A shout for a Butt Pad will often send the Charter boat skipper and maybe one or two anglers in the charter party rummaging in the bottom of tackle boxes and bags to try and find a pad for the poor unfortunate who is hanging over the stern, rod bent double and a fish of…

The mild weather soon passed and through the rest of March and April temperatures never got above mid-double figures. I spent every weekend fishing and walking and baiting areas, with only tench and bream to show for my efforts. Although this period wasn’t productive, I didn’t consider it a waste of time, in fact the…

Okay, okay, it’s as old as the hills but it still makes me smile and it does emphasise how simple things can be misunderstood, like how to catch carp on sunny days (another thing that makes me smile). Although carp feed in abundance during the warmer months they do enjoy sunbathing as well, or ‘basking’…

Anglian Waters report 26/04/02 Rutland Water The best fish of the week fell to Richard Wightman from Mill Lane, Usk. Richard took a corking 9lb 5oz rainbow on a floating line and black buzzer. Gold season ticket holder Pete Bills from Papplewick, Nottingham, a Rutland Water regular, took a super 6lb 4oz brown while fishing…

As the water was still very cold I returned to the small, relatively easy estate lake to get a bend in the rod. I turned up on a mild afternoon. I parked the car and went to see what winter had done to the lake. All looked pleasant enough, the lake now totally free of…

I had been in soulful mood, worrying about the state of our countryside, about foot and mouth disease and the lack of a suitable water for a traditional start to the coarse season with a few brothers of the angle. With only a few weeks to go, the little pond I had booked in Bedfordshire,…

Rutland Water The weekend of 4/5 May will be special for hundreds of people around Rutland Water as they celebrate 25 years since the first fishing season started at the reservoir. Since that time around one million anglers from all over the world have fished here and this weekend they have the chance to catch…

Although Ive spent zillions of hours with a single-handed fly-rod of one sort or another, Ive never felt much drawn to salmon fishing with a double-handed rod. Theres always been the seasonal opportunity, and I once turned down an invitation to a posh press trip to some Scottish hotels water. It never really appealed as…

Rutland Water : Twenty five years of angling at Rutland paid off for Tony Gray from Worksop this weekend. Season ticket holder Tony found fame when he took the giant Rainbow stocked for the 25th anniversary. Tony thought he had caught the new record for Rutland Water until fellow season ticket holder Thomas Graham noticed…

The river Aire is an excellent coarse and trout fishing water, in the upper reaches of the river from Skipton upstream its fly fishing for brown trout and grayling. Bradford City AA own some two miles of double bank fly fishing where grayling have been caught to 3lbs. The fishing starts from the A59 and…