the river I'm not confident. Not much depth, not much current, basically not much river. I've caught good barbel in rivers no wider, but they've had good flow and a bit of depth. Much of this is < 2 feet deep.
Still, that's the landing net wetted.