The Bigger the Better?

[Tee-Cee]

I go with the school for whom 'just being there' is just as important as catching either loads of small, or one, big fish.

Some of my most memorable days have not been around the catch, but because I have seen something that I'd never seen before, and this may be a new species of bird or a fish rising that I didn't know existed in a particular water.
I fished yesterday and didn't catch a great deal but the highlight of the day was a female blackbird, normally quite shy, come to within 2' of my bait box. She accepted my offering of a few maggots before a male of the species zoomed in under my chair and chased her away with much noise and crashing about in the bushes!
Be under no illusion that it doesn't bother me to catch little or even worse, nothing, because that's just not true. I go out to catch, and the bigger the better, BUT it's not the end of the world if it doesn't happen.

Yesterday was a strange day weather wise (nr Reading Berks) as the early morning sunshine, which looked to be making for a lovely day with roach coming to the net at intervals, was replaced after an hour with a low, very cold mist which drifted across the lake never to lift again until noon. It went from pleasant to very uncomfortable in minutes. It was freezing!
The roach stopped feeding immediately, so to answer the Thread question, yes, I would've been grateful to see a couple of 8" roach during that period of time, let alone a fish over a pound!!

It was not to be despite my best efforts.......I fished hard and to the best of my ability all to no avail........................................I did enjoy the blackbirds though!


I shall return on Friday though..............................!

 

[beerweasel]

I've heard a rumour that the perch record has been broken at a carp lake.
Does anyone think there should be two sets of records, one for still waters and one for rivers ?

 

[thecrow]

I've heard a rumour that the perch record has been broken at a carp lake.
Does anyone think there should be two sets of records, one for still waters and one for rivers ?

Not for Barbel there shouldn't be.

 

[sam vimes]

Does anyone think there should be two sets of records, one for still waters and one for rivers ?

No, it's a simple question of a fish being the biggest caught on rod and line. Where it's caught (provided it's not an aquarium/zoo) and how it's caught (provided it's legal) is irrelevant.

 

[bennygesserit]

No, it's a simple question of a fish being the biggest caught on rod and line. Where it's caught (provided it's not an aquarium/zoo) and how it's caught (provided it's legal) is irrelevant.

There is acommie I fish with massive roach you can catch multiple 2 lbers in a session would that still count if a record fish came out of there ? Guess it would really.

 

[sam vimes]

There is acommie I fish with massive roach you can catch multiple 2 lbers in a session would that still count if a record fish came out of there ? Guess it would really.

Of course it should.

 

[beerweasel]

The rumoured record perch apparently came from a river, see tomorrow's Angler's Mail.

 

[bennygesserit]

Of course it should.

Strictly true of course , some might say catching from such a place is too easy but catching a record roach would be a lottery anyway.

One would imagine a re ord toach from a river takes more skill but then again I am not even sure that a record stillwater roach exists.

But , even caught from an aquarium it could still be a record judt an increasingly worthless one.

 

[sam vimes]

Strictly true of course , some might say catching from such a place is too easy but catching a record roach would be a lottery anyway.

One would imagine a re ord toach from a river takes more skill but then again I am not even sure that a record stillwater roach exists.

But , even caught from an aquarium it could still be a record judt an increasingly worthless one.

I'm not attaching any particular "worth" to a capture, simply that if a record roach came from a commercial, so be it. No one has any compunction in accepting a record pike (Chew, Llandegfedd, Whykeham etc) from a trout lake/reservoir, why anything from a commercial should be any different is quite beyond me. The skill it may take to capture a record fish of any type shouldn't come into the equation. A record fish is a record fish, provided it's caught by a legitimate method from a fishing venue.

An aquarium, zoo or fish farm wouldn't count. Should they have a mind to, I'll bet either of those three could artificially produce fish well in excess of the various current rod caught records. The only real dilemma I see comes when they do exactly that and then release the fish (at an artificially large size) into a genuine fishing venue. Some venues sail close to the wind in that respect, importing very large fish (legally or not) for the commercial gain it achieves. I guess that this dilemma is why the game records have been split into natural, cultivated, resident and wild categories, as applicable. Those categories may be a little more difficult to apply to coarse fish species.