philocalist

Errrrrm ..... it 's an article that was published a little while ago - Aug. 6th, 1876, to be precise - around the time of the Battle of the Little Bighorn :-)

Have had one for a while, not used it a lot though, TBH. Biggest single issue is that the suction pads are useless for any practical purpose - I removed them, drilled through and then screwed the contraption down into plugs in a large brick (on the bottom of which I put a rubber sheet, for grip, and to avoid damage to the table top. NOW, it's sits still in use, which makes a big difference. The mechanism that holds your spool is a bit agricultural - if you can get the tension right, it works well enough, but its a fine line between being too tight / loose, and letting line off smoothly under tension (assuming the spool is rotating in use. Lock it down tighter, and it works perfectly OK, holding the line spool stationary as you take line off the end of the spool (though noy under any tension)

Peter - I fall into a similar category to you, where I could with no doubt at all fish safely, 100% without standing any chance of compromising someone else - it's bloody frustrating, to say the least. The (tidal) riverbank, controlled by the club (where I'm a committee member, and bailiff) is a 3 minute walk away from where I live. Likewise, the nearest club lake is a similar distance - both can be accessed along a short section of dead-end road, passing just 3 properties en-route, on a pathway at least 25 metres away from garden boundaries - we pass each other every day walking dogs as a matter of course, and the section of road, being a dead-end, sees virtually no foot-traffic or vehicles at all, even at 'normal' times. In a typical year, I MIGHT see a half dozen people in total fishing the river, and most times would expect to have the lake to myself - if it's VERY busy there will be maybe 3 other anglers on there, with 36 fixed pegs to fish from. I can walk there, and around the lake or along the river every day if I choose, with the dog, my lads, other half or any combination of them, within current guidelines. I can sit on any of the benches should I choose, to take a rest - sometimes a necessity (presumably, I could also put up my fishing chair, much more comfortable on one of the pegs for the same reason, carried by a willing son). As it happens, with the correct paperwork in place (which it is), I can legitimately do this several times each day should I choose to do so, or if it is necessary, all within the government guidelines. Put up a rod and fish? WHAT????? In all honesty, in the context of fighting this bloody virus, what is the difference? Should I choose to do so, it would cause ructions, vilification, and no doubt being ostracised by the holier-than-thou brigade afterwards (which would be a major loss, not - I'd be able to fish in peace more often ? ) Under the circumstances I choose NOT to fish, in part to set an example to the idiots who ARE still trying to fish the lake (so far, all chancers / non members, who shift smartish when they see me approaching) - and I think, therein lies the problem. IF a few of us - those who CAN genuinely fish safely, choose to do so - everyone else will simply jump on the band-wagon, with potentially dire consequences - most of the ones I've bumped off the lake are not only fishing when they know they should not be, but are often fishing two to a peg (or 4 in one case - a couple of guys - evidently experienced anglers, too, mum, and a young lad!) On a similar subject, can anyone please explain to me the logic of allowing cyclists out to play - you know, that sweaty, spitting lot who ride on footpaths for preference, while keeping us indoors? I've lost count of the number of couple I've seen pass our house on shiny new bikes - she having no idea how to use the brakes or change gear, and him no better - and both definitely acolytes of the great God, McDonalds, rather than regular, keen cyclists?

Nice - sort of. No good to us here in the UK currently - free or otherwise, ALL fishing is banned for the foreseeable future, due to the measures deemed necessary to help control this bloody virus!

Hi Nosey Student - your post has made me curious, in no small part because I can see part of Durham Uni from where I'm sitting, but also in part because I was unaware that any sort of academical work even loosely related to this sort of topic went on there - its never been known as a hot-bed for scientific study ? Which department / course are you studying with? May well be interested - fished almost exclusively for predators for neck-end of 50 years ?

Sussed it ? On closer scrutiny, the wording on the website has changed overnight very slightly - it's now referred to as a 'free permit', though the capture I did yesterday confirms it used to say 'licence'. Turns out you DO need an EA salmon licence to fish, plus the permit for internal purposes of recoding catches.

Don't think its meant as an incentive as such Martin, either for existing members or to attract new ones - just a perk of belonging to the club. I'm more interested in te mechanics of how this works, i.e. how is the club able to do this - for example, is it legitimately possible to buy a 'club' salmon licence, and then farm it out on a daily basis to any member who requests it? Personally, I think thats unlikely, but I'd love to know how it has been arranged as I'm assuming this must have involved the EA at some level?

Seen that thanks Phone - was the first place I looked - what is apparently being offered though is an entirely free daily salmon licence, for any club member, available simply on request for a specific day.....

Not exactly coarse fishing related directly BUT ... I noticed earlier today on the website of a nearby angling club (that is predominently a coarse anglers club, categoricall NOT one stuffed with game anglers), that a 'FREE' salmon licence is available to their members on a daily basis, allowing them to fish for salmon on the river fishing they control, which sees a fairly limited run of fish each year. For a very casual angler who might dabble with salmon fishing occasionally, this seems like manna from Heaven, but it's not something I've seen before, nor even been aware of in a lifetime of angling. Can anyone throw any light on how this works / what the arrangement is likely to be (presumably between club and EA) - and how it might be arranged for my club, who control a stretch of river on what is reputed to be the best sea-trout river in England (with a fair salmon run too, normally, apparently!)

Just had a large, similar problem, but with rats -= eventually managed to get rid of 47 of the nasty little buggers - and a mouse - using simple, traditional rat-traps. They randomly took both cheese and Nutella, but two tricks I found were invaluable wer 1/ push the bait well down into the bait-hoders, so it cant simply be grabbed and removed, and 2/ the traps themselves needed a bit of tweaking to be fully effective. The triggers are invariably a simple plastic affair, but not particularly precise - a simple fettle / trim with a Stanley knife or similar made them much more sensitive, and consequently, much more effective. Problem with the various poisons is that they seem to fall into two camps - a paste / pasta based one typically held in small envelopes, almost raviolli-like, and grain=based, which is often formed into blocks. Both have problems (the paste / pasta based ones were untouched apart from by the dog (without any apparent effect, and despite me putting them where it was almost impossible for me to access, never mind a dog!), and the grain-based can be ineffective for a couple of different reasons, one critical one being that rats further south are noted for having largely developed an immunity, to the poison in use (though there is a Type II easily available, typically where the loose grain is dyed a bright green colour) The geend grain proved very effective, but when I was investigating what to buy, it became apparent that MOST of the grain BLOCK type baits, particularly those made in the Far East (which is most of them) are about 95% wax, and contain very little rodenticide. Good luck --- hate the bloody creatures, personally!

Personally, if a fish is hooked so deeply that a disgorger and forcep are not enough to effect removal, Id cut the line as far down as was safely possible, then return the fish as quickly as I could with the minimum of fuss. Most hooks commonly used in freshwater fishing within the UK will quickly corrode and disintegrate in water within a few days - more quickly when being attacked by various bodily fluids / digestive acids within a fish. Digging about down there ()in the stomach?) is only goiung to cause trauma and possibly further injury. The exception to this would be a deeply hooked pike on trebles, which may otherwise 'stitch' the throat closed, or close off the stomach. It IS possible to very, very carefully pull out the stomach of a pike to effect removal - apparently - then return the fish, though in more than 40 years of catching pike, I've never hooked one that deep, nor seen the procedure completed.

Dunno - plenty of evidence of adult ducks being taken by pike in the 20's - would guess their moths are smaller than a cat?

I'll be honest, I wear polarising lenses a lot, and they DO work for me, most of the time. Thing is, for them to work effectively, the light needs to be coming in the correct direction, relative to the direction in which you are facing, AND the angle of the light hitting the water. The orientation of the lens within the frame of your glasses also has a profound effect. Under the right conditions, you will lose virtually 100% of surface glare. I'll confess, a lifetime as a pro photographer gave me perhaps a better understanding of light than most, including what polarisation can, and cannot do. Totally unrelated, but I wonder how many realise that a normal polarising filter, so effective on the old film cameras (and our eyes) is useless on a digital camera ... which needs a circular polariser rather than a linear one (just to muddy the waters a bit :-) ) What perhaps also gives me an edge (when fish spotting) is the actual glasses I use - quite old and hopelessly outdated now frame-wise, with circular lenses, BUT the lens can be individually rotated within each lens using a small knob at the edge of meach lens, to gain maximum polarising effect - and the difference can be astounding. Unfortunately, I've been unable to find any in current manufacture (though I've not looked for a while) - others may know differently. And then, of course, there is the option of polarising binoculars ........ Eyesight-related, I was very recently diagnosed with the beginning of a film developing across my dominant eye - its in the early stages, a bit too soon for surgery, but currently looks like looking through cling-film - not too bad tightly stretched, but a bugger if it moves as I concentrate on something. Strangely, wearing polarising glasses in any light seems to make the problem go away almost 100% ... thouigh I get some odd looks on dingy days, or half-way around the shopping centre in very dark glasses :-)

Thats a nifty trick - simple but effective, going to nick it :-)

:D Housebound for a bit despite the current glorious weather, so jusy mooching about online trying to stave off baredom - revisited this topic out of curiosity as I was the OP ... amazing how far, and how quickly - a topic can stray / evlove(?) from the original ... a lake turning over to bears, moose hunting and getting hpelessly lost within about a dozen posts