Articles by John Olliff-Cooper John Olliff-Cooper John started his writing career with Angling magazine in the late 1960’s, since when he has contributed to most of the better-known hard copy magazines. Flirted with modernity for a few years, then panicked at the shallow hype of it all, and fled through 180 degrees. Having been properly…

I was there on a feature for the Match Angling Plus magazine and after a discussion with fishery owner Eddie Turner I settled in on peg seven on the Beech Pool. There were carp swimming around on the top all over the pool but after a very slow first hour it was fairly obvious the…

Wednesdays midweek Bewdley open saw me draw peg 31, a peg known to locals as “The feeder gobbler” and now I know why having lost eight swimfeeders and around fifteen hooks throughout the match! In between losing tackle I did manage to catch 14.4.0 of small barbel to win the section. On Saturday I had…

It’s been a disappointing week for me this week as my team, West Brom finally saw their season come to an end at Bolton on Thursday night. I went to the match and I have to say our supporters were magnificent on the night. 5,100 packed the away end and roared the lads on. You…

Well, in my opinion, although it has to be said the river is not as good as it was, say fifteen or twenty years ago, there are still plenty of fish to be caught. Over the past twelve months the river has been subjected to a lot of high water. So much in fact that…

Most of the juniors in attendance found pole fishing to be their favourite method on the day with a combination of either meat and caster or corn and caster as feed and hookbait. Carp up to five pounds and bream up to three pounds fell foul to the youngsters baits and everyone seemed to really…

On Monday I went to the Poole Hall complex on a feature for Match Angling Plus magazine. After discussing the venue at length with fishery owner Sid Matthews I settled in on peg 66 on the main match lake, Heron Pool. What followed was a fabulous days fishing with tench providing most of the action….

I had decided before I went to have an all out assault with chopped worm and caster. At the start of the session I fed around a pint of chopped worm and caster into the swim (which was about nine feet deep) thirteen metres out. I then loosefed casters with a catapult to the same…

I was really looking forward to the first match of the season at Bewdley on Saturday but five hours fishing saw me take just three barbel, two chub and an eel for a thirteen pound total and no prize. I did however lose one good barbel that shed the hook that would have won me…

You may recall last week that I predicted the Severn would fish well. Well, I was wrong! It fished really hard in parts, which was a disappointment after the way it had fished in the first couple of weeks of the season. On Saturday I was so close to good swims after drawing peg 12…