Conference wahoo::fishing

    
    Matt,
    
    Much as I agree with you, I feel that we should keep our suggestions
    via e-mail from now on, we don't wan't to use too much of this precious
    disk space, and we might offend the mod :-).
    When the time comes, (February is when the workstation will arrive), we
    can create and plan the conference along the lines you suggest.
    For now, this remains a US notes conference, and unless the mod agrees,
    we should not stomp on it...
    
    			Si

    Yep, suppose your right.
    
    MattyB

    
    Oh well, you'll just have to join a club up there!, the UK_FISHING
    notesfile will still go ahead..
    
    			Simon

    EXCUSE ME!!!!  WHAT in the name of ????? is a PEG????  Roach poles,
    pegs, etc.  I think we need a translation file here. :-)  Somewhere I
    missed something.  I usually fish for fish, not pegs.  ;-)  I thought
    it was BAD trying to translate and decipher Ole Coonass's comments. 
    Now, I have to learn a third language.  My brain is into overtime. :-)

    
    Peg: Usually the name given to a "swim", the place you fish, the bit of
    water directly in front of you. It's a match angling term, when at the
    beginning of a match you "draw" for a "peg", clear?
    
    			Simon

    
    THe New Fishermans dictionary.
    
    
    
    Waggler = Bobber
    Course fish = Shit fish
    Bomb = Bank sinker or Dempsy
    Roach=  Shit fish
    Peg= bobber stopper
    feeder= chum bucket
    swim=  my fishing spot
    
    This is almost as bad as reading the book "Tuna fishing with pole &
    line" by Bin Yabbie (sp)  for those of you who have had the misfortune
    to read this book you understand, for those of you who haven't . You 
    havn't missed anything.
    
                                       Walt
    

     If you are going to start a new conference on fishing do let us know
    where we can hook into it 
    
    
    I'm going to miss seeing whats going on the other side of the pond
    in this conference it breaks up the fishing techniques we use in the 
    
    U.S.
    
    
    ED
    
    

		OH, I GET IT NOW!!!!  NEW TERM FOR OLD WORDS!!!  :-)    
    THe New Fishermans dictionary.
    
                     >Colorado definitions in <  >

    
    Waggler = Bobber    <Get you a BLACK EYE around here for waggling>
    Course fish = Shit fish   <New one for me>
    Bomb = Bank sinker or Dempsy  <Pardon??  Is this a 2 oz. lake drainer>
    Roach=  Shit fish  <Bug you step on>
    Peg= bobber stopper  <Thing used to hold a tent down in the wind>
    feeder= chum bucket  <Small stream entering larger stream or river>
    swim=  my fishing spot <Usually SCARES all the fish in the area if I
    	   		    swim there> :-)
    
    	Now I see.  With so many people and so little water you only get to
    fish a few feet of the river.  Different theory of fishing I guess. 
    See how many fish you can catch from the same water without scaring
    everything versus seeing how much water you can splash out of the
    river, lake, etc. to find one fish that isn't scared off by the BIG
    SPLASH of the lure hitting the water.  :-)  HMMMMMmmmmmmm.  Should we
    have a cross tournament here?  Sounds like someone would get shot
    before it ended.  Quite versus 200 HP. bass bombs.  INTERESTING!!

    .7�     If you are going to start a new conference on fishing do let us know
    .7�    where we can hook into it 
    
    Yeah!, I will, but so far I have no hardware to host it on.
    
    			Si

    re.7
    
    We fish just the one area in a session.  Say the venue was a canal at
    about 30 feet wide, this is what we might do;
    
    1. When we get there we would find the depth all the way across, stright
    out in front.  This is done using a rod and reel with a float attachted
    and a Plummet on the end (Sinker with flat bottom so that it stands
    upright on the bottom).  We set the distance between the float and the
    plummet at what we guess to be the depth.  Then we cast (or swing) the
    tackle out to the area that we want to find the depth of.  If the float
    lies flat then it is set too deep and the water is shallower than we
    thought.  If the float dissapears then the float is set too shallow and
    the water is depper than expected.  The idea is to find a feature such
    as a sunken log or a weed bed.  Features usually contain lots of small
    fish.  But usually the only features are the near-side and far-side
    shelves.  On a typical canal the top of the shelves are about 2ft deep
    and extend about 3ft from the bank.  The boat channel is usually about
    3-4 ft deep (but can be 5-8ft deep).  The smaller fish live around the
    shelves, top or bottom while the larger fish move round in shoals.  A
    good spot for finding larger fish would be an over-hanging tree or
    bush.  The large fish find this sort of place safer than open canal,
    and will move in and out while hunting for food.  These bushes are
    always on the far bank because we always fish from the towpath.  The
    towpath is where the horses used to pull the barges (boat) from.  The
    larger fish move to the far bank because of the disturbance created by
    fisherman and walkers on the towpath.
    
    The before we set the tackle up, we would introduce some bait on the
    shelves.  We will put 60 or so casters or something on the far shelf for
    the good fish.  Casters are the chrysalis of the maggot.  They are
    coloured a deep red and are about 1cm long.  The inside shelf we would 
    bait as we fish.  The prebaiting with the casters is the equivalent of
    shark fishermen's `Chum'.  It is done to attract and hold larger fish.
    
    Then we set up the tackle.  We might have 2 rods.  The one for the
    inside ledge would be a 5ft `Roach Pole' with 5ft of line.  This is the
    same a Tom Sawer (SP) of Huckleberry Finn used.  We would have a very
    sensitive float attached, so sentive that it would go under if you
    blew on it from above.  The main line would be about 1�lbs in strength. 
    The hook is attached to a hooklength.  The hooklength is just a piece
    of line with a loop at one end and the hook at the other.  The mainline
    should always be stronger than the hooklength.  Therefore if a good
    fish snaps your line, you only lose the hook and not �1.50 worth of
    rig.  The hooklength could be anything from 6oz to 1.1lb, depending on
    how fussy the fish were on the day.  The hook would be small 20-26.  (In
    the US do you use the same hook sizes? eg.  a lure intended for fish of
    about 3lb would use hooks of about size 8).  The float would be
    weighted down by lots of small shot evenly spread out.  The idea is
    that the bait on the hook sinks at exactly the same speed as the as the
    free offering we will put in.
    
    The tackle for the outside line might be a 12ft `float' rod and and
    small fixed spool reel.  The float rods come in 2 basic types.  The
    first, sometimes known as a `stick' float rod is pretty stiff, and has
    a `tippy' action - it bends mostly at the top.  These rods are supposed
    to be able to handle large fish on light lines while being quick on the
    strike.  The second type of float rod is the `Waggler' rod.  This is
    also supposed to be able to handle light lines, but are a bit beefier. 
    The are made for casting floats distances of up to 40-50 yards, and
    must be able to pick up the line between the rod and hook cleanly and
    swiftly without knocking the fish off.  We would use a `stick' float
    rod becuase it gives the cushion needed for fishing at close range. 
    The reel doesn't have to be anything special because we don't have to
    cast mammoth distances.  Just as long as it doesn't explode when we
    hook something big.  The float would be a small `canal dart'.  The canal
    dart is about 7 inches long.  The body is made from balsa (because of
    its bouyancy).  The body is slightly tapered with the thicker end at
    the bottom.  The tip is spliced into the body and is made of a thin
    piece of cane.  This float is very sensitive, but note as sensitive as
    the pole float mentioned above.  The weights would be the same and we
    sould use a hooklength of 1.1lb and a hook of size 16-22.  Fish up to
    10lb (and sometimes bigger) can be landed on this sort of tackle.
    
    Now to fish;
    
    We start of on the inside with the Pole (little 5ft rod as mentioned). 
    We put in 5 or so maggots every cast.  The bait goes out and the float
    follows so that the hook is in withe feed.  We would probably fish an
    area of only 2 square feet.  At first we would only catch small fish at
    first, �oz - 2 oz.  As the feed keeps going in and the fish get more
    excited the fish would get larger and more daring.  The biggest we
    could expect would be fish of 8oz (9").  The bigger fish would stay on
    the other side.  All the time we would keep feeding the far shelf with
    bait.
    
    We would switch to the other rod when either we got bored of the small
    stuff, we can't catch the small stuff, to give the current shelf a rest
    or we have seen some movement on the far side.  Throughout the day we
    would switch back on forth.
    
    On the far bank we could probably pick up a few bigger fish 3oz to
    10oz.  If we were lucky we might have a shoal of Chub or Tench move in. 
    These could easily average 3lb each and would make things extremely
    enjoyable.  What always happens to me is that I hook and lose a few large
    Carp.  These average about 8lb in my local canal, but the canal record is
    something like 39lbs!  You could be whopping out loads of small fish
    when all of a sudden you hook Jaws' big brother.  I had one of these
    last year that took 35 minutes to land!
    
    At the end of a great day you would have about 200 small fish, 2-6 Carp
    of whatever for a total weight of about 40lb.  Normal days you get
    about 40-120 small fish and lose a few good uns for about 6lb - 12lb.
    All this from just 2 sqaure yards of water!  This sort of sport depends
    almost entirely on feeding.  It is to easily to underfeed the fish, so
    they lose interest, or the overfeed them.  The most enjoyable things
    about this sort of fishing is beating the man in the next peg and
    trying to get the fish feeding well.  BTW pegs are usually about 10-12yds
    apart.
    
    Only yesterday I fished a canal and for the first 6 hours (8am - 2pm) I
    only caught 7 small fish.  I only missed 1 bite and so was pleased with
    my hooking rate.  The canal started to drop and the sun came out so I
    moved hoping for a good catch.  From the first cast after moving to the
    last before packing up I had a bite every time.  The fish were clever
    and the hooking rate was about 1 in 5.  I caught another 32 fish up to
    1lb (12").  I also lost a big Chub of about 4lb.  The enjoyment came in
    that while I caught my 7 fish in the fisrt peg, the next 5 men above me
    only caught 1 small fish each, and none had had any other bites.  In
    the second peg the thrill was that I knew that everytime I cast out,
    the float would go under within 1 minute and I had to be quick as
    lightning to hit it.  This sort of fishing is not expected during the
    winter.
    
    Hope I have explained some of the tactics and the enjoyment incurred
    from fishing in England.  I'll have to try lure fishing for Pike and
    Perch some time.  I have only tried it a few times because I hate
    unhooking Pike.
    
    
    MattyB