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Trip to Norfolk today Today's view, the bite alarm, the float paternostered roach deadbait using stonez on a weaklink, and the 9lb pike caught on smelt on sunken paternoster

18 years ago I had my last Fag , never actually gave it up just never got round to having the next one......

I am the person who will rather pay £1.18 for a pen made in Britain over £1 for a pen made in China. I have gotten to looking at environmental cost, to why do we ship or air freight goods from China to UK on blooming great container ships. I have gotten to thinking about those sweat shop factories, and I have gotten to thinking about UK produced goods. Not being funny, but part of this is Brexit related as well. There will be Brexit, we need our economy working, we need to be producing stuff for ourselves, a manufacturing industry. We also need bigger name tackle manufacturers, like Nash, like Fox, Korda or whoever considering the environment and where they manufacture and what they charge the angler for their gear. If they charged a real fair price, then maybe a lot of this 'copy and paste' cheaper made gear would nit be produced to undercut them.

Hey all, I’m sure we can all recognise some level of copying between manufactures i.e. the lead clip - each manufacture has their own version that they have tried to add their own touches to, whether that’s just their brand / colour, or a slightly different mechanic. Now, I’m not too concerned regarding this aspects of the industry, nor am I concerned that some manufactures bring in ideas from other parts of life and have repurposed them for the angling community i.e. Krusha, Nash bivvy warmer - and then add a great big ‘Carp £££’ on it, but what I am concerned about is companies popping up and performing blatant plagiarism on products. For example with Cyprinus selling exactly the same products that alternative manufactures supply - bed chairs, brollys etc. What people may not be thinking about, is that Aqua, Wychwood etc have had to go through months of design, specifications, materials, suppliers, prototypes, testing etc before a product can be offered to the consumer. This costs time and money. Now I’m not close enough to provide any figures around it, and I’m not I saying a new Wychwood bed chair would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to go from concept to production (We are talking evolution or products now - not revolution), but there is still a cost involved, that the initial manufacture has to cover somewhere. Therefore, it’s obvious that Cyprinus are able to approach the same supplier and ask them to sew a different logo onto the item, and sell that item at a much lower price. Should we be concerned about what these underhand tactics will do in the long run, or should we just care about the money in our own pocket? What happens if we loose our well known manufactures because someone else only wants to make a quick buck? Do we then loose the continued evolution / improvements of products? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject, and if someone has any real information / figures on the matter.

It comes and goes. I think Early 70's was a good roach time, then they died off, early to late 80's then they disappeared until the 90's then gone again. The big roach area, fish over 3lb was upstream of Swanton Morley Great Witchingham. A couple of years ago a mate had a couple around a pound again at Drayton. The barbel in the area, was only 3 or 4 doubles, with one being caught all along the 3 mile stretch to a number of anglers between 11 and 13lbs. The majority of a few fish were between 7 and 8lb. I used to catch numbers of pike in that area, now there are less, with a few big ones, but less jacks. I was catching dace again last year that have reappeared. The fish I was catching looked healthy, so I think there are still some good pike around. Last time I fished that swim, again it was one pike, but the mackeral deadbait it took was the same size as the pike... The chub are still around but keeping away from the shallows downstream they used to show on before otters were in the valley in numbers. There are otters, I think the fish are still there, but not being so obvious, moving into faster deeper water.

Other than playing the fish I was able to avoid the worst of it😉, walking next to the footpath which was all ivy leaves. There is a proper wooden walkway under the river cliff The Wensum is up a good couple of feet, that current is really boiling, although to the right is always a slack on the outside of a bend. That area has produced carp and barbel to double figures (not to me sadly), chub to 5, roach to 2 as well as pike. I have also caught some big dace trotting maggots on a stick float.

Pike hit a bait in the middle, and turn it round to swallow head first. Zander, and perch, hit from behind, and swallow tail first. Always need to use a wire trace for zander, too much chance of a pike taking the bait. A treble sewing up the stomach is a death sentence for pike.

Closer to Norwich, about 10minutes from my daughters house, she lives in Eaton😉

I can’t supply any comment on the stocking levels, other than there are some big ones in there. what I can say with authority though, is that dave and Ed certainly know how to manage a water. I would expect that lake to be a desirable ticket in the not too distant future. Suffering a couple of years worth of subs may not be such a bad thing if it secures your ticket for the future when it is likely to have a waiting list. As you know, there aren’t many to choose from locally.

A deep and emotive subject imo........ I wouldn't say that I'm a complete anti-capitalist , after all, what's the alternative? But I do think it's taken a wrong turn along the line in general. Pollution and debt are what it thrives on. Lots of heads in the sand... With the environment taking the biggest hit world wide.......

Gave up myself last year mate ... was really starting to notice the hill up to one of my waters was getting harder & was starting to need a stop on the way up So time to pack it in .

Funny thing is I actually gave up smoking maybe 4 years ago...... apart from when I'm fishing. I can go as long as I want without a Fag, it doesn't bother me at all, but as soon as I'm heading down the lake my baccy comes out. Crazy really. That's one 50g I just can't do with out.

Crikey mate a saving of a 100 g ... your be giving up tobacco next , there's another 50g ....

If you had a business designing and selling, I dunno, ball ponot pens say, and you can sell them for £1 a pen. If you source manufacture in Britain and it costs you 18 pence per unit delivered; would you keep that company as your supplier if you could get the exact same pen shipped over at 10 pence per unit? Then still keep the selling price at £1? Or would you say ‘tell you what, I don’t want to earn that extra 100k profit per year’ That £1 is what people are happy paying. If it wasn’t, then you wouldn’t sell any and go out of business. In a funny kind a way, what the tackle firms are getting slated for; buying as cheap as they can, is the same thing that many are advocating by buying a cyprinus bed chair over a trakker one! Lol Products are only worth what people will pay for them. If trakker can still make a living selling at 30% above what cyprinus are charging then fair play to them. The real deal is with designs like the tempest mechanism or the Titan. I would have thought that is patented or exclusivity agreements with the factories, perhaps due to design rights? That’s why you won’t see a cyprinus tempest or a Titan, only a copy of the m3 (standard pramhood) and the like.