Afishionado

Ditto except it'll be first time this year for me And we'll be going out from Poole. Any advice welcome. Mad Mike

Well if loosing your glasses was not enough, you then try to hook an innocent ickle bird. Possibly by then you were just making a spectacle of your self. Well done with the fish though Mad Mike

Gordon I will resist temptation In real and origional use of the term 'Game Fish' it is limited to those fish with an adipose fin. However in recent times the term has been mis-used to include any fish that some authorities/angling groups want reclassified to enable commercial fishing for them to be banned. The mis-use of the word is when Game is used when the user should grammaticaly use the word Sports. Mad Mike

Thank you Paul Mad Mike PS to Gordon.......... If you are near Kissamee have a visit to Boggy Creek Fishing Lodge, a fun trip to the home of Big Mouth Bass fishing

Well thank you for the advice Trevor and Rich Tell me is it true that if I leave the eyes in the gurnard one fish will see me through the week? Mad Mike

I have just written a quite full reply and like a twit I have just realised I put it through as a 'report this post' not a 'quote this post' so whoever looks at the reprts PLEASE cut and paste it to Gordon. Mad Mike

fillets of fresh gurnard I have heard that gurnard is delish' but I have never tried it. Do you recommend trying it ? (assuming I can catch some) Mad Mike

Flog the pic's and the story to the Sun or the Mirror. If they buy it (strange Mediterranean fish with even stranger name etc) it should be worth

I agree with Duncan, defo not a wrasse. Can one get hybrid sea fish like some freshwater fish can cross breed (roach/bream) I too am realy curious now I have seen the better picture. I would suggest fridge or freezing it incase it is a record whatever it is. Mad Mike PS well done anyway

orographic enhancement Why they just can't say mountains and valleys I don't know The other favourite of the Met brigade is 'precipitation', the rest of us mortals say 'rain' Mad Mike

launching but then not being able to flush the engine would be another issue! Then again there hundreds of thousands of O/B's that are boats afloat in salt water all the year and they don't all fall to pieces because of it. It's the environment that the engines are made for. Mad Mike

My son was in the TA and a lot of their small arms training is done down near Exeter on a site very similar to the Lulworth ranges. Whilst they are doing live fire exercises one of their number is posted to an Ob'Station that is in a sort of hut on stilts overlooking the sea. In the hut are powerfull binoculars, VHF, and the microphone for a mucking huge loud speaker with a range of several miles on full volume. The ranges have all sorts of red flags, warning marker bouys etc but the Great British Public can usually be relied on to totaly ignore these, hence the live look out. If a boat is seen aproaching the danger area of over shots from the range, first off they try VHF then if there is no response the humongous Tannoy. Well one day a lad (who shall remain anonymous) was on look out when a bunch of canoeists paddled their way past the red flags flying from a mast on the cliff and into the range area. Obviously they would have no VHF so the lad used the Tannoy. "Attention canoeists you are entering Army ranges please turn round and leave the area" went booming out. The canoeists stop paddling and look up to the sky. They have a little chat between themselves and continue paddling into the danger area. At higher volume the Tannoy booms out CANOEISTS! STOP! TURN ABOUT AND LEAVE THE DANGER AREA! The canoeists stop paddling and once again look intently into the sky, but do not turn round. The lad in the hut having decided that the canoeists must be short of the odd brain cell. then carries on to say over the Tannoy ......... YES, THIS IS GOD SPEAKING NOW TURN AROUND AND GO BACK! And would you believe it they did! There were some complaints from someone, but unfortunately whoever was in the hut did not log in and no one could remember when several weeks later they were asked who was on hut duty.

Warning -- Strong Winds & Heavy Rain -- Areas Affected: - The UK - Some unseasonable weather is on the way over the next few days as a series of very active low pressure systems push into the UK from the Atlantic. Some very strong winds will develop from late Wednesday through Thursday, especially Thursday night and into Friday across Central and Southern Ireland, Wales and England from Northern England Southwards. Gusts in excess of 60mph are possible, especially over exposed coasts and hills, this bringing a small risk of some structural damage. The strong winds will be accompanied by some heavy and persistent rain and/or heavy showers throughout the rest of the week. Rainfall totals over some parts will be in excess of 30mm to 40mm and possibly as high as 60mm where orographic enhancement plays a part. The combination of very strong winds and heavy rain will create hazardous driving conditions and also some very rough seas. The unsettled conditions are expected to continue into the coming weekend with further showers or longer spells of rain from time to time and strong winds are expected to return by late Sunday. Mad Mike

Quote..I need to locate a tractor, chipper Then you can be 'The bloke down the chipper wot thinks he's Elvis' Thankya Mam Thankyaverymuch huhu Mad Mike

As Mike says most A/F's are self abraiding and on slower vessels they are brilliant, a pressure wash at the end of the season and your ready to go next year. The high speed power boats tend to use the hard A/F in several coats as the chemicals are in the paint and they leach out over the course of a season. However here's the rub (pun intended ), at the end of the season it's just paint, most of the poisons having gone, and it will need rubbing down to reduce the thickness before you can stick some more on for next year. This is one of the most 5hitty jobs on a boat! Also .......... Moorings? Will you also need a dinghy? If so where will you keep it and launch it? Boats get vandalised on moorings also broken into and stuff nicked. You can't leave anything valuable aboard therefore EVERYTHING has to be lugged to the boat and back again every trip. Having had and used moorings, finger berths, and trailering IMHO trailering is best unless one is filthy rich and can afford a marina berth and pay the yard to do your maintainance. If you are tempted Cobbs, this year, is

Well the bathroom mats did slide about a bit but I have Gripfilled them down now so they are nice and fixed. When they get dirty it's only a moments work to give them a go over with Shake and Vac and a blast with a Dyson. Mad Mike

BRILLIANT! Mad Mike

years of being a proof reader for the guardian you know. Having seen some of the G's typo's I thought all their proof readers were Serbo Croat Mad Mike

It's finding out which the good stuff is that makes it fun. Fr'instance I think we went onto 5 pages of discussion on the correct way to anchor and nearly ended up with baiting needles at dawn! So for crissake don't ask realy difficult questions like 'what colour line should one use on a wet November day with the wind in the north east'. The arguments could last 'till Christmas!! Mad Mike

This shows exactly what I was talking about some months ago when the argument about cod and other round fish quotas came up. The quota method based on the tonnage LANDED is utter madness. Any quota should be based on total tonnage caught even if it means spot checks and/or on board observers. The cod end of the average north sea trawl might contain 2cwt of round fish PLUS another 3 or 4cwt of what is euphemisticly called 'by catch'. These are undersized fish, fish of a species that has already reached it's quota, prey fish and fingerlings. All of which are shoveled back into the sea DEAD! The act of trawling kills all the fish, they are swept into the cod end and the water pressure of the moving trawl stops them breathing. Fish quotas and the way they are used are sheer madness. What is needed is a 5year rotating moratorium on all mechanical methods of fishing in selected breeding areas. Exactly as the traditional farmer would rotate the crops he sowed on his land. Mad Mike

canabals (I'm sure I've spelt that wrong Canybubbles is wot it should be Mad Mike

Cooor! Nice boat Rob So you've stopped lurking and dived in, well done. Loads of advice here, some of it is even usefull Mad Mike

Some of you may remember that I wrote the other week about re surfacing the cockpit floor with B&Q laminate flooring strips, and how nice the boat looked with the gloss maple floor. Well I had another bit of inspiration and have fitted out the new floor with two attractive fluffy bathroom mat sets. The ones with the U shaped indent that are meant for the toilet fit nicely round the seat pedestals and the oblong mats realy set the floor off. Now, any sugestions where I could put the knitted lady in a crinoline that normaly goes over the spare toilet roll? Mad Mike

One has a Harrods hamper that one takes with one when one goes fishing. It is filled with ones cheese butty and a flask of Ruby Lee. Mad Mike

Ed Zachery! Mad Mike