Holmesy

Yeah its hard to keep things current in this fast moving world Ped

My boy will eat everything too, he takes after daddy. He's got liver casserole for tea, he's 6. He's very keen on most meats and like your friends son will demolish veg with the exception of peas, he will however stab you for the last carrot ! He's had Macdonalds but they're a rare treat, he loves fish and chips too, but again we don't live on them. Fish that I catch to neat is rarely battered, I prefer a sauce or grilled/baked with veg etc. Its amazing how a kid will expect to eat healthy food if he's never had anything else.

I've noticed that some people are only determined to appear on TV these days. I don't have an opinion on Jamie Oliver and whether his school dinners thing was a self publicising stunt or not, but for whatever reason, he deserves a knighthood for trying to make our kids eat healthily. We are about 10/15 years behind the yanks and look at the general state of their kids health, last thing our poor sods need is parental encouragement, they get enough of that off the TV.

i use the Kamasan uptides as the top hook on pennel rigs. like you say you can bend the eye and they keep their points, good hooks.

They're making their protest on the grounds that they don't have a choice, so what they do is make their kids eat the unhealthy choice to make their point. Well whats the health of a few kids matter when your making a point ? I bet they've talked about little else down the bingo.

I've used circle's on their own and as the top hook on pennel rigs, I've not done particularly well on them though thats not necessarily down to the hooks ! A combination I do have a lot of confidence in is the B940 kamasan for the main hook and the same sized kamasan uptide hook for the pennel hook, I just bend the eye of the pennel slightly to offset it. Like any hook, sharpen them if your going to use them more than once.

Have we the full results yet ?

It could be more complex than "the winds in the east" but the exceptions are far outweighed by the rule, I think its more to do with pressure than direction. East winds are usually accompanied by high pressure, this flattens the sea and helps clear it. I'd fish an easterly if I had to but not by choice. On my bit of coast I'd want a NW through to NE or a SW/SE following a good NW through NE and low pressure.

Just seen it thanks John, explains the lot. Some of the posts were sensitive but not worty of pulling. Makes you wonder what makes some people tick.

That accounts for where some of mine have gone too !

Some responses have been removed from this thread, I can understand the sensitive nature of some of them, but perhaps pm's should be sent to those who have messages removed explaining why ?

LMFAO Say it as you see it Bob, don't hold back now ! I tried to find an argument with your statements, in truth I couldn't, well done !

Easterlies are rarely good, they usually signify high pressure and dying/clearing seas. Low pressure and a wind that will put a bit of surf on your beach and colour in the water are the conditions to look for. The chunks of missing bait and the tapping rods would be shellfish (crabs, lobsters, shrimp/prawns), doesn't take them long to strip your hooks.

They're chromed and I think some sort of magnesium or alluminium alloy, you could ask Pete Coogan or Pure Fishing.

I've heard the farmer analogy so many times, "my trawler is like a tractor and my net is like a plough" it's really starting to grate now. Fishermens activities have about as much in common with farmers as mine do as an engineer with a brain surgeon ! Farmers tend fields, they feed the soil, they sow the crops they harvest, they leave land fallow for a season or two to rgenerate. Fishermen leave the "field" dead or dying, they don't plant the crop they harvest (NO INVESTMENT!) and they never leave areas fallow unless they're bound to by law ! If your going to justify what you do with analogies FFS at least try to make them reflect what you do. Try to think of something where you just take without investing in replensihing the "crop" you've taken.

What if there were no hypothetical questions ?

A new series of "The Deadliest Catch" starts tomorrow, fishermen risking life and limb to catch the king crab, they reckon they can earn a years money in 4 weeks but on average there's a death a week. Some people might say that taking that risk for that reward would define greed, not me I'd say it defines stupidity, after all you can earn a years money by working a year.

We had a few codling last year, one noticeable thing was that I was taking roes out of 3 and 4lb fish and some as small as 2.5lb. Not every one had them but a fairly high percentage say 30/40%. I was always under the belief that the fish didn't mature until they weighed around 5lb, its like the fish were rushing to spawn. That sort of thing usually is an indication of some sort of survival mechanism, I believe. Me and a mate have already had around a dozen codling off the beaches in 3 trips, most around 1lb the biggest at 3lb, I sincerely hope its the signs of a revival and not the last of a dying species.

I agree 100% theres absolutely nothing to be gained from killing the fish, tag and release is the way forward. There are enough accurate weight estimation methods nowadays, theres no need to haul the thing back to shore for a trophy photo and confirm its weight. Sickening to most anglers let alone the anti's.

I should think all the peopel thats been involved in this sport for the last 20 or 30 years know about the licence, thats about how long its been kicked about for. They would've got it in if they'd tried in the 80's, there was at least a few fish to catch then.

I'd be happy to pay for a licence for my "alledged" sport if it was managed like it is for the coarse fisherman, though in "fairness" its much easier to manage them, they have land locked and stocked waterways with no commercial pressure on them. How much do you think a licence will need to cost to provide the same benefits to a sea angler and provide the funds needed to police everything that happens on the sea ? I think they'd be missing the point if it was used to just enforce bag limits. Its been said before, why should a rod and line angler accept a bag limit when commercials don't ? Do you believe that "supposed" sport anglers account for more fish deaths than commercial fishermen ? If its conservation your after, start with the thick end of the wedge, address the issues that make the most difference before you try and tackle those that make hardly any.

They wouldn't make any revenue if they imposed them, who's going to pay for something without benefit ? There has to be a reason and logic to imposing a licence, for a coarse licence some of the funds are used by the EA, shotgun licence costs pay for the upkeep of a database registering the guns to the users, TV licence pays for BBC to make "quality" television for our pleasure etc. What reason could they give to licence sea angling ? I can only think of things like Public LIability Insurance which you get if you join organisations like NFSA etc. If they want to introduce a licence they need to provide something in return like other licencing authorities do.

The point I'm making Smudger is that we are licenced from ars*hole to breakfast time. My shotgun licence allows me to own and use a firearm, a potentially lethal weapon. I'm also a member of BASC which does give me something for my membership fee. If a licence for sea angling is proposed on the grounds of nothing more than allowing you to own a rod then its not going to get any support. Fishing rods don't need to be licenced, they've never been used to hold up a post office or worse kill somebody.

I don't want to be licenced. I already pay for a coarse fishing and shotgun licence, but I would consider buying some protective measures. For me the current increase in mls doesn't go anywhere like far enough to make me think that a licence offers value for money, or that bag limits are viable (daft imposing bag limits when anglers struggle to catch a bag limit!). What would make a licence worthwhile for rsa's whether they be from the SW, who's representative body say they need no protection, or the NE where none of the current proposals help anglers ? Before I pay for a licence, then I need to see what value I'm going to get. Like they do for my coarse licence, they need to protect, monitor and stock the fishery. They need to prosecute polluters, enforce fisheries protection and make it clear how they'd manage that in our seas, before imposing any regimes on anglers. I don't believe the propaganda, but like glenn, I do believe we need to be ready for the issue of licence and limit before its foisted on us. The only way we will be taken seriously is to have a plan of our own in place, agreed by us and our representative bodies, of the things we'd need to have in place before we'd accept a licence system.

If and when the licence issue is put to the test I think it will be a good opportunity for us to get something for giving something. Yes chances have been missed already and i'm as dissapointed as most, but when they ask us for a revenue we have the right to ask for something in return, be it the golden mile or an earlier increase to the mls.