I was eventually seduced by one of those luscious brochures put out by Angler’s World Holidays, the Chesterfield specialists in this sort of thing. Their Swedish operator Top Ten Angling had some wonderful places on offer, so I settled down to choose a venue.That’s where the problems started, because they all sounded amazing; too good…

My wife has been pretty good about my fishing expeditions into the back of beyond, but when I told her that I fancied a trip up the Zaire river in search of Goliath tigerfish, she finally put her foot down. Having spent a lot of time in that part of Africa, she has some fairly…

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…

All sorts of crossroads were meeting, avenues opening up, doors closing and other well-documented clichés. I had just turned thirty and in retrospect, had wasted most of my life on alcohol, women and fishing. I needed fresh challenges and a new direction. After much soul searching and a brutally honest self-assessment I set three new…

This years gathering of the gold almost didn’t happen (again!). The Venue chosen was the S_____ at E_____ and when he heard about this the old landlord naturally decided to sell up and move on. Luckily the villagers had a whip round, formed a trust and bought the pub, unaware that the G.S.C. were impending.However,…

It’s curious then, that no-one that I can bring to mind, has developed his assertion that to catch the right fish, you need to offer them the right music. Well, what a load of kibosh, you might think. But just hang on a minute, we’re talking here about Walker – THE Walker. He wasn’t often…

There’s Murphy – whose family live there and whose guests we are – Dicky, BG and me. The Headford and District Anglers hold their annual competition on the Lough at this time of year and we were determined to take part. We planned our arrival for the day before the competition so that we’d have…

His progress was hampered because he was carrying something heavy and the rain had affected his glasses, so that he had only the most general view of his surroundings. The lack of any close range detail meant that he continually stumbled over tussocks of grass and slipped in cow dung. Even at a range of…

A six-hour match on the Severn at Shrewsbury saw me pull out peg 99 at the bottom end of the match length and I had a really interesting and rewarding match. Peg 99 is a swim with around thirteen feet of water directly in front of you shallowing up dramatically as you go down the…

Peg 84 on the Quarry Park section of the Shrewsbury match length saw me take first place with 12.14.0 of roach and dace on the waggler. I must admit I didn’t really fancy the draw when I pulled it out of the bag as there were a lot of good anglers on what I thought…