Official Hitchin Town FC Watersports Thread

Minnow Trapping

Inspired by Jack Hargreaves...
[video=youtube;_sGRHPGHSYg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sGRHPGHSYg[/video]

...I decided to make my own minnow trap and attempt to find out what lurks in the lake at the end of the lane:


There's not a lot else to do round here except drink.

Mother has an outbuilding big enough to be converted into a one bedroom bungalow and she never throws anything away so I had plenty of material with which to work. The trap comprises two parts, a fine mesh net with wire supports to keep it from collapsing:


The second part is a wire mesh funnel with a hole just big enough for small fish to fit through:


Here are the two parts fitted together, I'm relying on the jagged edges of the wire mesh to catch on the netting and hold it together:


I attached a rope to the trap to enable me to pull it out of the lake and put a bit of bread in it to attract fish. You can just about see the trap at the end of the rope having tossed it in this morning:


I'm sure, like me, you cannot wait to see what's in that trap after a day so check back tomorrow where I will reveal the contents to the world.

 

Good idea

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That was quick.

 

Very fast

 

Apologies for the lateness, I had to track down and murder someone who owned a fax machine so that I could fax my Instamatic photographs to my email account.

I got to the lake and there were a load of kids on the other side (shouldn't they be at school?) so I pretended to be photographing waterfowl. This was on full optical zoom (6x):

This was on full zoom (24x), was blurry and hard to center on the screen but the image stabilisation did a good job:


No fishes in the trap but a variety of insects and little worms.

Mayfly nymphs and unknown beetle:

Three water boatmen:

Water mite:


Tune in tomorrow for the next update assuming those little ****s haven't taken my trap.

 

Sorry about the delay, just got the prints back from Kodak, didn't they go bust?

Nothing much new, no fish:

This water boatman is a fine example, you can see he's quite old as he's got algae on his butt:

A new species to add to the list, a freshwater shrimp:


I put a stone in the trap before tossing it today, got a bit more distance, so tomorrow should be at least as exciting if not more so.

 

After a disappointing few days, the gods have finally smiled upon we, the loyal supporters of HTFC, and blessed us with a fish! It's a baby perch:

 

Hi

 

Hi and welcome to the official Hitchin Town FC Watersports thread.

No more fish of late but two new species to add to the list: a water slater (top center) and a damselfly nymph (big green thing). Had some trouble identifying that, you try searching Google Images for "nymph" with Safe Search turned off, most distracting.

 

Another new species today, the caddisfly nymph poking out of his little home constructed from bits of vegetation:


As we're not getting many fish I've decided to retire this trap and construct a new one.
Watch this space!

 

I built a more streamlined trap from drinks bottles and attached a bit of pipe to it to weigh it down and also give me the weight to throw it further out into deeper water.

A generous length of rope was attached.


Went up there this morning to find that the kids who've built a camp the other side of the lake had smashed up the trap and stolen the rope. I found the rope in their camp so I smashed the **** out of their camp, most of it is now in the lake. They will learn a valuable lesson when they next go up there. We, the official Hitchin Town FC Watersports enthusiasts are now at war with a gang of twelve year olds. I'm off to Tesco to buy some bigger bottles.

 

Are you taking the piss?

 

I get very ****ing bored indeed living in the Fens with me poor old ma but I kind of like it in a way.

 

Very interesting.

 

This is ****ing brilliant

 

Stay tuned, when I get through these two 5 litre bottles of spring water, I will be back with a bigger and better trap.

I'm toying with the idea of starting an official HTFC garden bird-spotting thread, saw a green finch today.

 

The rainy season is over, the 10 litres of spring water have been drunk and like a phoenix from the flames: the Official Hitchin Town FC Minnow Trap has been reborn.

No rope this time, too visible. Found an old reel of 30lb sea-fishing line and fashioned a crude spindle. Just thinking maybe I'll attach a handle to it so I can reel it in.

The trap fashioned from two 5 litre bottles, cable ties, garden wire and a length of iron pipe to weigh it down. The bottles handily had carrying handles giving me something to tie the fishing line to. I put plenty of holes in the bottle to let the air out using a nail heated over a candle flame.


I did a test cast on the lawn and reckon I can can reach 40 feet or so. Might go to the lake later or I'll do it tomorrow morning.

 

Sensational results on day 1 of the new trap's trapping life: an entirely new species for we, the Official Hitchin Town FC Watersports Enthusiasts, to marvel at. I present to you, the Great Diving Beetle:

 

Sorry for the lack of updates, been at my birds for a week.

The new trap is designed with holes big enough to let small insects escape so there weren't any catches in the couple of days before I went away, nothing since the sensational Great Diving Beetle. I removed the trap from the lake and have decided to wait until we get some decent weather before I put it back.

Interestingly, there appear to be hydra attached to the trap, there are many tiny pink blobs all over it. Amazing that they have colonised a bottle in a lake in just three days. They are too small to photograph without a microscope so here is a picture of one that someone else took:

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No offence, mate, but you're ****ing mental