I’ve done a fair bit of river fishing over the years but I’m looking for some guidance / inspiration about how to properly approach my local stretch of river.

Almost daily I fish the River Medway on the stretch from Moncktons Lane to Allington lock with a short pole and it’s really prolific for roach, perch, bleak, dace & gudgeon and I know it has good bream stocks too. I’ve had a session on the bomb and began picking up some small bream quite quickly before a paddle board race mucked up the swim.

The lock is an immense automated barrier that separates the freshwater Medway from the tidal saltwater Medway and also has alongside it a canal style lock for allowing boat passage in & out.

Even during a 30min session the river can go from the ‘natural‘ left-right flow to stationary to right-left reverse flow and back again and depending on how the river is running from rain the natural...

Hey All,

Had an issue recently on a quiet lake day fishery, two fishermen friends making loads of noise throughout the day. Constantly chatting loudly, they were getting on a bit so maybe a slightly deaf, swearing every other sentence. I normally fish with my kids so glad they weren't with me. it's was f***ing this, c**t this,.through the day.
They were shouting,whilstling, clapping at any birds that came near their floats. I heard burping and farting, yes farting.
I was about 100 yds from them. never have I heard such anti social fisherman. I had to put on my ear plugs and listen to a podcast, When I did remove them I could hear these two instantly. was relentless. I was tempted to have a word but kept my ear plugs in.

what would you have done in my situation?

So as the title suggests, this was my first trip to the Trent in search of my first river barbel.
Opted for the bdaas stretch in fiskerton which is day ticket. Arrived in the village with my mate around 6:30 and was on the bank not long after. We had a walk up and down and both decided to fish peg 41. Lovely wide open peg. Gravelly bottom. Perfect. Set both my rods up the night before (impatient) and mixed my groundbait up.
Right hand rod was my upstream feeder rig with 4ft hooklength and hemp, caster and mixed pellet sizes before an 8mm dynamite garlic pellet on the hair. Before actually fishing I put out 4 feeders worth of bait to get a decent carpet of offerings out there. Then cast out and set the timer for 20 mins.
The left hand rod was a lead gripper rod with some squid and garlic paste pushed in and matching 14mm boilie on the hair. I had been told to use smaller baits...

We've all been there at some point or other, the wayward cast, feeder in the tree or far bank bush, snagging up, you name it the hazards are out there waiting to take from us

What's your most expensive or daftest loss of tackle?

Mine had to be a pole section many years ago whilst fishing Bolingey Lake. It was the no5 which I'd unshipped from the pole and laid down at the side of me whilst playing a fish only to see it slip down the bank into the water and sail off before slowly sinking below the surface never to be seen again. It was devastating as it reduced my pole to a top four for the rest of my holiday

Having grown up fishing commercials, I have been trying to mix things up a bit by fishing rivers and canals, this isn’t a post designed to knock commercials, I still fish them for silvers and have a great days fishing

Problem I’m finding on more natural venues is that I’m so used to getting a bite within the first hour (at worst) that I struggle to stay longer than 2 or 3 hours if I’m not getting any indication that there are fish around.

Is this normal? Should I be more mobile so I can move pegs easier?

I've been out of the fishing game for 20 years and need to replace my old pole elastics.

So, I googled & youtubed pole elastics and I'm confused about the marketing/media explanation of the benefits of paying £15 for a hollow elastic instead of the good old £2.99 Preston slip. You see... when I studied mechanical science at Uni followed by 35years in the industry, I learned all about tensile properties of elastomers, and It's a fact that cross-sectional shape does NOT affect tensile properties (for the same material and cross-sectional area).

I'd be interested in what's peoples subjective opinion and if they have any objective/scientific information to back-up their explanation please?
In the meantime, as a retired research & development test engineer, I will conduct some 'real' tests and let you know what I find.