Dave Slater Part V

Dave,
What a facinating thread you have given us.I was going to e-mail you to ask if you would let me know what kind of Field headings you used for your Database,as this is something that I am doing myself for my own records, and wanted some ideas.
Thank's again for a brilliant thread.

Dave,
I have just been comparing the figures on your year-by-year table. 1999 and 2003 seem to be the best years. What is it about these two years that made your catch rates soar? Was it experience, better baits, or a culmination of things?

There is also one thing that I would point out that you have written about, and that is on the subject of carp, bream and tench appearing ever increasingly in our river systems. You say that you don?t like to see them and regard them as a still water fish and are a retrograde step. This is exactly how I feel about chub being introduced to still waters, if you see my point.
But this really is a great topic that you have so kindly put on the website for us all to get some use out of, and I hope you don?t mind if I ask for your help in the future.
Many Thanks for a great feature,
Baz.

so what's wrong with the bream in the east anglian rivers then barry, if ivan marks were here to argue his case i think you might have to go a long way to convince him they don't belong.

Jason,
I can't really argue with that, thank's for pointing it out.
The River Weaver near me is also full of carp and bream and seem to have been there for ever now I think about it.

I think really all I wanted to say was that I would have prefered the next record chub to come from a river.
I'm not a record hunter myself, I just enjoy the environment aspect of river fishing.But I do believe chub belong in a river.
Thank's for helping clear things up a bit.
Baz.

alright barry i know what your saying it doesn't bother me tat chub are in still waters but i don'tlike the idea of barble in em and i wouldn't dream of going away from reed lined lilly covered pools for my tenching it's just not on.

Back to the thread I found Dave's stats very interesting. Thanks for sharing them Dave.

dave
you could improve your data by converting your bait used to a success rate i.e. divide the number of fish caught by the total ammount of times a bait was used and multiplying the result to become a percentage.
as you say your best bait is cheese but you are confident with it and i bet use it to the exclusion of other baits at times,
you would have to have used the bait more than 20 times really to get anything meaningful out of the data.

Jason

A very enjoyable and informative piece again, Dave.

My own results are similar to yours although I do tend to fish day sessions and not too many evenings. Accordingly, I find that Bread is my most successful bait, but noting that I do most if not all of my fishing on the Avon. Although I have been quite successful this year with early evening sessions using Cheese and cheese paste.

I also tend to think of Tench and Carp as not really river fish (on the chalk streams that is) but then again those beautiful, large commons on the Hale are magnificent creatures.
That said the "nuisance" Tench from the Avon when fishing with Ron was quite a turn-up for the book. What a pity it was not a Roach of similar size.

The only other pity being that this is to be the last article of the series.

Thanks for sharing Dave.

Baz,
Glad you enjoyed the articles. There are reasons for the two most succesful years. In 1999 far more fishing was done than normal. This was done to increase the Chub Study Group record number after encouragement by one or two members who were not happy with the existing record. It was very hard work and unlikey to be repeated. The 2003 figures are good because of some exceptional end of season results. Normally I like to move about a lot when chub fishing. Because of my knee injury I had to stay in one swim all day, always near the car, and sit behind a feeder rod. This is very effective when chub are shoaled up and I may do it again this year, although the knee is now fine.
Jason,
I like to keep my records simple. If I did as you suggested the information would be useful but would take up more time and become more comlicated to maintain. I have used all baits quite a lot so the information is representative. I agree that I automatically use cheese on some swims for short sessions, but I use a variety of baits on longer sessions. The swims I use cheese in are ones I know it works best in from past experience. I have a fairly good memory and can remember a lot of things. The database is used just to confirm things.
Andy,
I am glad you found the articles interesting. It was not a problem to me sharing the information. I don't know if you would consider it but I would find a similar series on tench by yourself very interesting, as tench are another favourite species of mine and I know you have had great success with them.

Peter,
Glad you enjoyed the articles. I am sure I would have far more success with bread if I did more daytime sessions but, as you have also found, cheese is a brilliant bait in the evenings. I hope you get your six this season.

Dave, at the moment I'm nearing the end of a piece on my Chubbing in 2003 for FM. I'll get to work on a Tench series as soon as I finish.