Well, let me assure you that it is just not true; yes, spring may indeed herald the start of thornie fishing in some areas, but down here, if you really went for it, you could quite feasibly catch thornbacks all year round. In the areas that I fish I would go as far as to…

A strong southerly wind blew across the fields, pushing us on to the same area where Gary had a lost a very big pike the week before. The river was still in the same state, coloured and pushing through quite strong. As daylight broke we could see the strong crease where the water pushing into…

Come the middle of February many matches feature good catches of tench. Often these are quite good fish for the water, and they are not just odd fish. When the tench feed you can bet that several anglers will catch them and they will make up the bulk of the weights. Why tench, traditionally considered…

Frozen sandeel will wake some memories with these hungry fish, sprats and joey mackerel will assume a seasonal importance but squid, worm and crab will make up the bulk of the baits offered. An important bait often overlooked at this time of year is Prawn. A floatfished prawn is a good bait at most times…

On the tidal and lower Thames it is the Chinese mitten crab that we are mainly concerned with, as to date I have not seen a crayfish in these waters. The locals joke that any signal crayfish that arrive in the section would soon be eaten by the Chinese mitten crabs.Chinese mitten crabs are a…

Long ago, when I had all the time in the world, my fishing was of the pioneering sort. I would fish new, untried waters all the time, most of them being a dead loss but just once in a while I turned up something special. Catching something special is what fishing’s all about for me,…

I will start by looking at canned meat balls before moving onto special home made flavoured meat balls. The later are an advanced bait that under the right circumstances can produce good results when other baits fail.Possibly the most commonly used meat ball is the canned “Campbell’s meat ball”. They are convenient to use as…

The offenders were caught during a two day blitz last weekend (May 25-26). In total 740 waters across England and Wales were hit and 7,971 anglers checked. Dodgers made up 6.5 per cent of those quizzed – a drop in the evasion rate of almost 2 per cent on a similar blitz last year. They…

If you never fish for cod then their appeal may be hard to fathom, but for those driven to fish for these golden flanked hoovers of the sea, then the next few months can be an exciting time. Your own regional season may be long or short and it may well be a success or…

We are not talking about one of those sluggish and invariably canal like rivers here but rather one with a fast powerful flow, gravel runs, streaming weed beds and many other features straight out of the Mr. Crabtree school of design. Well, have you? Probably not I suspect, for you dont see that many people…