Articles by John Olliff-Cooper John Olliff-Cooper John started his writing career with Angling magazine in the late 1960’s, since when he has contributed to most of the better-known hard copy magazines. Flirted with modernity for a few years, then panicked at the shallow hype of it all, and fled through 180 degrees. Having been properly…

Denmark is in full swing with river, ‘put & take’ and also coastal fishing competitions. With the weather being extremely warm the amount of fish caught has declined from the results of previous years.

The rod tip bucked and kicked yet again, the angler smiled quietly to himself as the fluorescent orange spotted Plaice flared and kited in the translucent green water sweeping hard over the legendary Skerries sandbanks, to the West of Dartmouth.This fish was no fluke of chance, it was the result of weeks of detailed planning,…

. Catering for both boat and bank angler, the water is one of the first in the country to open after the winter shut-down, having a prestigious official opening day each February. This is always quite a ceremony, with pipers piping and whisky flowing and famous faces popping up all over. But this particular February…

Big bream are awesome creatures. OK, they don’t generally fight very hard, and yes, they do smell a bit, oh, and they can be a bit slimy, but they really are awesome looking creatures. Have you ever seen a double figure bream? I hadn’t until 1998, although I had come close on a couple of…

I served my apprenticeship through my local Shropshire match circuit and progressed to bigger and better things starting firstly with chub and barbel and eventually on to carp. Since then I have looked at very little else in the fishy world as carp are definitely “where it’s at”. I am a governor of The Carp…

?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…

Although the conditions are quite different between the bottom and the surface, much of the fish’s behaviour when confronted with a ‘suspicious’ bait on the top or on the bottom (the refusal, the aborted take, the snatch, and the confident suck) must be almost the same. Which all goes a long way towards teaching you…

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…

We like to catch a few carp each year, but rather than go to some overstocked water where the fish are hungry, or spend days and days waiting for a run from some well known monster that likes to get its picture in the angling journals occasionally, we pop over to Canada for a week…