JennyMorgan

And the very same to you, Vaughan. I shall raise a pint of Broadside to you from the banks of the Waveney later today

The justification behind catch and release is twofold and simple, one being to preserve our sport and two, to preserve our shared environment.

A question that has been discussed in pike fishing circles and whilst it does happen I have never heard of any great success using jacks as bait.

JA, you & the team done good! A BIG thanks for all the hard work, the end result was well worth it. I reckon that the Forum can be rightly proud of its calendar & the crew that produced it.

Perhaps over Christmas the photographers concerned can identify themselves and the locations? I don't personally miss the information, for me its the pictures that matter, but I do understand that for some folk this information is important. Without having my calendar to hand I can tell you that I took the cover picture and that it was taken at about 4.30 in the morning during the Three Rivers Race and the location is somewhere between Horning and Thurne Mouth.

Perhaps, Andrew, I have no particular wish to influence my fellow pike anglers in regard to livebaiting, after all it is legal and it is their choice. I admit that I do find pike anglers who demand that we all return pike to the water in the same condition as before we hooked them, yet kill the fish that other anglers would wish to catch, as being rather hypocritical. However, the issue is simple, how long after we ban impaling a fish on a hook and then casting it out before someone then bans hooking a fish before reeling it in? That said I firmly believe that a roach deserves the same respect as pike anglers demand for pike.

Some folk do still livebait, quite legally. Me, I gave it the heave-ho more than fifty years ago. With modern day 'jelly' lures, if used intelligently', I reckon these can out-fish both deads and lives any day of the week. Regretfully the threat to pike fishing today is from anglers themselves, anglers whose bite indication leaves a great deal to be desired and today pike stocks on the Broads are at a very worrying low.

Great! I have a knackered pigeon recuperating under a chicken incubator right now. Just hope that he doesn't see me as a soft touch and insist on staying. I have two allegedly feral ones that have taken up residency in the garden that are costing me a fortune to feed as it is, fat old 'mawthers' that they have become. Some really good pictures and not just mine either! Shall frame some of them up for my 'shed' after their stint as a calendar.

As one who fishes for pike from a kayak I can assure you that I don't 'land' a pike as such. I bring it alongside, slip the fingers of my left hand under the gill flaps, lift the head, and with my right hand and a pair of long nosed pliers I roll the the hooks out, with squeezed barbs, and quickly release the pike, all very quick, simple and safe. I generally fish by myself which means I can't weigh or photograph my catch but when fishing in a group it is a simple matter for kayaks to raft up.

As to what is and has happened it is a case of each letter sent to an MP, especially Norfolk ones, will add to the chorus.

http://www.richardbacon.org.uk/speeches/broads_bill.htm

Still buying DVD's? Gosh, how last century! Streaming, surely, is of our time?

Oooh dear, so I should have a knackered old pigeon panting outside my front door in the morning, poor overworked beast!

Morris tells us that he has a foreshortened grib, me being curious I resorted to Google, successfully!! http://yachtpals.com/grib-4018

Oi, where's mine? The suspense is killing me!

A visit to the blacksmiths is called for, I'm sure that he could knock up an extension grib, even a weirdly personalised one.

Or even 'Good Lord, that Sugar man'!

More the merrier!

Mr Blows, may I suggest that you contact your local MP. With inflation being so low a rise of 18.5% is unreasonable. Perhaps asking Dr Packman to justify such as rise is another way forward. Indeed asking your MP to ask Dr P might be worthwhile. It is only if people complain in number that anything could happen.

It reads as if your life was marred at an early stage by an overly demanding, high maintenance woman! Did she hail from the Home Counties? Lots of them there, so I'm told.

I've heard stories about little Hunstanton Cottages but not being one to gossip you know . . . . . . . . . .

Careful nurturing and a change of diet & lifestyle could be the answer.

Personally I don't watch it, I can not abide that Sugar man, in my opinion he's not a very nice individual.

And the Christmas Eve leg of pork!. Christmas morning could still be a blast!

Bugger, I missed it!