yorkio

Ha! Well, I didn't know that... The biggest problem with Bass Pro though is their shipping charges, which at 40% of the order value means that it's not worth buying anything apart from cheap stuff. And it's not worth buying really cheap light stuff, because their minimum shipping fee is $35! (Cabelas charge 45% of the total order amount or a minimum of $40.00 for air delivery or 25%/minimum of $20 for surface shipping.) As UK duty and VAT is payable on the total charged (ie, goods plus shipping), as I understand it, those minimum shipping charges alone will always mean that purchases will be eligible for duty, regardless of how much you actually spend. Getting back on topic (sorry)… remind me, do those ones go on top of or under the rod? (And can you change them from right to left-hand wind?)

I've seen a few pike decorating the bushes along the Tyne too. Old attitudes die hard unfortunately...

And for me now.

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Obviously, you always need an EA rod licence, as well as legal access points to launch and bring the boat in, but how do the rights for fishing from a boat work while you're actually on the river? As I understand it, riparian owners control access to and fishing from their banks, but unlike a stillwater, they don't actually own the the river or the fish in it. Presumably, if you moor up to the bank, you're considered to be fishing off the bank itself and therefore subject to whatever legal considerations that may involve. But if you were lolling about somewhere in the middle, would you still need a day ticket/club book? Actually, now that I think of it, do riparian owners perhaps actually control the river beds up to the mid-point of the river? I'm thinking of the wading agreements when two clubs control opposite banks - we had a situation like this with my old club and the syndicate who had the other bank and I can't quite remember how it was supposed to work...

Something worth clarifying is that to fish any freshwater venue in England and Wales, whether it's a river or a stillwater, in addition to a national rod licence (which is a Government thing and payable to the Environment Agency) you'll also need permission to fish from the owner of the water. Sometimes, you can buy day tickets on the bank and sometimes they have to be bought in advance (very often from a local tackle shop). Sometimes the fishing is controlled by a club and you'll have to sign up for a year's membership to fish on that water. And sometimes the fishing is free, but you need to establish whether this is indeed the case before you start fishing. As others have said, a decent local tackle shop will be able to help you sort out what's what, as well as advising on bait and tactics.

It also looks very similar to the handle of those old round paraffin heaters.

Were they ever? I thought one of the things that made the whole business so confusing was the fact that the wildie and pellet pig are actually all the same species, ie cyprinus carpio?

Linky no worky. Funnily enough, I went to an EA open day at Riding Mill last year and one of the guys told me that they'd seen a chub on the fish counter that they'd first thought was a salmon! Wonder if it's the same fish? Just a shame there are so few stretches of the Tyne with affordable coarse fishing...

I just find it a bit depressing that for most waters these days, the only choice is between big carp and little carp.

While we're recommending specific models, I'd certainly give two thumbs up for the Daiwa Phantom. I've got the 7iMA 2553 (snappy name, eh?) and it's a little cracker - nice and smooth, compact, a decent clutch and two spare spools. (It's got seven bearings, if you're into counting stuff like that!) I paid about thirty quid a year or two ago, but if you google about I've seen them recently for round about the twenty mark, which is ridiculously cheap for a reel of that quality.

Yep, me too. Couldn't figure out at first what the hell was going on and why everything was happening so slowly. And like BoozleBear says, no notification at all...

That's interesting - Orvis are invariably cited as an example of how to do good customer service... And back on topic… I really haven't been out that many times just yet and when I have I've been pretty much only catching grayling, which I hardly got a sniff of when they were in season! I'm definitely going to be fitting in a session at the end of the week though, so fingers crossed it all falls into place then.

Ah right, I think we're meaning different things by assembled then I was assuming that for some reason you wanted to transport a fully assembled (ie, all joined up!) rod. In which case, what's wrong with whatever you're used to using for your carp rods?

So you're after a 10ft bag? Blimey, they're can't be too many of them about! I'd try Steve Parton for a custom jobbie for something like that - they do made to measure bags and tubes and all sorts (down at the bottom of the page). Why do you want it BTW? Apart from when moving from swim to swim, I can't think of any occasions when I'd want to keep a 10ft rod made up. Just curious...

Yep, same here - and it's now virtually impossible to actually spot any new fishing posts!

Fine here. That's Firefox on a Mac, mind.

I've spent countless hours poring over Google Maps/Earth looking for undiscovered waters! However handy it may be though, it's pretty rotten at naming places so I almost always combine it with the OS Get-a-Map site.

This Secret Lake? I'm pretty sure it's not. You could ask the director though - his website is at www.johnwaters.tv.

So were you never tempted to move?

Soaps make up most of our TV drama programming these days and given that they're virtually all set in inner cities, I'd have thought it would most likely be the other way round - if they actually were accurate reflections of where they were set, we'd see many more black faces on the telly.

It's a great little fly fishing river, both for brownies and grayling. It's £47 a year for Derwent AA membership, which covers you for fly-only fishing for the top half of the river, from the reservoir down to Lintzford. From Lintzford to Swalwell is controlled by the Axwell Park and Derwent Valley AA, who are a bit harder to track down - I know I had an email address for the club a while back, but think I've lost it now. If you're interested in that stretch, your best bet would probably be to ask in somewhere like Frasers, who might well have a contact. You can also fish both club's water on very affordable day tickets (either £2.50 or £5, depending on the stretch). See the Tyne Angling Passport website for more details. (So far as I can tell, they've just introduced this scheme this year.)

Indeed. Let's not forget though, according to Jan Harrigan in that article, one swan died in 2007. So they're not clearly not in that much peril, are they?

That's swan, singular. From the article: She said: “Bewdley has a big problem and things are getting worse. Last year 65 swans were found to be badly leaded and one died." It would be interesting to track down the "veterinary inspection centre" (is that the same as a vet, I wonder) and see what they have to say about this. Actually, it would be nice if our new all-singing all-dancing angling superbody would get involved in things like this and to ask to see some proper evidence. If there really is a problem with discarded lead shot from the middle of the last century fouling our waterways then I'm sure the likes of the ACA would be happy to get involved. And if it turns out to be something else entirely which killed that bird, then it would be good to have a credible body to rebut the story.

I don't know of one in Newcastle, but there's one in Durham. I've just started tying too but found out about it too late for this season (from the sound of it, nothing much goes on from April onwards as everyone's too busy fishing). www.durhamflyfishers.co.uk (Actually, according to the Flydressers Guild website, they've got a branch in Morpeth, but there's no more info than just the name of the pub where they meet.)