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That's awesome. You gotta love movies of stripeys. I certainly wouldn't do much fishing if I had one of those cameras. Looks like real fun. Thanks for sharing. 007

Hey folks. It's been a long time since I said farewell to Toronto and my Ontario fishing adventures, but I thought I would check-in to see what's going on over there. Can anyone tell me what have I missed in the last year or so? Any record Musky catches? Posts about OOS bass pics? GCD with his top off and a catfish or bass in his hands? SNAG with some bizarre fisherman's tale? CCMT and Bly catching more fish than you can dream of? Cool pics of Rich with WGSF Rock Bass? Stories of mysterious fish kills in Scugog? Carp bashing posts? to name a few likely topics...... I must apologise for not sending many fishing reports from England - unfortunately I haven't been fishing much due to work and travels. Hopefully I can rectify that soon before summer is over. Enjoy the rest of the summer fishing and hopefully I get the time to keep coming back to OFC to keep up to date with what I'm missing out on! Cheers 007

One of my resolutions is to make it back across "The Pond" from England to Ontario this year to fish for some Largies and Smallies!! Happy New Year to you all! 007

Congrats Carp Addict! Nice Mirror Was the gar in T.O? At the Islands? In my three years fishing in Canada, I never managed to catch or even see a gar, pity they look kinda cool. How's the back these days mate? 007

Hey Littleangler. I've seen that picture before over here in the UK and it is a very big European Perch, though it must be said the angler does also hold the fish very close to the camera away from his body to make it look bigger - none of us have ever done that! LOL I think that fish was a four pounder. The record over here is almost 6lbs!! Lunkerbasshunter - the fish in the picture is definitely a European Perch which is very similar to the Yellow Perch in Canada. There are some subtle colour differences. The perch in Europe are generally a paler colour a sort of greyishgreen (no yellow) but usually with very pronounced black stripes and bright red anal and tail fins. The other fish you mentioned is a Zander otherwise known as a 'Pike-Perch' - it is indeed very like a walleye and therefore doesn't really look like a perch except for the dorsal fin and nothing like a pike. The Zander is an alien species to the UK having been introduced from Holland I believe. I hope the info is useful - hopefully one day I'll post such a picture of a big perch - I've been told that my local lakes in England have perch of about 4lbs! cheers 007

Congrats on the PB Cliff - that's a huge carp.

From a neutral's perspective (seeing as England unfortunately didn't qualify) I would have to say that I hope Holland or Spain win Euro 2008. They have been by far the best teams in the competition. The kind of football they play is exciting and entertaining. It's about time that teams like Italy and Germany (who usually do very well in these tournaments) which grind out results rather than playing exciting and attacking football don't make it to the final! Contraversial statement .... I know, but an unbiased opinion ;-) Good luck to all 'your' teams - may the best team win! 007

Good luck with the cleaning of the weigh sling Mike - I don't envy you there! I thought it looked like a good twenty. Out of curiosity what's the weight of the biggest carp you've caught in Ontario and also the Islands? What's the Ontario record - official or unofficial? Just curious to see how big they get over there - supposedly there are some '30's and '40's in my local lakes - can't imagine what they fight like. 007

Wow! Looks like you had a great day out on the water. It must be great living on a lake like that. V Jealous. 007

Nice going Rich. Keep trying and you'll get the big one. 007

Ahhh soft focus fish porn! Been there done that! Congrats on the big fish though!

Nice job MJL. You put the effor in and were rewarded with two beautifully marked common carp. Congrats. What do you think the second one weighed? 007

Thanks for all the kind words guys. limeyangler - true... sea fishing is free and can be great fun - when I was a kid I used to fish down at the Isle of Wight for flounder, plaice, whiting, pouting, pollack and sea bass. John F - lots of people over here use boilies and have done for decades but these guys sit in their tents for days waiting for their bite alarms to go off - I need some more action than that and therefore tend to use baits that will catch me multiple species - variety is the spice of life and all that. Wolfville - yeah roundabouts can be difficult just ask my wife and she has grown up driving round them! LOL You should definitely avoid a place called Hemel Hempstead - it is infamous over here as it has one big roundabout with I think 6 mini-roundabouts circling it - man is it confusing! Ccmt - the trout was a really nice surprise - didn't expect to catch one from a small lake - though it probably had escaped from the local river. John - Bucks is a nice place to live and you're right you are very lucky over there. Rattletrap - You pose some interesting questions. There are three types of fishing in the UK - course, sport and sea. I was taught that course fishing covered all freshwater species with the exception of trout and salmon which are considered sport fish. Therefore all the freshwater predatory fish were also considered course fish - eg Pike, Perch and Zander (an imported European mainland species similar to Walleye). The majority of fish in England are not 'predatory' as such but that doesn't mean they are not worth catching, there are some impressive and hard fighting 'course' fish to catch including chub, barbel and of course carp. Sport fishing on the other hand has long been associated with those with money as to fish for salmon and trout often meant fishing exclusive rivers with fly-fishing tactics only. Lure fishing for 'Sport' fish (inc. pike and perch) is getting more popular but this probably only accounts for about 5% of fishing over here compared with what 80-90% in Canada? You also made a point about water quality. There are a couple of issues here - England has a long history of industrial development and there are places where the water quality is not that good (urban canals and rivers) but even these have vastly improved from what it would have been 50-100 years ago. The main issue though is that England's geology is different from much of Canada - much of the low-lying country has soft soil or clay soil and therefore the lakes and rivers often have silty bottoms and what with all the rain we get this creates murky water like the ponds I am fishing which on a good day have visibility of about a foot! There are of course exceptions - the lake district in the northwest of England has very clear deep glacial lakes like in Ontario's Canadian shield and even locally near me there are a few small rivers that because they are on a chalk rock they have very clean water - in fact my local River Chess is one of the few places close to London that has clean enough water to support a wild population of trout - there are other such chalk rivers near the south coast of England such as the River Test or Stour. The Roach is not related to the Shad - I don't think it has any close relatives in Canada - the most similar fish in appearance I caught in Canada would probably be a golden shiner but roach grow much bigger. I hope the above info is helpful and answers your questions... cheers 007

Hey Johnny Bass - it's true. Most lakes are privately owned and charge you to fish on top of your fishing licence. You are often charged to fish rivers too, which technically are not privately owned, but because they go through private land access is restricted and fishery rights held by the owner who then charges you to fish! There are some very good fishing clubs that own the rights to fish lots of lakes and stretches of rivers but the membership of these clubs is often 50-100 pounds at least ($100-200 a year), and some of these are difficult to join as you have to know a member. I miss the free access you enjoy in Ontario. 007

There's lots of big carp over here for you Mike but they're harder to catch than those 'wild' ones in Ontario. To get back in the mood of English fishing I bought and watched all the Matt Hayes and Mick Brown series on DVD - The Great Rod Race, Record Breaking Fish and the Greater Rod Race. I remember you saying you had watched some of these shows. They really got me in the mood and maked me realise what diverse fishing opportunities there are here - problem is you've got to know where you can fish and have lots of money! Free public fishing is a rarity I'm afraid. Following my Ontario quest last year I guess I will have to start a new quest to catch as many fish species in England as possible in a year to show you guys. G.