Recent content by Ben Marr

For what it's work, I see Otters hunting regularly , they favour shallow, fast runs where they rummage about in the Stones and come up chamming from time to time. I'm sure most of their diet is Bullheads and Stone Loach. I'm not saying they don't take larger stuff, I've seen one swimming past...

I'm generally Liberal leaning, but there is more and more stuff when I find myself chuntering on about bringing back the death penalty !

In my case by fishing as much as possible !

Right place, right time....needs to be learnt, imo.

Love those really Bronzy ones you get, Ian 👍

Well that's not my experience, and I fish several different beats totalling about 5 or 6 miles of fishing. They are certainly messy, leaving a lot of willow twigs and branches in the water, and obviously fell the odd tree into the river, but that's a long way from making the river unfishable.

Well, I suppose you're never going to please everyone. I fish the River Otter in Devon where they've been around in numbers for some time and so far the negative impacts have been very limited, and not hard to mitigate for. The overwhelming evidence so far, not just from Scientists, but also...

The write up on the AD website for the Aventus float mentions v joint, which is Diawa and shows a union jack on the rod, suggesting it may be made in the uk. As far as I know, only Diawa and Harrison make rods in the UK.

I've been using the acolyte margin carp for a while and so far like them, I think they're basically a barbless super spade. They do seem to stay sharp a bit longer than others.

I remember seeing those years ago, I think they were popular with Worm / prawn Salmon fishers.

Interesting subject. It's widely bandied about that the EA won't allow stocking of Barbel into non indigenous rivers. I'm pretty sure the Dorset Stour has had a few, which by the above criteria shouldn't have been allowed, or maybe there are exceptional circumstances?

Only 'problems' for Farmers, it seems.

Looks great sport you had there, Ian.

Has it had a good trial, John?

I had a problem with mine and ended up putting a piece of stretched insulation tape around the collet. Worked perfectly for months until I trod on it and snapped the top section !