Without doubt the very best winter roach fishing is when the river is high and coloured as long as this condition is not caused by snowmelt water. We need to start looking for the roach where we would expect to find them in summer and then look around to see where they would move to…

Dropping a paternostered livebait into each slack along a given stretch of river will often produce at least one hungry pike. The fact that the river is in flood will mean that the pike will be pushed into a relatively small area so a catch of several pike from one spot can not be ruled…

Things started badly however when I opened my curtains on opening day of the new river season to find the river up and coloured. The intention had been to have an early start on opening day but a walk along the river quickly revealed that all the anglers who had bothered were struggling. I decided…

On Saturday I went to Earlswood Lakes on the bream lake for the first time in a few weeks and drew peg 51 on the dam wall. Several weeks ago this was one of the best areas to be on the Windmill Lake with lots of big bream being taken. Unfortunately for me it would…

Naturally with anything new or foreign there was terrific opposition to hemp leading to various bans. Stories of hemp drugging fish were still very common when I first started using the bait in the late 1950’s.When I started trotting the Thames with hempseed, I would buy a shillings worth of mixed cooked hemp with a…

It’s been some time since I ventured into print on the technicalities of reels, though some of you may have read my article on the Wallis Cast last year (and hopefully been tempted to try it. Briefly digressing from the main topic of this piece, I’m hoping to be able to put up some film…

Last weekend I had two days at Earlswood. On Saturday I drew peg 17 on the Windmill Lake and to be honest I didn’t fancy it at all as the favoured area in recent weeks has been the dam wall or the forties. The good thing about bream waters though is that the fish are…

I don’t know anyone who really rates the common bream very highly, save the occasional matchman who sees it as a heavyweight lump-fish to plump up his match weights. It’s ugly, slimy and has fighting qualities comparable to a wet paper bag. (BTW: before anyone knocks at my door, we are still talking about the…

The new season seems to have taken ages to come around this time but the wait has been worth it judging by returns so far from my local River Severn. There have been lots of barbel and chub caught on opening day and the river is in fine trim. If you’ve never been to the…

Peg 48 on the Windmill Lake dam wall at Earlswood saw me take twelve bream for 33.11.0 which was good enough for fourth place last weekend. Once again chopped worm and caster in the feeder with worm and caster or worm and red maggot on the hook did the damage. Thirty-nine pounds of bream won…