My mate Dave

[Andy_1984]

4lb line straight through, size 20 hook with treble maggot!

 

that wasnt the only one either. first ive seen for years

[John S]

Is it a PB?

[Andy_1984]

nah this ones his pb.

[John S]

Another 50-60 and he'll have enough for a fish-finger

[Vagabond]

LOL

Back in 2007 I needed 3-spined stickleback for a species hunt. They had disappeared from the water I caught them from sixty years ago, so I had to start again from scratch

 

I remember exploring mile after mile of brackish creeks before finding some. Total reconnaissance time - about five hours. Time between spotting them and having one in hand for a photo - about 14 seconds

 

More recently I located the rather rarer 10-spined stickleback. They also inhabit brackish creeks, but prefer deeper water in amongst thick beds of Norfolk reed. One of the difficulties in catching them is the fact that tiny roach, perch, and rudd inhabit the same swims and all too often get to the bait first. The second difficulty is in getting a bait into the swim at all with only inches of space between the reed stems.

 

There are a lot of little fish (the two British loaches are other examples) that require very little angling skill to actually catch - once located, but a whole lot of watercraft is required to locate them in the first place. All part of the interest of species hunting.

[Steve Walker]

Must get round to finding some sticklebacks for my little wildlife pond. GlennB put me onto a local source, but I haven't got round to visiting it yet. When I was a boy, we never had any trouble obtaining them, there were several waters in the area where you couldn't get a worm or a maggot through the sticklebacks to the bigger fish. One of my friends had sunken a baby bath into his back garden and filled it with water. We stocked it with sticklebacks and newts, and used to have competitions fishing for them (usually after a poor day's real fishing!).

 

Then, as an undergraduate, I used them for my honours year project, looking at learning in foraging behaviour. Good laboratory species, in that they are bold and tough and nothing really seems to disturb their behaviour for long. Used to keep them in 10% seawater to prevent whitespot.

 

There are a lot of little fish (the two British loaches are other examples) that require very little angling skill to actually catch - once located, but a whole lot of watercraft is required to locate them in the first place. All part of the interest of species hunting.

 

A schoolfriend and I once found stone loach living under the flagged edge of a canal. The mortar beneath the flagstone had gone, leaving a tunnel between the canal and a shallow towpath puddle, and the loach were hiding beneath it. We spotted one shooting back under cover as we approached, and caught several with ease handline-style. Those were the first and last loach we ever saw from that water, and if we hadn't happened to spot one as we passed by we would never have known that it held any at all.

[Elton]

nah this ones his pb.

 

Ah, old Spikey. Such a mug fish, that one. I've had her on the bank twice this season already. Mind you, she doesn't look any the worse for it. In fact, it looks like she's put on a bit of weight.

 

[John S]

Ah, old Spikey. Such a mug fish, that one. I've had her on the bank twice this season already. Mind you, she doesn't look any the worse for it. In fact, it looks like she's put on a bit of weight.

 

 

Elton, your sexual perversions are of no interest to (most of) us