Tackle and Tactics
Mike Ladle

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Seize the moment.

Correspondents who look at my web site quite often say that "You must do a hell of a lot of fishing Mike!". Well, I suppose I go fairly often by some standards and now, being retired, it is perhaps easier for me than it used to be. However, I decided to have a look at the diaries and see just how much time I do put in. The figures are actual fishing time because the amount of time spent getting to and from the water is different according to where you live. On average I probably spend forty minutes on the round trip to most of my venues - including driving and walking.

In the first twenty weeks of 2004 I went fishing thirty two times. Some weeks I did not go at all and the most trips I made in a week was five (twice). Overall I actually fished for fifty-one-and-a-quarter hours. On average I was 'on the water' for about two-and-a-half hours per week and this worked out at 1.7 hours per session. It may be significant that of the thirty two trips twenty one were in the last five weeks, so at present I'm averaging about four trips per week but the sessions are about average (one-and-three-quarter hours) in duration.

What does this mean? How do I compare to other anglers? I've no idea - but here are a couple of recent examples for consideration. This morning, as I walked to my spot, I met four blokes who had spent the night on the coast; bottom fishing - not less than 32 man hours (more than half my total for the year so far) - assuming they told me the truth they had caught two small huss. Last week I met another chap who had spent twenty four hours carp fishing - he was still there when I left and had landed six carp fishing boilies on the bottom. As he watched me unhook a carp which took a piece of crust off the top he commented that "They are easy to catch on floating baits but much more difficult on bottom gear." If that is the case I wondered why he was fishing on the bottom.

The last chapter of "Operation Sea Angler" (which I MUST put on the web) analyses the time and effort that me and my pals spent sea fishing in various ways. Our transition from bottom fishing with baits to lure and fly fishing dramatically transformed the results. The number of decent fish caught per man hour increased several fold. Since then most of my pals have given up sea fishing (age and infirmity creeping on) and I have drastically focussed on times when I expect to catch fish rather than simply chucking and chancing it. I don't know how much time most other anglers spend on the water but I shall be surprised if the above represents a "hell of a lot of fishing."

If you have any comments or questions about fish, methods, tactics or 'what have you.'get in touch with me by sending an E-MAIL to - docladle@hotmail.com

INFORMATION SPOT

Seize the moment.

Fair weather fisherman!

I don't choose to fish in bad weather but I will if it seems likely to produce results.

Nice tench.

An old picture but illustrating that I fish lakes as well as river and sea.

Dawn and dusk.

If you want results you MUST be prepared to fish at first and last light.

Playing a jack.

Of course I did not include my holiday fishing in the statistics. While I'm away I probably fish a lot more than when I'm at home.

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