Vagabond

I agree John, and to take this "fowl" analogy further, some of our brave Brexiteers are beginning to sound as if they want to chicken out.

As a Norfolkman I can say I never heard the expression until I met my late 1st wife in 1950 - as I said, a Peak District lass. but of course you are right about the wind itself - a north wind at Cromer comes straight (apart from the Earth's curvature) from the polar ice cap with nothing but open sea in between. if the wind veers a bit to NNE. you come under the comparative shelter of Spitzbergen !

Must agree here, I heard the expression (from a Peak District lass) back in the 1950s - some years before Pratchett began to write.

Hove (large Jewish population) has a fishmonger's which has offered carp for as long as I can remember - ie at least as far back as WW II

When we first went to Ireland in 1953, there were some desperately poor people there. One aspect of this was the lavish treatment we got from the hotels (they were desperate for repeat custom) A second aspect was the presence of small boys, each clutching a jar of lobworms on the river bank, chanting "D'yee wanna buy any worrums Misther" At sixpence a jar so full of worms that they lasted one angler all day, we thought it good value, and sixpence was a fortune to the worm sellers. Many of these lads only wore one garment - shorts made out of hessian sacking , held up by braces made from binder twine. Coupled with the general "skin and bone" appearance of the boys, it was quite a culture shock to see such abject poverty so close to home. One lad, Liam, became our regular supplier and aspects one and two above came together when we opened the picnic basket containing our "packed lunches" Each day the hotel loaded it with enough food to feed, if not an army, at least a small company. There was more than enough even for the hollow-legged teenagers we then were. So we offered a sandwich or two to Liam, and they disappeared faster than a spaniel wolfing down a stolen sausage. This lad, if not at starvation level, was nevetheless very hungry indeed. We learnt that his very large family fasted on Fridays as they could not afford fish (which information further hardened my views on religious customs) As we were to fish for perch from a boat the next day (Friday) we offered to bring him some fish back Liam accepted. We brought back about twenty-eight pounds of medium-sized perch,and were met at the staithe by Liam, and four of his brothers, all wearing the same style of hessian shorts and carrying sacks of the same material. Liam's father had come along also to thank us for the fish. We mentioned we were bream fishing the next day which drew the observation "We don't eat the brame sorr, they are a dhurty fish !" So there we are - even a 1950s Irish family on the breadline won't eat bream, yet some people in this country will pay almost £5 per lb for it !

Me too

1. Me, 3 Me As for 2 I think those who want to remain in touch with each other should exchange email addresses fairly soon. Or is anyone prepared to put cash and effort in to keep it going ?....................................................................................................................... No? Thought not.

There has been too much press hype. We have , in the absence of Stokes, only two Test-class batsmen (The Aussies have three) Our two senior fast bowlers have their best years behind them, All of our fast bowlers have bowled too short a length so far. The Aussie off-spinner is better than ours, We have no serious second spin bowler. Only at wicket-keeper can we claim parity. We need three miracles, but are more likely to have to face reality. Nevertheless I will be supporting our team win or lose.

"Speciation" has been going on since DNA replication became a reality (and a pedant might argue "even before that") "Science" magazine has apparently only just rediscovered it.

I still use them - as a customer they are still useful - I may not wish to pay "on line" particularly if it is necessary to "register" - which in many cases involves answering unnecessary and impertinent questions, the answers to which may be sold on, and the harvest being a barrage of trash emails advertising things one neither needs nor wants. Most of my subscriptions are made by cheque rather than by standing order or direct debit. that means I can make an annual choice as to whether or not to continue, besides which, at the time of my demise, payments cease automatically, without my executors being troubled by extra paper work in either stopping payments or recovering post-mortem automatic payments. I can see why sellers don't like cheques, but am indifferent to their proctalgia I

Went into Tunbridge Wells yesterday to fetch a new car. There was a light snow shower (big flakes but few of them) on the way back, but it didn't lay.

Hi Barry, I have had a bit of experience using the method you describe, Used it off the Needles, the Shambles and a spot off Alderney Like you, I wondered if a scaled-up Polaris might work. However, I can see several snags (pun intended) Firstly, wave size, or to be more precise, wave size compared with float size. I use my Polaris rig for perch, but I could dispense with the float and just use a running paternoster. The reason I add a Polaris is for earlier bite detection ie the sooner one knows a perch has taken, the sooner one can strike and the less chance of deep hooking. I work on the principle of "the nearer the bite indication is to the hook, the better." SO, the Polaris does the job in calm water, or in a light breeze. - but .....As the wind rises, the waves get bigger and even my largest Polaris is submerged by each wave crest. There comes a point where the disadvantage of a submerged Polaris in each wave (drag delaying bite indication) outweighs the usefulness of an early bite indication which you can no longer see. At that point the Polaris comes off and I revert to running paternoster with bite indication from the meniscus where line enters water at best, or rod tip movement at worst. The type of location that you fish for these "Giant Sand Smelts" with Joeys is probably similar to those mentioned in the first paragraph above - Strong currents, so any wave travel against current results in steep waves - possibly four foot or more, A Polaris would disappear in each wave. Second I use the method in still water. Your situation is a tidal current and a moving boat . Other anglers with lines out. Enough said ? Thirdly, snags on the bottom. That's why I fish the bait above the bottom. My snags are soft weedbeds covering the bottom and the larger pebbles of a gravel pit. Puny compared with the wrack-covered rocks you face. True, a rotten bottom might solve that, at the cost of frequent re-rigging Plus you are running a bait down tide - my bait is staying put unless I choose to move it. My gut feeling is to stick with the method you describe - I have caught, .and seen my boatmates catch, plenty of GSS to double figures and above by that very method . Experimenting with the stopknot position is tedious, but necessary. Hope that helps.

True, and if you use a Polaris float you don't have to bother with a stop knot. The Polaris acts as its own sliding stop-knot. Instead of fishing at a prescribed depth, you can rig a sliding paternoster so that the bait is a prescribed distance above the bottom - whatever the water depth is.. That is invaluable if you are fishing onto a steep slope in a gravel pit - where fish cruise up and down the slope and a couple of feet either way of where your lead lands can result in a profound difference in depth. It means you can search such a slope without having to adjust a stop knot for every cast. What Martin says about the float being vertically above the lead is true if you don't tighten up straight away - once you do tighten, there will of course be an angle from lead to rod tip. From #1 "A tale of two trips"

I remember Dick Walker being asked to solve a similar problem. His correspondent had deduced something like the above and described it as follows "As the weight sinks, the line goes round the bend in the water " Very unscientific, but Dick knew instantly what the guy meant, A bit like the instructions on the first Japanese fixed spool reel marketed here "Wind handle, bale arm go flip-flop, all go happy fish" Priceless !

That great angling writer, William Caine had the answer..... After starting his year with pike in February, salmon in March, trout in April etc etc, he finished in style- ".....November - I stay in town, December - I stay indoors, January - I stay in bed"

True, but well worth another look. ...and tied in well with the Giant Trevally taking Bridled Terns - fantastic sequence. I heard tales of Spanish mackerel taking Torres Strait Pigeons as they migrate to and from N Australia - can well believe it after seeing last night's episode

Yep, my snorkeling days are over but not forgotten,, so I can really appreciate the efforts of the sub-aqua camera crews - one of the things the BBC does extremely well. I will be watching (on Sunday at 8pm)

Well, HV has offered evidence that the 1906 election was on a par with the most recent one. I can only speak for events from about 1940, when I was six years old. By the time I left school I had formed the opinion that about 80% of the human race didn't know their jobs. That was based mainly on my contact with schoolteachers. Nearly seventy years later, after starting out as a pharmacist, becoming bored with it, and rapidly switching to oceanography and earth science at university level, and helping run a family building business on the side, I have met many people, from all walks of life, including a few politicians, and I see no reason to change my original view, except to reflect that 80% was probably an underestimate. As a group, politicians are as inept as the rest of the human race. Added to that is the fact that politicians have little incentive to learn - once in a "safe" seat they continue to get elected on the basis of promises, no matter how many promises have been reneged upon in the past. So yes, politicians have always been pathetic, but I would suggest the current crop seem particularly so - I cannot see one person of stature on either side that I would trust to lead the country.

We have a yellow-grey light here at 1523 hrs and big grey clouds racing in from the SW - not much wind at ground level - yet.

As a general rule, cross between two species = hybrid Cross between two strains of the same species = mongrel (as in dog breeds) Having said that, i misused "mongrel" in #5 ! ....and nobody is to start pontificating on what constitutes a species

I learnt, whilst still a schoolboy, that a surefire place for small (ie 6" or less) perch is a swim, deeper that about 3 ft and up to 12 ft very close to the bank, especially if there are tree or shrub roots under the water. Later in life I learnt that it is a place for big perch (ie from 2 lb upwards) also - and they don't use the roots for "ambush", they come in from the open water and grab any small perch not quick enough to hide in the roots. Moreover, having grabbed a small perch, the bigger perch retreat into open water to "turn" their prey - which suggests they don't want to release it too close to the roots lest they lose it again. I have had the opportunity to watch this in clear water - several times. Hence a large bag of tiddler perch and a single 2 pounder is quite consistent with the above. Very rarely from such a swim do I catch perch between (say) half a pound and 2 pound - invariably I catch either bigger or smaller fish - and more of the latter, alas.

Anyone familiar with live Dover Sole will appreciate what a fantastic job the paramedic did. We used to catch quite a few Dovers off the West Pier in Brighton before it got burnt. Most soles caught there were about 12 oz to just over a pound. Swing them up, and some might drop off onto the pier decking. One very quickly learnt to get the fish off the pier decking immediately, as once it got its head between the slats, there was no way to retrieve it, it just kept wriggling, worked its way ever further through the slats until it dropped into the sea below. Many fish are smooth if stroked from head to tail, but like sandpaper if you run your fingers the other way (overlapping rough-edged scales) The Dover Sole is an extreme example. That paramedic was either a sea angler or very very quick on the uptake - perhaps both. BTW The only people I have seen stupid enough to "kiss" a fish have been TV angling programme presenters.

Interesting, and at the same time, depressing news. Obvious enough when one thinks about it - dredging removes all the different spawning habitats, leaving a monotonous drainage channel. A sort of Procrustean spawning bed that all are forced to use.

What Mark says is quite correct. However, I have noticed a significant change during my lifetime. I have fished since the early 1940s 50 years ago, most fish populations were wild, and in the wild different species prefer different spawning sites, That is usually sufficient to keep different species apart at spawning time. Hence hybrids were comparatively rare and "second generation" hybrids rarer still. Nowadays, far too many fish populations are overcrowded. Fish hatcheries, commercial fisheries, and many club waters are grossly overstocked in a never-ending race to provide easy fishing, big match weights "bag-up" (odious phrase) headlines etc etc. Hence fish have little choice of spawning sites when crammed into small overstocked waters - they live in a permanent soup of excess groundbait, fish crap and gratuitous milt from all and sundry (barely kept alive by continuous aeration in many cases) - so there is little wonder that hybrids are very common in such places . Yes, I know different species are supposed to spawn at different times and different temperatures, but that does not always happen. A mixed bag of silver fish from a small still water will contain plenty of mongrels - so with more hybrids, it stands to reason there will be more chances of second generation hybrids - even though, as Mark says, they are usually ill-adapted for survival

Yes, but has she grasped th implications ? (I doubt that also) - She keeps banging on about Scotland remaining in the EU after independence. Judging by the Eu response to Catalonia, that ain't gonna happen