Vagabond

and a further note at our local club - "Please do not throw cigarette butts into the urinal....... . . . (Wait for it.) . . . . . .. . . . ......it makes them difficult to retrieve, and nearly impossible to smoke" [ 29 March 2002, 08:45 PM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

Excalibur can type faster than me! - must say I enjoyed the challenge tho'

Excalibur can type faster than me! - must say I enjoyed the challenge tho'

Newt, you need the services of an horologist (Q5) if the hour hand is moving that slowly! Normally the hour hand moves half a degree in one minute, 30 degrees in an hour, and 360 degrees in twelve hours. (assuming we are talking about a normal twelve-hour analogue clock)

Newt, you need the services of an horologist (Q5) if the hour hand is moving that slowly! Normally the hour hand moves half a degree in one minute, 30 degrees in an hour, and 360 degrees in twelve hours. (assuming we are talking about a normal twelve-hour analogue clock)

Alan, your story reminds me of the first-time would-be parachutist. He jumps out of the plane, goes into free fall, and despite repeated attempts to pull the rip-cord, stays in free fall. Two hundred feet from the ground he passes a guy going the other way. "Hey!", he shouts, "do you know anything about parachutes?" "No" comes the reply, "do you know anything about gas barbies?"

Right ! Ask any Norfolkman, he'll tell you they are all "light" (ie ninepence in the shilling) in the next village because they all marry their cousins.

Right ! Ask any Norfolkman, he'll tell you they are all "light" (ie ninepence in the shilling) in the next village because they all marry their cousins.

Cheers chaps, what a rapid response! Looking forward to getting "buttoned up" Fisherking - will reimburse you for any old bits of rod you pick up - thanks. PS - for Keith Finn - bet you've never heard of ferrule stoppers either ! [ 23 March 2002, 08:15 PM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

Cheers chaps, what a rapid response! Looking forward to getting "buttoned up" Fisherking - will reimburse you for any old bits of rod you pick up - thanks. PS - for Keith Finn - bet you've never heard of ferrule stoppers either ! [ 23 March 2002, 08:15 PM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

Nightwing is absolutely right. All country sports should stand together or we get picked off one by one. No true country sportsman/sportswoman should be making stupid snide remarks about "toff's on horseback" My stepdaughter (a bank clerk) rides to hounds, my stepson (bricklayer) hunts with lurcher and ferrets. Several of my family shoot, nearly all fish. I participate (or have participated) in all three. None of us started with an inherited brass farthing, let alone a silver spoon. Snobbery and inverse snobbery are a curse in Britain, something to do with accents - and we look down on countries riddled with a "caste" system!! George W Bush probably has the same accent as his ranch-hand - perhaps that is why Americans can band together against the "antis" -

In the course of numerous fishing trips, the old-fashioned rubber buttons on split-bamboo rod butts gradually become loose. Usually I remember to tighten them up before using the rod, but every fifteen years or so I forget and that means a lost button. So in the course of sixty years I have four more rods than I have rubber buttons for. As I am getting increasingly p****d off with having to keep "borrowing" the buttons from another rod (S*ds Law dictates there is never a button on the rod I want to use next) I would appreciate details of any source of these ancient relics. Ordinary tackle dealers under the age of 60 have never heard of them - any ideas folks ? Thanks in advance. PS Please don't tell me I should have glued the threads in the first place - It's against my religion [ 23 March 2002, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

In the course of numerous fishing trips, the old-fashioned rubber buttons on split-bamboo rod butts gradually become loose. Usually I remember to tighten them up before using the rod, but every fifteen years or so I forget and that means a lost button. So in the course of sixty years I have four more rods than I have rubber buttons for. As I am getting increasingly p****d off with having to keep "borrowing" the buttons from another rod (S*ds Law dictates there is never a button on the rod I want to use next) I would appreciate details of any source of these ancient relics. Ordinary tackle dealers under the age of 60 have never heard of them - any ideas folks ? Thanks in advance. PS Please don't tell me I should have glued the threads in the first place - It's against my religion [ 23 March 2002, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

Beat me to it again Newt ! All I would add is that fish up to abot a pound and a half can be hot-smoked whole, but fish above that weight up to about 5 or 6 lb are best hot-smoked as fillets. Any salmonid above 6 lb I send for cold smoking and slicing. A useful tip if you do the same is to gut the fish, leave the head on, bur trim away the fatty body walls below the ribs - if you don't, they will include these unpalatable fatty bits in the final product - and charge you for them!

Well, never mind, to help pay these council tax increases (to say nothing of water, sewage, gas and electricity costs), that nice Mr Brown has increased my Old Age Pension ( that's what I call it in these "politically correct" times) by no less than 4.1% - Three whole pounds a week!! - no doubt hoping I will forget the notorious 75 pence per week "increase" a year or two back. As I say to anyone who complains about government policies - "Well, you put 'em in!" Amazing how cross people get at that The same applies to moans about EU membership - no-one admits to voting "Yes"

Well, never mind, to help pay these council tax increases (to say nothing of water, sewage, gas and electricity costs), that nice Mr Brown has increased my Old Age Pension ( that's what I call it in these "politically correct" times) by no less than 4.1% - Three whole pounds a week!! - no doubt hoping I will forget the notorious 75 pence per week "increase" a year or two back. As I say to anyone who complains about government policies - "Well, you put 'em in!" Amazing how cross people get at that The same applies to moans about EU membership - no-one admits to voting "Yes"

Newt - our Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) is related to your "hawks" such as Red-shouldered Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk and Rough-legged Hawk (all Buteo spp) - we occasionally get that last one (which we call the Rough-legged Buzzard) as a winter visitor from Scandinavia - it is circum-polar in distribution. That thing you call an"ole turkey buzzard" is one of the New World vultures - related to the Condor - looking forward to getting re-aquainted with your American (feathered) birds again next month and catching a few USA fish.

Newt - our Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) is related to your "hawks" such as Red-shouldered Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk and Rough-legged Hawk (all Buteo spp) - we occasionally get that last one (which we call the Rough-legged Buzzard) as a winter visitor from Scandinavia - it is circum-polar in distribution. That thing you call an"ole turkey buzzard" is one of the New World vultures - related to the Condor - looking forward to getting re-aquainted with your American (feathered) birds again next month and catching a few USA fish.

A few thoughts and a prediction The Times did a piece on hunting, and came up with some surprising figures - I can't vouch for their accuracy but here they are :- Over half a million people participate in hunting from horseback Over three-quarters of a million more follow hounds on foot That is a not inconsiderable number - compare it with the number of fishing licences sold in 2001 (anybody know offhand?) There are more lurchers in the country than foxhounds - who said hunting was a toff's sport? Come to that, many regard shooting and fly-fishing as toff's sports - so how safe is angling in this class war? (Make no mistake, this is a class war) If hunting is banned, I predict that even more of our countryside will be lost to urbanisation - in fact, this may be New Labour's hidden agenda - devalue our countryside as a recreational resource, and thus make the sale of greenfield land for building a more attractive option for land-owners. BTW If anyone wishes to remind me that I am chairman of a development company, let me say we ONLY build on reclaimed inner city (ie brownfield) sites. There is less profit in doing that rather than trashing the countryside with yet more housing estates - but Rural Britain needs all the help it can get.

Chesters, I know just what you mean! My early employment was in industry, where if the boss wanted a report by Friday, you handed it to him on the previous Tuesday at the latest. When I took up an academic career, I was astonished at how lackadaisical (that's a posh word for bone lazy) many academics were. The hardest work some of them did was producing reasons why something could NOT be done. The tragedy is, that when the present cost-cutting climate first hit, the more dynamic and able people took their redundancy package and got out, leaving the dross - I'm just thankful I reached retirement age before the political correctness and health-and-safety industries began to destroy our higher education network. Taking students on a field trip (or in my case a sea trip) was on the way to becoming an administrative nightmare. The irony is, that many of the best academics who once worked full-time are now employed as consultants at double the cost. Yes, the job description "officer" sounds typical - the other one is "manager". Almost every other jumped-up janitor and telephonist now has the word "manager" in their job title. Most of them couldn't manage a whelk stall. I do hope you find something soon - all we can do is to try to keep your spirits up.

Chesters, I know just what you mean! My early employment was in industry, where if the boss wanted a report by Friday, you handed it to him on the previous Tuesday at the latest. When I took up an academic career, I was astonished at how lackadaisical (that's a posh word for bone lazy) many academics were. The hardest work some of them did was producing reasons why something could NOT be done. The tragedy is, that when the present cost-cutting climate first hit, the more dynamic and able people took their redundancy package and got out, leaving the dross - I'm just thankful I reached retirement age before the political correctness and health-and-safety industries began to destroy our higher education network. Taking students on a field trip (or in my case a sea trip) was on the way to becoming an administrative nightmare. The irony is, that many of the best academics who once worked full-time are now employed as consultants at double the cost. Yes, the job description "officer" sounds typical - the other one is "manager". Almost every other jumped-up janitor and telephonist now has the word "manager" in their job title. Most of them couldn't manage a whelk stall. I do hope you find something soon - all we can do is to try to keep your spirits up.

Chesters is right - the ABU one he describes is too small except for use on a camping/fishing trip - a good way to make fresh-caught pout palatable. I used to own one years ago, but the bottom burnt through eventually. Alan, I see most of the smokers advertised are stated to be made "of galvanised metal". Now each to his own, but I consider the advantages of stainless steel more than make up for the extra cost. I bought a "Woodman" smoker about seven years ago (Cost £79 then) and it has repayed the investment many times over. They are easy to clean, and do not burn through like cheaper metal smokers. In fact we have used it today to smoke my limit bag of rainbow trout caught yesterday - one fish for dinner in a few minutes, the other three for the freezer - the smoker does four fillets off a couple of 3lb-sized fish at a time, so a double-run this afternoon has given the kitchen an appetising aroma. Sold by Lionheart Leisure Ltd, Elizabeth House, Queen St, Abingdon, Oxon. OX14 3LN [ 21 March 2002, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

Chesters is right - the ABU one he describes is too small except for use on a camping/fishing trip - a good way to make fresh-caught pout palatable. I used to own one years ago, but the bottom burnt through eventually. Alan, I see most of the smokers advertised are stated to be made "of galvanised metal". Now each to his own, but I consider the advantages of stainless steel more than make up for the extra cost. I bought a "Woodman" smoker about seven years ago (Cost £79 then) and it has repayed the investment many times over. They are easy to clean, and do not burn through like cheaper metal smokers. In fact we have used it today to smoke my limit bag of rainbow trout caught yesterday - one fish for dinner in a few minutes, the other three for the freezer - the smoker does four fillets off a couple of 3lb-sized fish at a time, so a double-run this afternoon has given the kitchen an appetising aroma. Sold by Lionheart Leisure Ltd, Elizabeth House, Queen St, Abingdon, Oxon. OX14 3LN [ 21 March 2002, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

Some good advice above, but instead of a second spool yuo can use a purpose-made line-winder/drier. I made mine with dimensions calculated so that each turn of the winder represents exactly one yard of line (and its wide enough so that even 50 lb mono doesn't build up the diameter significantly). It cost me about 20 p to build from wooden lathes and bits of garden cane. I now know EXACTLY how much each of my reels hold - very useful for things like backing on fly reels etc. BTW I would not go finer than 4 lb for the main line - if I need something finer at the business end. I just tie on a leader of the finer material (dare I say with a double grinner knot for long lengths or a water knot for shorter pieces ?)

Some good advice above, but instead of a second spool yuo can use a purpose-made line-winder/drier. I made mine with dimensions calculated so that each turn of the winder represents exactly one yard of line (and its wide enough so that even 50 lb mono doesn't build up the diameter significantly). It cost me about 20 p to build from wooden lathes and bits of garden cane. I now know EXACTLY how much each of my reels hold - very useful for things like backing on fly reels etc. BTW I would not go finer than 4 lb for the main line - if I need something finer at the business end. I just tie on a leader of the finer material (dare I say with a double grinner knot for long lengths or a water knot for shorter pieces ?)