When the first ghostly shadow appears from the depths you catch your breath. Then another and another fish casually ambles along, not more than a rod length from the bank. You cannot believe your luck, baits are lowered into the margins and you retire back into the undergrowth. As the sun rises higher in the…

Saturday, 16th. Nigel and Jenny are aboard in the midst of a steady blue marlin bite. We have gone 7 for 11 in the previous week, and two of the fish that came off should have been ours too. One disappeared after dragging a Penn 130 around behind a fender in the midst of an…

“Gotta be a good Ling”, I said to my buddy who was looking at me with his usual quizzical expression….one day he is going to believe me first time!! The fish fighting routine soon settled into the slow time pump and reel action so familiar to those who have caught ling before. Ling are not…

But if you start getting that bit specialised then things change a little, for as your experience grows then the need for just a bit more tackle increases, or so some of us would like to think. Just watch that you donít fall into the common trap of believing that every single gadget put out…

Perhaps you use a lot of peeler crab for your cod fishing, or are prone to lashing on great offerings of mackerel to the hook in the hunt for a big, sulking conger eel. Below are some of the baits I tend to use for the majority of my fishing.MackerelUnless you have access to “fresh…

For trout, Ephemera Danica represent the icing on the cake. Stonefly, midges, sedge and Daddies may excite, but mayfly get top billing. Just why this should be so can partly be explained by the insects size (bigger than most) but it also has a lot to do with the mayflies ability to hatch profusely even…

That’s the bad news but the better news is that it will not last forever and our fishing WILL return to normal eventually. This is more than can be said for some sectors of the farming industry who have lost everything. The paramount news is that in unaffected areas, for example the Northern Highlands of…

First off – wreckfishing. How about loading a big fixed-spool reel (say an Emblem 6000 or similar) with 20lb braid, matching it to a heavy-duty 7í spinning rod (say an UglyStick) and banging your pirks and hopper-rigs far beyond the wreck as you drift down on it, similar to what many Europeans and Yanks do,…

To re-cap, there were three pairs of anglers fishing for what was hailed as sports smallest trophy – the Golden Maggot. Points were awarded for the number of different species you caught in a more or less sleepless 72 hours. And, to add to the fun, dirty tricks were allowed.I was partnered with Gareth Edwards,…

Those of you who are unfortunate enough to read my monthly pieces for this site will be well aware by now of my propensity for power catamarans. I have now owned several, both for pleasure and for charter work, and have driven a bunch of others. Most of these vessels have been either South African…