BarbelNovember can be the best month of the season for barbel if the water temperature is kind to us. If we donít have too many really heavy frosts and a few spells of settled conditions, and especially with a touch of colour in the river, sport with barbel can be hectic. It is the month…

That may sound daft, for they are not the best of conditions for fishing; not normally anyhow, but when youíre throwing slugs and lobs to chub in water that has been warmed by a summer sun it seems as though they are the best conditions at times. I know I enjoy the fishing when itís…

I think we have to go back to the turn of the last century to try and get a handle on things, certainly before the Industrial Revolution the River was full of fish, of course in those days it was much different to what it is today. By this I mean it was a natural…

Winter location of these mini-river carp, is a hit and miss affair. You will have to look for the fish in any deeper section of the river. Look for carp rolling in the coloured water, assuming the water temperature is rising, otherwise you will be wasting your time. If the rivers are clear, look for…

?tspecialist tackle shops sell pike flavourings amongst their vast range of carp bait additives. These flavours include smelt, tuna, grayling and freshwater eel. All of these flavours work well throughout the year as they are not oil based, though they contain glycerol which acts as an emulsifier for the colder waters. Smelt is a personal…

We arrived in Montreal after finishing our meetings late Friday afternoon and transformed ourselves from city suited businessmen to fully garbed fishermen within five minutes in the men’s toilets in the airport. We were ready to tackle the mighty St Lawrence river carp.Joe Babbitt met us at the luggage carousel and soon we were in…

Almost as obvious as the bivvies was the lack of beach, the water was a good 4feet up on last year and going like the veritable train! We had a quick word with the anglers already in situ to get the lie of the land. It turned out they were all from up north (England)…

Articles by John Young John Young John Young has been fishing since 1972. He started by drowning maggots for anything that came along but soon donned a floppy green hat and joined the specimen hunting scene. In the late 1970s he started pursuing carp and soon caught his first 20lber on diced potato. Years later,…

The Wessex rivers are miles wide; Oxford looks like the Lake District. Even if you knew where the river was it must be doubtful if the fish would feed, and anyway, searching for riverbanks in flooded meadows can be a very hazardous exercise. But I have been getting out. Fortunately M’s river does fish well…

Articles by Alan Tomkins Alan Tomkins He’s been fishing longer than he cares to admit and writing about it since the mid-seventies, initially for Angling magazine. After the demise of Angling, Alan wrote for the various iterations of Coarse Fishing, and for several years was a regular contributor to Carp World magazine. Fishes, or has…