Grandma

I think you're getting your otters mixed up with your beavers there Budgie. Actually, there has been some talk about reintroducing them too!

There are numbers of cases where specimen carp, barbel and pike have been dragged up the bank and had had their insides eaten by otters. Obviously it's impossible to prove otters actually killed the fish, but I suspect in most cases they did. Otters are quite capable of tackling large fish and they don't need to eat carrion unless their preferred food is in short supply. I am not vilifying otters. I believe the biomass of fish will balance out in most waters, but the balance will often be at the expense of the larger fish, so in simple terms one 5lb chub would be replaced by twenty 4oz chub. Some waters will cope better than others, but big fish in small waters would seem to be at particular risk.

I don't get angry or upset about otters, there is nothing to do but accept them. You can find pictures of half eaten 20lb pike if you do a google search. I've heard of 30lb pike and 40lb carp being taken also. I guess that such fish will become even more scarse on waters where otters are not excluded.

Quite right. It's a bit of a quandry. As an angler, I like seeing otters but I also like catching big fish. Otters obviously aren't going to wipe out fish stocks entirely, but I think the balance they end up achieving may have a dramatic effect on stocks of specimen fish. A number of 'celebrity' barbel and carp have been taken by otters, which may not be a concern, depending on your viewpoint, but it does nevertheless illustrate the point that they are very capable of decimating the stocks of bigger fish in a given water. Obviously non-anglers won't be worried whether the otters are taking 20lb pike, 2lb roach or 5lb chub, but personally speaking, if I'm targetting any specimen fish of any particular species, I'd prefer to not have to compete with otters.

Thank you from the anglers that fish Hickling. I don't suppose it occured to you that when holiday makers ask experienced Norfolk anglers where they caught their last 40, they're usually given a location some distance away, because it's politer to bend the truth rather than telling someone to mind their own business. Of course it may have come from Hickling and this could be a double bluff.

I see Mona is holding A J

I smell of wee.

I've seen some decent chub around there,I've mostly been casting lures when walking with the family. A couple of years ago I was surprised to see a heron with a tench of half a pound or so that it had caught from one of the drains in the meadow 'behind' the weirpool.

Apologies for that, I've been inadvertently poaching.

Was that before the 'tidal barrier' was put in at Cattawade, or was it fishing the saline tidal stretch below the sluice at Flatford? I'd be surprised if mullet etc would survive in the main river nowadays. There's a fair bit of free fishing around the watermeadows at Sudbury

Pike are normally pretty easy to catch if the conditions are steady, they're also well adapted to thrive in cold water conditions. If there's a sudden change in conditions, it will either encourage them to feed, typically before the event, or put them off feeding. I think what you're seeing now is the fish coming back onto regular feeding now the cold conditions have stabilised. Or it might be the full moon. Or the photoperiod.

I think you'll have a job targetting chub in the How Hill stretch and I doubt you'll see any to stalk. They're usually easier to stalk in the upper reaches of rivers, where there's more variation in depth and flow. I don't know what the upper reaches of the Ant are like in that respect. I don't fish for chub in the winter, but you see plenty during the summer months in the upper stretches of the Waveney, Yare and Bure, basically upstream of the limit of navigation.

Your question at the beginning of the poll needs rewording because the answers you offer will not allow you to interpret the responses. You can't answer the question 'are they good or bad?' with the answers yes or no. Yes they are probaby good or bad.

None of those look enough like fish for the relatively minor variations in their colours to make much difference. They bear a passing resemblance out of the water, but their movement gives the game away completely, because real fish don't need to reach a certain speed before their tails move, they don't swim in a dead straight line and they don't sink like a stone when they stop. They still catch pike on their day, but that's because they suit being fished at a certain depth and speed. Most lures fit this description and the presence or otherwise of stripes, spots or orange bellies won't make any difference most of the time.

I'd fish it with spinner baits, but I should think a bass angler might use soft plastics rigged weedless. You could fish either right in amongst that lot.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree on this one. The guides are busy where there is a demand. They do not create the demand. If you want something to blame for increased interest in pike fishing in general and the Broads in particular then it has to be the internet. People are now able to pick up a great deal of useful information in a short time without even going out of the house. This increases the effect of angling pressure in at least 3 ways: 1. Pictures of large pike are often posted within days of capture, people naturally speculate where they where caught, sometimes the captor makes it obvious. 2. Online information allows new anglers to fish effectively without having to learn the ropes for several years. 3. Specific waters are often openly discussed. 20 jacks from a Broad near Lowestoft will sound like great sport to some people, they may fancy a chance of some action, with a chance of the bigger fish mentioned. For every new pike angler introduced by a guide, there are probably hundreds (thousands?) that have been introduced via the web.

Sorry Shaun, but what do you mean by not natural? It's one of the few baits that constitutes the natural food of what you're fishing for. They do take evasive action, sometimes they are suucesful too. How succesful depends on the rig, and how determined the predator is. Maggots, boiles, bread, hemp, meat etc on the other hand are not natural food items for fish.

The relevance of intensive farming is that it is something that most of us sustain with our shopping habits and is therefore a point of reference against which to consider our ethical standards to other animals. We are in total control of how our food is produced. All we have to do is think a little bit about what we're buying rather than basing our choices entirely on cost. I accept that by doing some of things I enjoy, such as eating a nice steak and going fishing, I will be responsible for the death of some animals. Fortunately, I don't have to kill the cows, pigs and sheep etc that I eat, but if I did, I think that somehow a fish would come pretty close to the bottom of the list in terms of the emotions I would have to overcome before killing. I don't need to eat meat, any more than I don't need to fish with live baits. I choose to do both on occasion and to ease my concience, I sometimes buy meat from sources where I think the animal might have lived a reasonable life and I try to give my live baits a fighting chance of surviving where possible. If I feel any guilt it's more likely to be for the relative suffering I may be causing by not thinking about where my meat comes from rather than worrying about the roach that didn't survive and goes into the freezer with the 50 odd blast frozen fish that someone else killed for me.

What a lot of rubbish.

That is precisely the hypocrisy I was refering too. ''We the public are not aware of farming procedures'' translates to ''We the public choose not to look too closely at farming procedures because we might not like what we find and we certainly haven't got any intention of doing the procedure ourselves'' Referring to the factory scale rearing, transportation, slaughtering and processing of animals as ''farming procedures'' and saying you are ''not aware'' but instead have faith in industry for supplying the best conditions for animals, illustrates how you are turning a blind eye to a potentially emotive subject. The reason you are doing this is because you benefit from the system. Conversely you do not benefit from another set of people using live bait. Hence it's a hypocritical view.

The hook in the eye thing was based on Newt's post. I guess they do things differently in America, you can buy your livebaits in tackle shops for a start. I've never heard a uk angler recommend it.

Personally speaking, I don't 'care' more as I get older, but I like to think I'm more sensible and take reponsibility for my actions. Hence I no longer pull the legs off flies, but equally I don't care if one happens to die slowly after I've swatted it. The decline of a persons hunting instinct with age has been mentioned and might be true in some cases. However, if anyone genuinely thinks they are becoming more caring with age, I'd suggest they take a good look at themselves, to make sure they're not just being smug! Also it's usual in this day and age to have an irrational caring attitude to some types that of animals whilst not sparing a second thought to the animals that become products. It's an understandable attiutude, but you can't deny the hypocrisy. Edit: Beat me to it W.

No one is arguing with the right to free speech and we all enjoy a good debate. You may feel like you've had some strongly worded replies, I think this is in response to your use of rhetoric and the fact you don't seem to clearly concede any points.

It's fine to have misguided and naive opinions, if when you become aware of them you're prepared to either change them or admit they're misguided opinions. Your notion of leaving the countryside as you found it is entirely laudable, as is your reasoning for fishing semi-natural places rather than commercial fisheries. Nonetheless, you have to accept that your actions will have an effect on the countryside, including fish stocks. All you can do is strive to minimise these effects. We could debate the finer points of whether it has a greater effect on the countryside to net three fish from a 'sustainable source', drive them halfway a cross the country, pack them into non-biodegradable plastic bags, blast freeze them, drive them to a shop, then drive them to your freezer. Or wheter it has a greater effect to catch 3 fish from a 'sustainable source' and use them straight away.

The thin end of the edge is having anglers calling for bans of angling methods because they don't like the thought of doing it themselves. The wider pit of the wedge is the public doing the same thing, and the fat bit of the wedge is the government banning the method because it thinks the public will approve. The government can then make a song and dance about bringing in a pointless piece of legislation that takes away the rights of a miniority and use it to draw attention away from some issue that actually has some significance. Perhaps if you let me know what kind of fishing you enjoy, I'll start a thread calling for a ban on the elements I think are a bit cruel or that I don't care about if they get banned because I don't practice them myself.