zedhead

id be tempted to try a small roach deadbait, your sure to catch a record bream! But seriously, bream love halibut pellets, casters and sweetcorn, but the best big bream bait for me has to be lobworm.

depending on the size fo the river stealth can be a big factor in catching or not. If the water is shallow and clear, id head for snag swims like over hanging trees and try to draw the fish out. Also try using smaller baits and hooks in daytime, with mono better than braid for main line. Stef horak feeds several pints of hemp, casters and maggots for hours before he wets a line (on small shallow waters where barbel are spooky).

tony - again, Im simply in awe of your superior intellect. I never assumed I was the only one with a degree and I dont see what academic qualifications have got to do with anything. At the end of the day, the very fact that punctuation, grammer and spelling on a forum means anything to you is indicative of your personality or lack of. My opinions towards foreign policy, poles eating fish or whatever are perfectly legitimate, if you agree with them or not makes no odds. Il leave you to pick through this post, be sure to check for errors wont you. Keep it up big man! If I recall, didnt we once disagree on the quality of reels?

well you can buy a spade from b&q for around a tenner!

tony u, Actually, I am not a student as I graduated with a 1st class degree early summer 2006. Im so glad you found many errors in my English in a rushed post written in the AM's, on a forum! You must feel quite the intellect now we have acertained that you can read, write and notice vastly important mistakes in grammer, punctuation and spelling. For this you should recieve special praise from your peers and fellow forum members, and be awarded a great big GOLD STAR. Well done that man! If you could only have picked up on my errors back when I was at school, I cant imagine where Id be now. Once again Tony, good work and thankyou for your laudable contributions, we illiterates would be lost without such influences. PC is often used as short hand for personal computer, but it can also mean Pollitical Correctness. The latter is something best not discussed as any failure to comply with pollitical correctness engenders uproar and one maybe labelled a RACIST or a mindless illiterate. Rabbit dear boy, it seems we Brits have no right to be patriotic in any sense, or as you rightly say, call a spade a spade but such is the current climate we live in with much emphasis placed on a happy wonderful multi ethinc england! (eh Tony did you notice I spelt England with a lower case e? I Hope not, what will the readers think of my spelling YFKH!!!!!!!)

with regards to the pc brigade - dispair at our bigotted racist nation - what a load of crap! I have worked with a polish geezer before and he made a reasonable effort to follow our customs, that should be a basic premise on the immegrants part - they wany a better life and more money but to do that they should want to become british. Thats why there is all the racial tension and problems with the muslims, this is england and our heritage and customs should come 1st. Why have we got to write school names in 7 different langauges? its a sodding english school for christs sake. English should be the 1st language used, written and soken by everyone in the country. If you dont like it, go back to your shanty. And the worst thing about it all is the absolute left of left rubbish that over flows out of some peoples mouths. Should I feel bad about our history and heritage with the slave trade etc, absolutely not. This nation is a joke full of idiots that have been decieved by the new labour - MULTI ethinc country regime, which has brought nothing but tension, dispair and hatred. And with regards to eating fish - nick et al, yes we brits have dined on our fish stocks, but what right have foreigners got to our fish stocks? can i go to russia and kill sturgeon for caviar? - possibly but there would be consequences. We anglers should club together (punn intended) and make sure we protect our fish stocks. I pay a sodding rod license to catch fish, do they? oh but they dont know about our laws...exactly the problem!!!!!!!!!

chris, you mentioned they were from china but you didnt mention thier superior quality! I use technium 4000 reels for my lure fishing, for general ledger work, I would opt for 5000 baitrunnersor something of a similar size. Whilst were on reels, has anyone seen/used the fox stratos range? I noticed ian welch and a few others raving about them and rating them best in class, only to pick 2nd to top model up and feel how truly horrible, cheap and plasticy it was. Those reels wouldnt last me 2 mins, but they come with spool reducers............WOW.

just because its thier culture doesnt make it right. We have a different culture and they should only be allowed in this country if they adopt our customs and become british. If not then they should stay out. The problem is the attitude and anyone who doesnt agree or believe in all this pc shite is labelled a racist. The whole EU open door thing is an absolute travesty we are a laughing stock because of how easy it is for people to take advantage of this nation.

definately a hybrid, look at the anal fin for example. Id say it was more bream than roach if it is a hybrid, but its definately not a roach. Still at 4lbs hybrids fight like stink so a good catch all the same.

Thanks for the advice on 'googling' guys. I never realised little owls were introduced after all these years of proclaiming myself a budding ornithologist!

tony u, I was unaware that little owls are a non native species, and cant find any reference to that effect in any literature. I would be interested to know where you found this out. At the end of the day, Alien introductions are a global catastrophe for native wildlife. If we think the situation is bad in the uk, try being a native snail to hawii or a flightless bird in new zealand. In terms of fish, there are resident catfish in several english rivers, notably the thames, the cam and the trent, we shall have to see the long term effects of such problems.

GOOD NEWS!

congratulations on catching your first barbel. Im sure lots of people on here would give a fairly accurate weight.

I hate to harp on again about a very wise man, but accidents are caused and can be avoided. In this case if patch had opted to take advise given to him (although hook choice is personal) then the boy wouldnt have ended up in hospital. Either way, only club rules can stop people using barbed or indeed barbless hooks, its not our place to tell patch hes done wrong.

slodger RE sea deads, I personally think that sea deads are comparible to worms as a zander bait, in that you might catch the odd one but given the alternative coarse option, my results strongly indicate that sea deads are next to pointless for targetting zander. Anyway, fish baits are a thing of the past now, ive swapped my zander rods for a a pair of big bream rods, emptied the freezer of deadbaits and bought a 25 kilo sack of 20mm hali pellets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That does sound a bit of a killer seshion, its bad enough when things go bad on the bank and its a short drive home but having to face the car park just makes the situation a whole lot worse. There is some good fishing darn sarth, but no fishing is worth a slog on the M25 unless its heading north!

cranfield, Ive never seen a bait or packet of baits called or marketed as zander baits, do they only sell these in the romeny marshes area or what? There surely no market for the now as halibut pellet is the way forward it seems, just stick one of these badboys on the hook and your garunteed to catch a fish, according to poledark et al, we can expect to catch pike, eels, barbel, tench, record zander, trout, salmon, grayling, dace, roach, bullhead, both species of sticklebacks, gudgeon, minnows, chub, crucians, bream etc etc. Its just amazing that we dont actually have to worry about species specific tactics anymore, stick a halibut pellet on and were sure to catch any fish that swims!!!!

I would claim a record but this would be entirely dependant on the species, the sitiuation and the venue. I doubt I would even bother with a picture of a record carp let alone claim a record - especially as we have all seen the same fish on several occasions, as with the record barbel. If the venue was kept under wraps and the species caught was being targeted the maybe I would claim.

A very wise man once told me THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ACCIDENT - they are caused and dont just occur out of nowhere! Dunk fairley, Im glad someone has found the time to investigate such ACCIDENTS and you deserve credit for your post offering advise and further information - well done.

I agree to some extent that the choice is not only personal preference but dependant on target species. Coming from a predatory perspective, the difference is massive for trebles, the ease of unhooking pike when using semi barbed (or even barbless) is huge and if a pike is deep hokked the damage caused by barbless in non exsistant. Aside from pike and zander though, I do use barbless hooks almost exclusively and I have witnessed the pros and cons of doing so. A barbless hook has on occasion penetrated fully, past the eye and out of the carps mouth completely (thereby sewing the fish on by line) and this has left a hole. However, having seen anglers rip out chunks of flesh on barbed, I tend to avoid them. One thing I havent investigated is a comprimise of micro barbed, perhaps a happy medium for some (non predatory) fish?

pete, I was drawing attention to the unlikely nature of the capture rather than pulling it down, but since you mention it, how much merit does an unitended record fish capture warrant? I suspect people will remember it as the zander caught on a pellet as opposed to the record zander caught by dave lavender or neville fickling previous to that - i.e. by design. It is certainly an astonishing turn up for the books either way.

well folks, the record has been smashed by 2lbs, which is great. Unfortionately, it was caught by a 19yr old youth who was fishing for BREAM with a method feeder and HALIBUT pellet!!! I was totally blown away with this news, I did predict a record zander would crop up soon, I didnt however think it would be this soon and to that method or bait. The severn is a good candidate, However, it is a real shame that a certain high profile pike angler has pointed out the probable location....well done nige, now the circus will be out in force in the area.

Ok dant, il risk sounding stupid, I reckon the first tench is 7lb 14oz, the second tench is 6lb 6oz and the last tench is 8lb 2oz. Of course we could suspect that the biggest looking tench is the lightest and the smallest looking tench is the heaviest but from the photos, I think otherwise.

RPM, I spoke to Don, the old chap who fishes the trent, It turns out he used to be a member of Notts Pisc but due to ill health he has had to give up the ticket. He did however say that when the Trent is in flood, most barbel men head to a stretch just before a place called muskham as this area holds extra water well compared to some other sections. Tactics wise, he says you cant beat a big bed of hemp, fishing pellet or meat over the top. Hope this helps.

Ive used them for about 4 years now and Ive never zeroed them, Im unaware that you can and so I just take off the weight of the sling or net. If you do find a way of zeroing them, let me know.