Following on from last weeks article on big-bodied wagglers, this week we turn our attentions to another big float – the slider. Again this method is very underused in this country but in the right situations it can actually outscore the more commonly used leger or feeder approach. I’ve learned a lot about slider fishing…

One of the many angling related presents I received for my 40th birthday back in January was a couple of days fishing on The Royalty. My Mum had booked the Top Weir Compound for my exclusive use at the end of February and Jacqui had booked us into one of the numerous B&B’s in Christchurch…

If I were to talk of a water holding 3lb grayling and 2lb roach, where do you suppose I’d be referring to? Some expensive beat on the Test, Itchen or Dorset Frome maybe? Or perhaps further afield of my southern stomping grounds to somewhere like the River Teviot? Well none of these and if the…

Like many winter anglers, grayling fishing, for me, conjures up crisp, cold days on the river bank. Over 2/3rds of my grayling have been caught in the winter with February alone accounting for a quarter. When high pressure brings iron hard frosts and finger numbing cold, grayling are often the only fish that can be…

Sunbury lies at the start of the M3 motorway, from which you can actually see part of the school that I taught in for so long. Taking the Sunbury turn-off from the A3 or A316 takes you into the main roundabout at Sunbury Cross, take the sign for Lower Sunbury and the river. This is…

This winter I have taken quality chub from the rivers Severn, Teme, Wye, Ribble and Aire. Non of these waters could be called exclusive fishing. All the waters I have fished can be done so through purchasing a day or syndicate ticket or club card. One of the best value season tickets must be the…

I still vividly remember being stirred in the middle of the night – being driven through the rolling countryside around Belfast to some mystical lake and arriving just as the first traces of dawn lit the sky – an enormous adventure for a three year old. A year later and I was sometime entrusted to…

Nowhere is this more true than in the Scottish borders where the sad demise of once-magnificent salmon fishing has caused many clubs to consider alternative means of attracting anglers to their waters – and of course, income to their coffers! As a consequence, over the last few years increasing numbers of anglers have taken advantage…

Sometime around 8-30 am on the old A5 I left the blue-black smoke pouring from a badly maintained lorry and a car towing a caravan for the peace and quiet of a Shropshire country lane. As I drove down this quiet leafy country lane my mind went back to my childhood days in the countryside;…

Fish like bass, mackerel, mullet, pollack and even wrasse can all be caught high in the water column, often within a foot or two of the surface, especially early and late in the day, when the suns rays are slanting low causing the confusion of colour, light, shadow and movement which the predatory fish use…