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Early morning on the Hampshire Avon.

Black handled Jag file. Cuts through the harder hook metals with ease.

Totally agree. Bought the large one as I needed a longer reach. Having used it it for a while, I cannot see why anyone would consider the compact version other than for storage. The large one is fairly compact in its retracted state.

Definitely worth the perseverance as I think Autumn /winter is the best time of the year on the rivers and generally a nice place to be. It's finding the buggers that is hard. Roving and bouncing a bait about the swim will find them quicker. It can be a small area within a swim and all of a...

Sometimes cleaning the line with a wet cloth before knotting to remove dirt stops these breakages. Abrasive particles collected from previous sessions can serverly affect knot strength. To the original poster. I've had knots go just above the eye of the hook years ago. Came to find out that it...

And that's why I would keep an open mind. If I was losing barbel or hooking on the extremities of the mouth then I would think there was a problem but they very rarely fall off (can count on one hand) and are well hooked for the most part. I just don't think barbel have a mouth very well...

Just something else to throw into the mix. There is a theory amongst carp anglers that feeding small mass particle baits makes hooking fish harder due to minimal movement from fish rooted to a spot, hoovering up small sections of lake bed as opposed to boilie fishing with larger food items that...

Crumbs, that was a quick delivery. Spopper received with many thanks.

Too many variables with carp growth and age. Different strains, water temperature, oxygen levels, food availability, male or female, pressured or neglected and if invidual fish are just out and out growers. Some fish will stay low weights all their life others can reach 50lb in little over a...

Gardner Talon Tips are similar. If you tried them before and didn't like them as I did in the past(seemed Blunt out of packet) have another look. To me, Gardner hooks have improved as it looks like they've remodelled the points IMO. Very sharp and don't blunt easily. Atomic Claws hooks are...

Saturday night out and the birds are all over me. Last night on the Hampshire Avon.

Maybe they are renegade non EU regulation straight Barbel sitting in the wings ready to take over when the time comes. There was a theory that electro stunning might be the cause but I find that hard to believe.

Hi, irregular visitor to the forum here. I use an army assault pack. Cheap as chips off ebay. Plenty of pockets, elasticated loops on outside for bank sticks plus side strap for unhooking mat and unlike many angling rucksacks, it is very comfortable on long hikes. Think I paid £25 for mine.

Praise be! The problem is that it is not black or white. Understandably some people want yes or no answers and I'm not sure there will ever be with this topic . In the scheme of things it's as black and white as the best bait, most productive time or even the flow of a river. The variance is...

You may well be right, but not on the section I angled. It was just a thought but one of the anglers on this section had a hell of alot of fish from it and he use to fish with bobbins on a very long drop, food for thought. When I finally had success on this section it was on a big lead 4 inch...

Easy Mike, you might get banded into the yogurt knitting druid type camp.

This sounds alot like a section I use to fish, a very hard featureless section with virtually no flow. Do you ever get any slow suspicious pulls of the rod tip?

Hmmm...I must be following a different match then. Anyway, I only fish for Barbel when I need an easy bend in the rod :p

I'll be honest with you Neil, I found your initial comment slightly abbrassive. Shouting I am wrong and running off is a bit churlish, I felt sure that you had come to that conclusion out of noted experience and not just deciding from the off that it was all "BS". There also seems to be some...