[Dangers of particle baits]

When Benson the wonder carp shuffled off his mortal coil a few years back and his demise was blamed on a surfeit of uncooked tiger nuts, I asked one of our most distinguished fishery scientists* his views on the matter. And he said:

 

There's more myth than fact about the 'uncooked nuts kill carp' theories... not so much an urban myth as a bankside myth, maybe. I accept that some (a few?) fishery owners may have made the cause-and-effect relationship, but it doesn't seem to be backed by scientific fact.

 

If, as the theory goes, nuts would swell in the guts of carp, it is far more likely that this will elongate the food 'sausage', accelerating the speed with which the food passes through the gut and out of the other end. Remember: carp have no stomach, just a long intestinal tube. In any event, its walls must very elastic given what else carp can swallow - swan mussels, crayfish and the like - and I really cannot envisage how nuts could absorb water in the fish's guts and thereby kill it. (I've been as guilty as anyone in repeating this myth in the past until I took the time to check out the facts, such as there are any).

 



There IS a potential problem with peanuts contaminated by toxic fungi, notably when they release aflatoxins, which can poison most animals that eat them, including birds and humans. Nuts are screened for aflatoxins before importation, although I'm not sure if any can still get through. Cooking nuts removes the possibility of poisoning.



 

To the best of my knowledge, uncooked tiger nuts are not toxic per se. Like the cooked version, carp will often eat them so quickly that they fail to crush them with their throat teeth, resulting in the whole nuts passing through the tube and out of the other end, unaffected. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the nuts are then eaten by other carp and the process repeated!


* I'm quoting his email without permission here, so I won't name any names. He's probably known to most on here though.

[British made fishing gear?]

David Norwich make their own blanks. Peter mentioned Century. There's Zziplex too – they're all British.

 

I believe the top end Daiwa and Hardy rods still use British-made blanks, although the majority of their ranges don't.

 

I'm pretty sure there are no British-made fixed spool reels though. I wonder what the last ones made over here were? Anyone?

[Why do i never learn?]

Well i inspected the wrong one as the other was smashed. it was in tube packaging but nevertheless.

Now bloody hassle and to be honest the post cost ( yes i never read the small print on returns) is 2/3 the cost of the rod and one was a spare really so i am not sure i could be bothered.

That's presumably talking about returns though, ie if you had changed your mind about the rod and wanted a refund or to exchange it for something else. Something that's broken on arrival is quite a different matter and entirely the seller's responsibility.

[What bird is this]

Great crested grebe

[Kindles]

once ipad 3 is officially announced..early March is best guess....then you will see a glut of ipad 2 coming 2nd hand at maybe £250-300 and ipad 1 will drop accordingly

you might even see a price drop in brand new ipad 2..they dropped from original ipad price for release...so with ipad 3 arriving i would expect apple to slash maybe £50 off ipad 2 base model prices so they can bring ipad 3 in reasonably at £400

Couldn't agree more. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the first generation iPads and they'll still be just as good when the iPad 3 is in the shops.

 

If you really want a new one though, keep an eye on the refurb section of the Apple store. The discounts can be pretty decent most of the time but there'll be a few weeks after iPad 3 is announced when they'll still be clearing out iPad 2s, most likely a bit cheaper still than they are right now. The stuff in there may, strictly speaking, be 'used' but it comes with a full Apple warranty and most of the time you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. (I'm still using an iPod I bought from the refurb store nearly nine years ago!) Oh, and you get 2% cashback on iPads from the Apple store if you're registered with Quidco too.

[I bet eel regret that]

I know it's in the paper and everything so it must be true, but really?

[French fishing terms]

Thanks, all. For a while I'd almost talked myself out of taking any fishing kit at all, but that talk of tench bubbles has set me straight! The whip can go back in the garage and I'll see if I can pick up a cheapie travel float rod from somewhere.

 

The net's still a bit of a tricky one though but I've got a sea trout net with a telescopic handle that at a pinch will probably fit into the suitcase. The handle's rather too short to be ideal but with a bit of stooping it'll probably do.

[French fishing terms]

I'm shortly off to south west France for a week, staying at a place with its own small lake, in which I'm told there are "carpeaux, carpes, and [some say] brochets".

 

So that would be carp, pike and carpeaux? Google's failing me on this one but I'm guessing it means small carp, or in this context, most likely smaller silver fish of an unknown variety. Does that sound about right?

 

I've also been wondering what gear to take. I started off thinking about a travel float road and a little fixed spool, but am now tempted to cut down on the luggage and take a whip instead and just target the tiddlers. I've never actually used a whip before, mind – I bought it a few years back for one specific pond, stuck it in the garage and promptly forgot about it. From my brief research, I can confirm it's of the non-elasticated variety – just a eye whipped to the end of a bit of carbon fibre and that's it really. Will that do the job or are they really only designed for pulling half a dozen bleak a minute out of canals? If I could find a suitable and cheap telescopic/travel rod, I'd go for that rather than going off into the unknown, but as ever, the market seems to be travel carp/spinning rods but little for lighter (float) fishing and what there are strike me as quite big. For example, the Shakey Mach 1 XT travel match rod is 84cm dismantled, which is hardly going to go in my suitcase. (I've got a bloody beachcaster that packs down smaller than that!) Which makes me wonder whether I'd actually be better off taking my fly fishing gear?

 

The main thing I'm concerned about though is not having a net. I've been told there's some fishing gear that the children use there but no one knows exactly what that might be. Does anyone do 'travel' nets? I've seen enormous folding carp nets but never anything smaller. Or am I just not looking hard enough?

 

Any thoughts? Or should I just forget the fishing and settle in for a week of foie gras and armagnac?

[Peter Drennan Website]

Is there a website for Peter Drennan tackle?

 

I can't find one, and think I must be losing the plot - I mean everyone has a website don't they?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Drennan

 

It is new though. Gawd knows how they managed to hold out for so long.

[A little fun with Google Earth]

Silly question!! How do you key in the degree symbol??

On my (Mac) keyboard it's alt-0

[A little fun with Google Earth]

Ziggy, Big Jeff - it's a screen shot of the coordinates but something went strangely wrong.

 

It was supposed to be a really busy bit of river in China with all sorts of large cargo vessels heading south and one smaller ship moving east through the middle of them. When I keyed in the coordinates just now, it took me to an empty bit of ocean just off the California coast.

 

Darn. No way I can find that one again either. I was checking out the area of a typhoon and lucked upon that bit of screen.

Don't worry – it's still there! Kind of like a shipping version of Frogger!

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=29%C2%BA58%2...mp;t=h&z=15

[A tree question ?]

The brown material left is then shaved or pounded flat and used as tinder....the brown material is also known as amadou and has remarkable water absorbing properties.....when soaked in washing soda (sodium carbonate, Na₂CO₃) for a week or two and pounded flat it forms a felt like material that you can use to dry your dry flies with!

Fascinating stuff! I knew amadou was a fungus, but I had no idea which one or how it was prepared.

[Clearing the cache to view new posts]

The "View New Posts" feature still requires me to periodically empty my browser cache to make it work - are others still having this problem, and is there a fix on the horizon?

 

Yep, I have to empty my cache once a day, or I can't see new posts. Firefox 5.0.1.

[Can I have some help identifying accessories?]

In fact despite all ready having a copy of my own and two spare Ive just brought another one this very second (whilst looking for one to link you to for 99p + £1.65 postage!!!

Several used copies on Amazon for 1p and worth every penny! (Plus £2.80 delivery so a little bit more expensive than your copy.)

 

It's an excellent book though. I picked up a copy when I came back to coarse fishing a few years back and it was absolutely perfect. It's very clearly written if you're an absolute beginner but there's loads in there to keep you interested as you gain more experience. In fact, I still refer back to it now if there's a new technique I want to try or if there's something I'm doing that's not working.

[rules on fishing bans]

the question to be answered here is; who actually and; by what authority, authorised the wording and placing of these signs.

 

surely the only persons who can designate a no-fishing area are the owners i.e british waterways. This begs the question, why are the signs not british waterway signs? furthermore by what authority did sandwell council have to place these signs?

British Waterways may own the fishing rights and the canal network, but if the council controls access to that water and the ground you're actually sitting on while you're fishing, then I'd guess they're within their rights to stop you fishing. The only way to find out is to ask them though. Similarly, have you spoken to British Waterways?

[The law on catching and eating fish]

LOL! So Bull Huss are rock salmon, not lesser spotted haha. I cooked a lesser thinkin thats what was known as rock salmon. I poached it and ate it off the skin. Was very nice!

According to the FSA: "All species of Galeorhinus, All species of Mustelus, All species of Scyliorhinus, Galeus melastomus, Squalus acanthias (L.)" may be sold as "Dogfish or Flake or Huss or Rigg or Rock Salmon or Rock Eel"

 

So more or less anything small and sharky can be sold under a variety of names!

[View New Posts]

And all fine now. Cleared the cache and all's well once again.

[View New Posts]

It is working fine for me in both Firefox 5 & IE 9. I had to check since I never use that feature unless someone asks about it and I give it a try to see if I have a problem.

 

Your problem could be a glitch of some sort on your PC. Might be worth clearing away all cookies and temp internet files / cache, rebooting, and giving it another try.

Hmm, tried a few other browsers and it appears to be just FF5 (Mac) which is misbehaving. I'll see how it's going tomorrow after a night's sleep!

 

Thanks, Newt.

[View New Posts]

Oops, sorry – completely forgot to mention how it wasn't working! The message I'm getting is…

 

Sorry, but we did not find any matches to display. Try again and broaden your search criteria. If you were searching for new posts since your last visit, it's possible that there are none to show.

Which could be a clock thing, I suppose.

[View New Posts]

Has this been disabled? I do hope not – I know it puts a bit of a strain on the server but it's by far the most convenient way of seeing what's new on the forum.

 

Or is something buggered at my end?

[alternative browser]

In the new FF5 – and in FF4 too, I think, although now I've upgraded I've no way of checking – you can turn off the tabs bar and choose to open new windows in actual windows instead of tabs.

 

So you can roll your browsing experience back to the mid-Nineties if that's what you really want!

[Looking for a DVD?]

is a passion the best film ,not so sure .would it have the same effect on young anglers or just those that perhaps saw their own past in it?

I suspect in many cases, my own included, it was more the past we wish we could have had rather than the one we actually did have.

[Otter Reintroductions]

Well, of 137 spraints collected the dry weight of material was as follows.

 

78% fish remains, 17% invertebrate (including native crayfish) 4% bird and 1% small mammal.

 

Fish species included: Trout (41%), chub (11%), roach (9%), and approximately equal amounts of pike, eel, gudgeon, perch, salmon (parr), dace, and shad.

Did those results accurately reflect the relative fish populations in the sampled areas, or are there any species which appear to be over-represented? Or for that matter, any fish which are known to be in the river but which didn't show up as part of their diet?

[Mac Book Pro]

My cousin is looking for one of these but can't afford a new one, anyone got any ideas as to where the best place to get a decent second hand one is ? She doesn't really trust Ebay (can't say I blame her really) so any where else that people look ?

Not quite secondhand, but the refurb section of the Applestore can have some very good deals, and fully warrantied too.

 

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/spec...mco=MTM3NTA4NDU

 

If that URL self-destructs after a couple of days, the link is at the bottom left of the Applestore home page. It's updated every day, so if you're looking for something specific it's worth checking back.

[Brian Clarke]

In one chapter he writes about a poor boy and a rich kid, and slags off the poor boy for not catching anything because he didn't have the expensive equipment of the rich kid!!

That story was supposed to be humorous though. He wasn't actually criticising the poor kid for not having fancy gear. To be fair, as humorous pieces go, it wasn't actually terribly funny, and was a bit laboured in the telling, but I don't for one minute think that he was expecting anyone to think he was saying that you need expensive gear to catch fish.

 

And yes, philocalist, I think this is the book you're thinking of. I can't remember where exactly, but I know he's from somewhere round Teesside and the Tees and other local rivers feature in the book a lot.