New Rod

[Sportsman]

Funny indeed

I think the message here is that you are advocating that fishing for stockies in a commercial demands a greater Angling skill.

That's some claim, well I don't fish for trout, well not with any intent, but the trout I have caught either in a stream or a commercial (The latter was for the kid's enjoyment you understand) I can say without any prejudice that trout have the guile and cunning of a crack addict looking for another fix. About as stupid as a Pike I suppose, unlike a large roach and in most environments will stretch any good anglers skill to the utmost.

There is a difference you know, a huge difference

 

 

I think that the point I was making was that wild doesn't have to mean difficult or good and that commercial doesn't have to mean easy or bad.

Some wild fisheries can be very easy and some commercials can be very challenging. Both can be enjoyable in their own way so why not let people enjoy what they want to do without denigrating what they do?

The other difference is that you don't get anglers on stocked water making disparaging comments about "wild fishers" or their quarry.

As a matter of interest most wild fisheries up here are fed by water running off peat moors and so are quite acidic. This leads to poor insect growth and a lack of natural food. This in turn leads to lots of stunted starving trout that will attempt to take anything that moves. Catches of 200 fish a day, 3 at a time on a 3 fly trace, are perfectly possible.

On the other hand the commercial fishery I was referring to is almost 100% C&R, the fish have been in a while, have been fished for before, possibly caught before and are much less aggressive in their feeding. Cast and retrieve a la boat fishing on the loch isn't going to work, you need to address fly choice, depth and speed to be successful.

4 or 5 fish a day is the norm.

In this case the commercial does require more angling skill than the wild fishery

[Brian Carragher]

Funny indeed

I think the message here is that you are advocating that fishing for stockies in a commercial demands a greater Angling skill.

That's some claim, well I don't fish for trout, well not with any intent, but the trout I have caught either in a stream or a commercial (The latter was for the kid's enjoyment you understand) I can say without any prejudice that trout have the guile and cunning of a crack addict looking for another fix. About as stupid as a Pike I suppose, unlike a large roach and in most environments will stretch any good anglers skill to the utmost.

There is a difference you know, a huge difference

 

 

Spoken like a true roach devotee

 

Wild brownies take no skill to catch, they just about give themselves up when you chuck in a hookbait, what sportsman was saying is valid, some fisheries require you to think outside the box every now and again and a C&R troutfishery represents more of a challenge to an angler than hungry half starved brownies in a small stream and no amount of pretentious bull from wild brown devotees will convince me either

[Anderoo]

The other difference is that you don't get anglers on stocked water making disparaging comments about "wild fishers" or their quarry.

 

Oooh yes you do! You hear it in every tackle shop here from the commercial/club lake boys, moaning about the state of the rivers, how there are no fish, everything eaten by otters and cormorants, that they wouldn't spend all day scratching about for a couple of roach. Works both ways, believe me.

 

There's even another level to it. Even if you're fishing the same lake as them, if you're not after carp they look at you with a kind of confused pity.

 

I don't pretend to know what the day ticket waters are like up in Scotland, Sportsman (they sounds rather nice), but maybe you should stop off at a couple of the busy and overstocked ones in the south of England on your way to France, just to see if you want to change your mind

 

Easy fishing is all about numbers of fish, it's as simple as that. Wild fish can be really easy of course, if there are lots of them, which is I suspect the case with the little Scottish trout. Whenever I've fished the little brooks of Scotland and the Lake District for trout (with the fly) they have been very easy to catch. Stock a handful of fish into a big lake and they'll be harder to catch. That shouldn't be a surprise.

 

The little brownies in my little Thames tributary are wild and definitely no pushover on the fly gear. There are not loads of them and they are very spooky. (But they are thick as you like when trotting maggots for the dace and chub!) On the other hand, the rainbows at Farmoor I, which is 170 acres and catch & release, and bank fishing only, are easy. Because there are lots of them.

[Rusty]

I couldn't imagine bringing a largish fish to the net, or swinging a smaller fish to hand on such a long rod if using anything but a centrepin.

 

Back on topic, yep I agree. An often overlooked advantage of a centrepin is that those sort of activities can be dealt with one handed. I was thinking more of the wandering through undergrowth when it's all too easy to forget the extra 3 foot or so, an extra 5 foot would have me searching for a new tip section within days of using the rod...but I'm still watching it.

[Sportsman]

Oooh yes you do! You hear it in every tackle shop here from the commercial/club lake boys, moaning about the state of the rivers, how there are no fish, everything eaten by otters and cormorants, that they wouldn't spend all day scratching about for a couple of roach. Works both ways, believe me.

 

There's even another level to it. Even if you're fishing the same lake as them, if you're not after carp they look at you with a kind of confused pity.

 

I don't pretend to know what the day ticket waters are like up in Scotland, Sportsman (they sounds rather nice), but maybe you should stop off at a couple of the busy and overstocked ones in the south of England on your way to France, just to see if you want to change your mind

 

Easy fishing is all about numbers of fish, it's as simple as that. Wild fish can be really easy of course, if there are lots of them, which is I suspect the case with the little Scottish trout. Whenever I've fished the little brooks of Scotland and the Lake District for trout (with the fly) they have been very easy to catch. Stock a handful of fish into a big lake and they'll be harder to catch. That shouldn't be a surprise.

 

The little brownies in my little Thames tributary are wild and definitely no pushover on the fly gear. There are not loads of them and they are very spooky. (But they are thick as you like when trotting maggots for the dace and chub!) On the other hand, the rainbows at Farmoor I, which is 170 acres and catch & release, and bank fishing only, are easy. Because there are lots of them.

 

No, they wouldn't necessarily be harder, you could catch them in exactly the same way, you would just catch fewer of them, or to put it another way, you would wait longer per fish. You wouldn't necessarily have to use any more skill.

[Anderoo]

No, they wouldn't necessarily be harder, you could catch them in exactly the same way, you would just catch fewer of them, or to put it another way, you would wait longer per fish. You wouldn't necessarily have to use any more skill.

 

Yes you would, because you'd have to find them. They would also have more available food so would be more difficult to get feeding on bait. And they would be used to less disturbance, so they would be easier to scare.

[Sportsman]

Yes you would, because you'd have to find them. They would also have more available food so would be more difficult to get feeding on bait. And they would be used to less disturbance, so they would be easier to scare.

 

Sorry, you make a best guess and fish to a feature, then hope they find you.

How do you know they have more available food" On many commercial fisheries food gets thrown in by the bucket load so no shortage there then. The fish would come to associate certain types of food items with threat so more difficult to get feeding on bait.

With all of the disturbance on the bank of a commercial, fish would retreat out of range. They would have learned to associate certain types of disturbance with threat. You also have to contend with the disturbance created by many other anglers.

On a fishery where the fish have never encountered anglers they would not associate the disturbance with a threat and so would not be unduly disturbed. There are few if any other anglers to contend with.

 

All of this is nonsense of course, you can make a case for anything.

The fact is that different people take different things from their fishing. The one thing that we should all take from it is enjoyment.

We should therefore be free to enjoy it in our own way without being patronised or made to feel "second rate" or "unimaginative"

 

I would be the first to admit that I am an angling lightweight. My priorities for a fishery are:

Easy parking close to the swim

Decent toilets

Lots of fish and lots of bites (size or even species is not particularly important)

Don't need a challenge anymore, been there, done that.

 

Congratulations on your big bream, but I wouldn't do your sort of fishing for a bet

[Anderoo]

Sorry, you make a best guess and fish to a feature, then hope they find you.

How do you know they have more available food" On many commercial fisheries food gets thrown in by the bucket load so no shortage there then. The fish would come to associate certain types of food items with threat so more difficult to get feeding on bait.

With all of the disturbance on the bank of a commercial, fish would retreat out of range. They would have learned to associate certain types of disturbance with threat. You also have to contend with the disturbance created by many other anglers.

On a fishery where the fish have never encountered anglers they would not associate the disturbance with a threat and so would not be unduly disturbed. There are few if any other anglers to contend with.

 

All of this is nonsense of course, you can make a case for anything.

The fact is that different people take different things from their fishing. The one thing that we should all take from it is enjoyment.

We should therefore be free to enjoy it in our own way without being patronised or made to feel "second rate" or "unimaginative"

 

I would be the first to admit that I am an angling lightweight. My priorities for a fishery are:

Easy parking close to the swim

Decent toilets

Lots of fish and lots of bites (size or even species is not particularly important)

Don't need a challenge anymore, been there, done that.

 

Congratulations on your big bream, but I wouldn't do your sort of fishing for a bet

 

It's true that when fishing busier waters you need different skills - the fish are usually much cuter when it comes to rigs and certain baits. Venues with fewer fish need other types of skill, but the fish aren't usually clued up in the same way because they don't get caught enough to learn.

 

'My sort of fishing' isn't camping out all summer for 1 bite from a bream. Nearly all my fishing is local, short sessions on the rivers, with bites and fish aplenty I would fish the local stillwaters more, but I just find them too crowded and noisy.

[Leon Roskilly]

I was thinking more of the wandering through undergrowth when it's all too easy to forget the extra 3 foot or so, an extra 5 foot would have me searching for a new tip section within days of using the rod...but I'm still watching it.

 

 

I use a soft-tipped 9ft telescopic rod when 'jungle-fishing' small rivers.

 

 

It can be telescoped down when climbing through bushes, and extended out through a narrow gap to drop a bait into an otherwise unfishable swim.

[Leon Roskilly]

OOOOoops!

 

Being a bit bored, I put in some low ebay bids on a few rods that vaguely interested me and which were closing in the next few hours confidentally expecting to be outbid.

 

As the closing times approached, the outbid messages started to appear as expected and the list of items whittled down.

 

It had all the excitement of watching the votes come in on Election night

 

Unfortunately, with a glass of wine in hand, although outbid, one rod still seemed too low a price to let go, so I rebid (I really shouldn't have done that!).

 

As the last seconds tipped away, I still expected to be sniped during the last five seconds.

 

But my last bid, just 23p over the previous bid stayed displayed as the auction closed.

 

And I was horrified to find that I had accidentally won this

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=390238613593

 

Not sure what to do with it now! LOL

 

(It's the 5 piece 'travel' version).

Edited September 17, 2010 by Leon Roskilly