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Matt Hayes reckons rivers are had it - your views

Mr Walker, I am in robust good health thanks, I hope you are too!

And thank you for reminding me that indeed Otters are not the only large predator that we should be aware of, you already know my opinion of Cats, I keep a pick axe handle around for exactly that purpose.;)

Nick keep em coming mate, makes a nice change from "Otters" and "What chair"!!:D


Chris has made a fair point too!:eek:



Andrew is perfectly correct, river systems will deal quite effectively with raw sewage and even benefit from it, my point about Mogden concerned the quantity, 12 million cubic meters of the stuff in one go is a little OTT.
Being OLD I remember rivers like the Thames teeming with life, while suffering from quite heavy amounts of pollution, when I say life I mean:- phytoplankton, Zooplankton, diatoms, small wiggly things that zoom about, water fleas, shrimps.
I remember walking into the river in waders and seeing live things swimming around my feet – now all I ever seem to see is tap water and very little life.
We used to go to the Hampshire Avon and marvel at how clear and clean the water was because the Thames and its tributaries were always carrying colour.
Now when I look into the Thames and can clearly see the bottom in 6 feet of water, I can understand why the general public consider it to be cleaner and thus better, yet when I fish I never see a small Roach, Dace or Gonk!
When the river was dirty and polluted and always carrying colour (and thus disgusting to the general public) I had the devils own job catching an 8inch Roach (we fished LAA size limits in matches and any Roach under 8inches did not count) because the river teemed with millions and millions of 7 inch Roach, small Dace, Bleak and Gudgeon.
Mind you the EA tell us it is much cleaner and we are all much better off !

So that’s nice!
 
Chris Cheshire said

I reckon Matt Hayes and alike steal a lot of their 'ground breaking theories' from forums just like this one. Seems funny to me that the papers are full of old news made up of topics discussed in depth by real anglers, whilst some shiny faced media dolly boy gets the recognition for bringing it to the broader public eye.
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That is the way of the world I'm afraid, I was throwing out some old copies of angling times a couple of weeks ago and a headline about the 'Time Bomb' caught my eye and brought a smile to my face.
For those who dont know all the time bomb is is a feeder full of pellets blocked at each end with a plug of groundbait.
Exactly the same rig that bream anglers had been using since the feeder was first used and Severn anglers had been using since the pellet first became available in all tackle shops.
I also had it on good authority that Matt had never seen the method until he was shown it during a days filming on the B/S stretch of the Severn for the rod race series.

Despite all of this the Time Bomb will forever be the method Matt Hayes invented because he was the first person to put it into print.
 
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He has claimed to have " developed " a number of things in the past. One being the bolt rig for Roach, another the dynamite stick . Thing is he is always a few years late and generally beaten to it by the true genius.
 
David Will said:
He has claimed to have " developed " a number of things in the past. One being the bolt rig for Roach, another the dynamite stick . Thing is he is always a few years late and generally beaten to it by the true genius.
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Presumably you mean Danny Fairbrass.
 
Howard Cooke said:
Presumably you mean Danny Fairbrass.
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Danny Fairbrass is a marketing man through and through and can now afford to pay a few clever boys and girls to develop ideas for him.
The idea of convincing a couple of hundred thousand carpers to dump the lead on every cast is pure genius.
I just wish he would hold his head vertical when he has a photograph taken instead of dropping it to one side like a love struck teenager.:D
 
Indeed Adrian. Does anyone else reach for the mute button on the remote just as he is about to slide a chubby carp across the landing net? Not sure what he exclaims in triumph but it looks loud.
 
It was the very capable Mr Nick Helleur who invented the famous stick on the banks of hardwicke lake in Oxford!!!
When he first showed it me the plunger he used was just a cut down piece of wooden stick this must have been 12+ years ago then fairbrass took it on and developed the plunger the pva etc etc like its been said he is a marketing man don't get me wrong a very capable angler but sometimes it can go to his head a little but that's another story??????


Mark
 
Mark Hooper said:
It was the very capable Mr Nick Helleur who invented the famous stick on the banks of hardwicke lake in Oxford!!!
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And a certain Mr Fairbrass had him on one of his TV shows to explain the method in detail giving full acknowledgment to him. Danny may be a millionaire off the back of his products but credit where it's due - if he uses a piece of terminal kit from another manufacturer he's more than happy to say so and if he uses a 'new' method he always gives credit to the guys that invented it. Unlike some.
 
Hi men ,

Danny sat in my swim at Horseshoe one day , drinking tea , chatting carp stuff , and how I was presenting my baits ( had caught 3 good fish in one afternoon ) , seemed a nice bloke , and shared stuff freely both ways .

Hatter
 
David Will said:
He has claimed to have " developed " a number of things in the past. One being the bolt rig for Roach, another the dynamite stick . Thing is he is always a few years late and generally beaten to it by the true genius.
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You mean like Lenny Middleton (hair) and Fred wilton (HNV) Dave ? in all honesty what has been the biggest breakthrough in big fish angling since those two ? There is lots of re inventing the wheel and regurgitating old ideas but very little in the way of original thinking nowadays.
 
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Mark Anderson said:
Hi men ,

Danny sat in my swim at Horseshoe one day , drinking tea , chatting carp stuff , and how I was presenting my baits ( had caught 3 good fish in one afternoon ) , seemed a nice bloke , and shared stuff freely both ways .

Hatter
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Well if he sat in my swim drinking tea I think I would tell him if eff off!!:mad:

Probably dumping leads :)
 
Going back to the original post...

If indeed we are on the cusp of the collapse of specimen fishing on our rivers, the coming season is the one to concentrate on. Any record fish caught before we reach our very own 'event horizon' is unlikely to be beaten for some time. For the vast majority of anglers this will of course be restricted to particular river records and in the absence of carefully monitored claims for river records for other species , specifically barbel. The same applies to PB's for all fish, so get out there and do it while you can!
 
Hi all,

Couple of days delay in getting back to the thread as I am in China working !!

Danny Fairbrass has been mentioned, now don't get me wrong here, he does have some annoying traits on camera but the guy just oozes passion for carp fishing. He has gone from making leads for himself, then his mates to the creation of Korda. He takes ideas and puts them out into the market place for all to benefit from, and yes his bank balance too, but can you blame him ?

DF is a problem solver, thinks about his fishing and comes up with ideas as all successful anglers do !
 
Oh and a very interesting piece in one of the carp monthlies about otters by well known carper and Sparsholt college lecturer Simon Scott, he says he fears for carp fishing stocks unless fishery owners invest in 10's of thousands of pounds in protective fencing to stop the little bleeders getting in.

So what can you do on a river ? you can hardly fence it off can you ?
 
nick i looked at that link, so if the rest of europe can control the numbers of comerants by cullining them, why cant we do it here, and take a study to see if it really does make a big difference, to our fish stocks ,that way we know for sure, weather its comarants or otters that are the biggest problem rivers
 
Eddie - the reason being, whilst other countries recognise the problem, decide on a plan ( cull ) and then act on it ( pick up arms and shoot the buggers ) we here recognise the problem ( cormorants ) decide on a plan ( cull ) then we try and rally public support, try and push a bill through parliment to get the birds on the general licence then sit back and hope someone out there will actually do something. I've said it before and i'll say it again - not enough of those making the noise are actually prepared to go out and act upon the very thing they are campaigning for. Everyone who has signed that petition should be prepared to buy a gun, take it to their fishery and shoot the birds. But they won't - they expect someone else to do it. In a thread on here months ago i challenged all those campaigning for the birds to be put on the general licence to see who would actually pick up a gun and shoot one - as yet i don't think anyone has come forward.

Anyway, we don't have problems - we have oppertunities. ;)
 
Andrew Boyne said:
Eddie - the reason being, whilst other countries recognise the problem, decide on a plan ( cull ) and then act on it ( pick up arms and shoot the buggers ) we here recognise the problem ( cormorants ) decide on a plan ( cull ) then we try and rally public support, try and push a bill through parliment to get the birds on the general licence then sit back and hope someone out there will actually do something. I've said it before and i'll say it again - not enough of those making the noise are actually prepared to go out and act upon the very thing they are campaigning for. Everyone who has signed that petition should be prepared to buy a gun, take it to their fishery and shoot the birds. But they won't - they expect someone else to do it. In a thread on here months ago i challenged all those campaigning for the birds to be put on the general licence to see who would actually pick up a gun and shoot one - as yet i don't think anyone has come forward.



Anyway, we don't have problems - we have oppertunities. ;)
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Seriously? You could put my name at the top of that list for starters!

Cheers, Dave.
 
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