That sturgeon

[Newt]

fenboy - if you are still up and about you can feel free to send them to me. newt.vail@pmusa.com for the next couple of hours or nvail@ctc.net after that.

 

Also, would you like me to delete the duplicate posts for you?

[Nugg]

Leave with you Newt.

[fenboy]

Thanks for the offers. Late last night – or, rather, early this morning – a member sent me a personal message offering to do the dirty work for me. I have sent two pics of the reel to him via email – or, at least, I hope I have. Computers aren't my strong point, as you may have guessed.

And, yes, I would appreciate it if somebody could eliminate the duplicate messages I posted. Now how I managed THAT I have no idea.

This forum is great fun, insofaras it's great to exchange ideas and views, but I find it very frustrating (ie difficult) to understand technical stuff like posting a pic (which I was naive enough to imagine would be as easy as nailing an attachment to an email).

Hopefully I'll learn...

Thanks again to all who offered.

[Vagabond]

Fenboy - belated welcome to AN. I'm glad to know there is at least one other IT semi-literate ("semi" 'cos you can actually post - even if like me you struggle with the clever-clever stuff)

 

However, using the guidance given by Newt, Nugg and others I HAVE been able to put pictures up. I have looked at Newt's post above and wonder if you misunderstood part of it.

 

Look at the Email window - Newt says "put your addy here" That means the addy you want the picture to GO TO - not your OWN addy. (copy and paste the anglersnet.co.uk address shown at the top of the screen)

 

That's what I did to put up the pics on the Sea Forum (Costa Rica) and that worked OK

[Steve Randles]

Here are the pictures from Fenboy, I have edited them slightly (resized them for quicker loading) and I have also cut out the badge and orientated it for easier viewing.

 

I can if anyone wishes put up the full size photos (links to them) sent to me, but I'll put them on my own webspace rather than clogging up Eltons system. just ask and it will be done.

 

 

 

[Newt]

Look at the Email window - Newt says "put your addy here" That means the addy you want the picture to GO TO - not your OWN addy.

 

Vagabond - now I have to wonder about that block because I have always put my own email address in there. I think it's a sort of verification thing for Elton so he can get back in touch with anyone who posted a picture. But I only think that and obviously you can use something else.

 

Elton - what the he11 is that block for??

[fenboy]

Thanks for that, Steve - and thanks too toi everybody who offered to help. I think I may have made life difficult for myself by neglecting to cut down the size of the pix. They were taken on a five million megapixel digital and were probably a bit much for my non-Broadband connection. I will study the subject and your kind advice so that next time I stand a chance of not looking a complete prat. I wouldn't bet on it, though.

Now that I've finally dug the reel out, after 30-odd years of neglect, I'm tempted to get it renovated mechanically, if possible, and actually use it. Anybody know anything about this particular model?

[Newt]

fenboy - a picture sized to 640x480 is usually the easiest to post and also easier for folks on slow connections to see.

 

I highly recommend a free picture viewer/editor Irfanview for the job. It does lots of nice things with pictures and is pretty simple to operate. You can take a large digi pic and with a single button click, set it to 640x480 (or quite a few other sizes) and save the results with a different name. Then post the small one and you still have the detailed original on your PC.

 

You can also add text as I did with the screen shots I posted earlier in this thread.

[fenboy]

I envy you guys who are comfortable with computers. Today, at work, I decided to be clever and email myself some work to do from home tomorrow instead of going into the office. Well, I might as well get some benefits out of this laptop.

So much for good intentions. I got home to find out that my computer here had blocked the emails I had sent myself from work. Norton anti-virus had decided that the MS Word documents I had sent myself were, apparently, serious risks to my computer.

Fantastic.

After wading through all sorts of software dead ends for a couple of hours, I've found out how to switch off the default in Norton which assumes that anything attached to an email is more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden's immediate relatives in an airline booking office.

Maybe that's why I go fishing - not only to escape from the technology which has hijacked my working life, but the absurdity of the world we live in. This isn't a political forum, so I won't come on too strong here. Suffice to say that I don't feel part of Phoney Blair's new Britain. I do wish the late Dick Walker was still alive today, because he could articulate this much better than me, but I can recall him being quite bitterly opposed to what he called 'townie' politicians. And he is so right.

No, I'm not a member of the Countryside Alliance. I see that as an ill-disguised attempt by hunters to suck in others on their side. It's not something anglers should get involved in, in my opinion.

No, what I hate is the populist aspect of vote-catching politics. Blair will get the urban right-to-roam canoeists, right-to-roam ramblers and right-to-moan anti-anglers on his side, because it will help him retain power. They are all right-on trendy Islington types, after all.

Politicians have never had to worry about anglers' votes. They were either match anglers from predominantly industrial urban areas who would vote Labour anyway because their fathers did, or rural fishing folk who would probably vote Tory anyway for the same reason. Never any real reason for courting their support.

I doubt today whether there is any real sympathy in political circles for angling, because there are no votes to be won. Our system is first-past-the-post regional polls, in which little issues like angling rate at roughly zero on an importance scale of 0-100.

We've got our backs against the wall. Make no mistake about that. We're on our own.

If red-socked ramblers and braying canoeists want the legal right to mess up our sport for free, they'll get their way. Someone in Tony's circle probably knows several.

That's why it's important we get our act together. Be seen as responsible. Perhaps even be seen as harmless eccentrics. It didn't do Chris Yates or John Wilson any harm in the eyes of the TV public.

We should insist on a close season to protect the banksides and wildlife. Otherwise how can we moan about canoeists damaging habitat and spawning grounds?

And we should certainly stamp upon ridiculous team matchmen clogging up public towpaths and clamouring for the "professional sportsmen" recognition the morons think they deserve.

If my grandad was still alive today I'm sure he would say: "Don't trust grown men in flourescent blue jumpsuits"... especially when they catch fish too small for a kingfisher to bother with.

Phew, that's better. Tonight's rant over.

 

Back to the original subject - sturgeon. Why don't we get accidental wanderers turning up in our estuaries any more?

I can remember, as a kid, marvelling at a huge, ill-stuffed sturgeon in King's Lynn Museum. It was, I recall, around six or seven feet long, weighed more than a politician's ego and was caught at Denver Sluice on the Great Ouse at the turn of the century.

Similar catches were made on the Hundred Foot River at Earith and the River Nene at Guyhirn at around the same time. Plus that Welsh sturgeon this is all about.

Did sturgeon regularly get lost from the Caspian Sea in years gone by? What's the story? The must have been a few of them about at some stage centuries ago for a law to be passed to make them Royal fish.

Perhaps they stay away from our shores these days to avoid New Labour....

[Nugg]

Just one point to emphasize use jpeg format not bitmat.