Vagabond
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Posts posted by Vagabond
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Perhaps if cage drivers thought of others we would not need "Think Bike" signs. I have lost count of how many times some divot pulled out in front of me from a T junction and tthe excuse was "I didn't see you mate", an admission of driving without due care.
Pretty pointless observation, as would be my recounting how many times I've had to make an emergency stop or swerve because a cyclist does something daft.
By regarding cyclists as crass idiots I've probably saved about a dozen of their lives.
By the way I rode a cycle from age 10 to 16, a motor cycle from age 16 to age 22, have driven a car ever since, plus tractors, minibuses, light goods vehicles and steam locomotives and towed caravans and trailers. Allied to that I have been a pedestrian for the best part of my 85 years. So I have experienced road traffic conditions from all aspects. There is no doubt that the untrained (that's 99 % of them) cyclists are the biggest menace to road safety.
Yes, I know all cyclists on this forum regard themselves as paragons of excellence., Whether or not this is true,you are all very safe from me, why ? because I regard all cyclists as suicidal idiots and give them a wide berth.
you should be thanking me for it.
AS not all road users think as I do, then you need some self-protection. A cycling proficiency test, registration and MOT tests of cycles plus third party insurance should be mandatory.
PS, I forgot to add that cycles should be road-taxed.
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The Severn is currently at 3.66m and rising.
At this time of the year, the river should be at about the 19cm mark.
Yep, just had a week there in a narrow boat. Very coloured.. Fishing not as good as in previous years, but no choice, as one has to book the boat months in advance
Only managed eight species, we usually get a dozen or more.
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"Match weights speak for themselves."
They do indeed, but what they say to me in the case you refer to, is "avoid this water"
Match weights measured in hundredweights tell a story of overcrowded mud puddles crammed with hungry fish. Granted, some will always catch more than others, but this is a skill of the factory production line rather than any piscatorial ability. Matches where almost everyone catches into three figures don't seem to me to prove very much.
It is a long way from the days of the stick float and a match won with 3 lb odd of roach on a difficult water, with 60% of the participants water-licked.. Whether that is "progress" is a matter of opinion, but I ceased match fishing sixty years ago (or one could say I grew out of it - but that sounds patronising, and I did learn a lot from matchfishers during my teens)
Unfortunately the illusion of skill associated with large catch weights spills over into club waters, and waters with good roach, tench and crucian fishing are becoming stocked with oversized gut-buckets (that's the carp, not necessarily those who fish for them) at the demand of members. OK, its a democracy, and if most want carp I will have to put up with them, but I need a bait that tench, roach, etc will take, but which is not palatable to carp.
My preference is for the challenge of small streams, but increasing age and decreasing mobility means I have to turn to still waters for my fishing - I really do appreciate a challenge, but waters that yield pastie after pastie after pastie do not provide it. .
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Nah, it is what it is. It turns up some nice chub and trout and I would have done better if my knees were still up to mobile lure fishing on a river with banks like that.
Sounds what used to be my sort of river when I was 50 years younger ! The piscatorial equivalent of a rough shoot.
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Back to the original thread, I keep seeing posters at road junctions, etc, urging us to "Think Bike"
I cannot help but comply, adding to myself "they are too stupid to think for themselves"
Perhaps the posters would have more impact if my amendment were added ?
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Can I remind you of a species hunt held on another Forum back in about 2006, won by my wife Norma and myself ? Outside of that, she has had some hundreds of species worldwide, topped by an Atlantic Blue Marlin tagged and returned unweighed, but estimated by our skipper as "A GOOD 900 lbs"
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Just back from a week on a narrow-boat. I have twenty years experience of being retired and can recommend it ! Hope you and Peggy do the same.
I will continue my Wingham ticket as long as I can stagger to the bankside.
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Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd presume the bigger fish would move much further downstream to find survivable water nearer the sea, (but still freshwater) then return when conditions were back to near normal.
It's the only logical conclusion for me.
Nature always finds a way!!
Doesn't always work like that Martin. Rivers are not evenly graded in their upper reaches , they have shallows, glides,,pools and deeper pools. In times of drought,fish retreat to the deepest pool they can find, That means they are cut off if the shallows above and below dry up.. Such fish may survive until the river flows again - or they may not!
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Many,many watercourses dry out in their upper reaches in most summers. Down south, on porous chalk country, they are known as "winterbournes", What is a serious matter is that the reckless (I repeat "reckless") extraction from the aquifers by water authorities severely exacerbates the drying out in both linear extent and in duratiion.. Many of the trout-holding Wealden streams have been effectively shortened by this practice..
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some characters spoke English with a Russian accent yet others in a plain English accent.
Perhaps they got the idea from watching " 'Allo 'allo "
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what have the Romans ever done for us?
As well as the things you list, it is alleged they imported rabbits and nettles, which over the ages have helped quite a few country folk who would otherwise have been struggling on the breadline Boiled young nettle tops and rabbit pie - excellent fare.
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That's nature, apes fight wars over territory been going on since the dawn of time.
Not just apes. A fundamental rule of biology is that if two organisms compete for an identical niche or resource, one will eventually extinguish the other.
Applies whether the organisms are animal, vegetable, fungal, bacterial etc etc
Works for fisheries also !
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I can remember very many trips, but perhaps the most memorable was the very first marlin trip Norma and I took out of Cabo San Lucas ( Mexican west coast) We had reached Cabo after a tour of the Sea of Cortez, and seeing a marlin boat come in, allowed ourselves to be talked into a day's marlin fishing.-not difficult
It might have been beginners' luck, but we finished the day with six Striped Marlin, all around 150 to 250 lb, and ran the boat out of marlin flags Flying marlin flags is an important part of skippers' bragging rights, so the crew cut up a blue dishcloth to improvise two extra flags. Coming in with six flags flapping from the outrigger was a good moment. We have since had plenty more and bigger marlin, but never again six in a day.
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Yeh, all the best Ken
I am still awaiting my second cataract removal. One would have to be pretty clueless not be apprehensive about an eye op, but I must say my first cataract op went very well
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Tommy Smith Liverpool legend of the 60s and 70s
The Iron Defender, 638 appearances for Liverpool,
"Tommy Smith wasn't born, he was quarried" Bill Shankly
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A really weird perversion.. I tried to visualise it happening in my teenage days (that's around 1950) I can imagine the upskirter becoming a laughing stock, and when the story reached the boyfriend of the upskirted, some sort of conker match occurring between the upskirters head and his camera - probably wielded by said boyfriend. We country folk had our own way of dealing with such perversions.
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What we need is prison ships.
Galleys ! Would save on fuel costs too.
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I think I might be a fish nerd.
I didn't have to think for a second before the words "Goblin Shark" popped into my head.
Snap!
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The question that first springs to mind is how old were you when you developed cataracts?
It's not usually associated with youngsters and we know you've fished since childhood, so have you always had this ability to see into the water without polaroids - and does that include depths of say 6' - 8' , or just shallow streams?
Spellchecker: ask one of the grandchildren to install a British English dictionary in place of the American English one that your PC is using.
Probably about 75 when my ophthalmologist triumphantly exclaimed "cataract" at my annual checkup
As far as I can remember I have always seen fish underwater (from above the water) better than most. Was not too conscious of this until the 1960s when angling writers began chirping about Polaroids. I borrowed a pair, was not impressed by the difference (if any), so have never wasted my money on them.
Same goes for dazzle when driving, but with new lenses in each eye in the future that may well change.
In the Weald most visibility is limited by turbidity to about 3 feet (Wealden Clay) In very clear water I can see fish up to several feet down *say 6ft plus)
I remember my first visit to the Great Ouse, where my sight fishing got me a PB chub, a PB roach and a PB perch in one weekend. I remember thinking "No wonder these angling writers catch big fish = they are much easier to catch when you can see 'em" It's a good job I kept that thought to myself as I soon learnt sight fishing is but a fraction of the story
PS Just seen Phone"s quote, Whilst I don't pretend to understand it all, it does explain a lot/ Thanks Phone
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Alien fish eating our precious Ducks. - reaction - SHOCK HORROR
Alien birds (Continental Cormorants) eating our precious fish. - reaction - What is all the fuss abouit ?
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your spellchecker is correct.
I prefer English. Many years ago a student colleague of mine preferred Graeco-English A tutor pulled him up over "aecology" and altered it to "ecology"
For the rest of his student life my friend spelt the word as follows "aecology (I'm not a bloody Yank)" He finished up as a Professor in America, but I don't know if he took his spelling with him !
Glad to hear you have no cataracts, believe me, you don't want to know about them Replacing the lens is trivial compared with the medico-legal hassle of proving you still have the visual ability to drive.
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I must admit i haven't seen any difference
So there are two of us at least ! Must be those Neanderthal genes....
Same with blood samples, I remember you saying that like me, no medic was any good at taking blood samples from you.. I have found one capable blood sampler, who I insist on having each time. I notice she is going grey, so when she retires, its back to being a human pincushion again.
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Even older is the practice of sending engineering apprentices and the like to the stores and telling them to ask for a long stand.
After keeping them waiting for half an hour the storeman would ask if they had stood long enough
It used to work on the younger newcomers to the Bluebell Railway - some even didn't cotton on in response to the storeman's question !
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First outing since October - age and various infirmities kept me away from fishing, but Norma and I did toddle out for a short session on a local pond yesterday. Not a lot caught, just perch and rudd, but it was a glorious day, early spring flowers a-flowering (celandine, wood anemone, primrose and cuckoo flower). Nuthatch calling loud enough for me to hear and in the sky a red kite - they became common in West Sussex last year, but this is the furthest east we have seen one.
Thursday we had a non-fishing outing to a local reservoir and saw the first Little Ring Plover (3 birds) of the spring.
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Cyclists riding no-handed
in Non-Fishing Chat
Posted · Edited by Vagabond
Indeed there is not. Quite irrelevant. I didn't mention it. I said cyclists should be road-taxed. Ie pay cess to the Revenue for riding a cycle on a public road NOTE THE USAGE OF THE LOWER CASE here and in the original post.. What the official name for this tax might be matters not a flying flicker What matters even less in this context is what taxes are levied on other road users, or what pettifogging names such taxes have. It is a politician's trick to try to change the subject and/or quibble about semantics, but it won't work here.
A tax, cess or impost on anyone who rides a cycle on the road and a swingeing fine if they ride one where they should not, - like shopping malls, railway platforms, pavements, kiddies playgrounds, etc. -clear enough ?