Tag Archives: coarse fishing

I’ve used Ultima Power Steel for 12+ years. In short, I think it’s absolutely fantastic stuff for all legering & feeder fishing, from carp & barbel to predators; by far the best mainline I’ve ever used. It’s clear, very abrasion resistant, has low memory and a very low stretch for nylon line. Power Steel used to be marketed as a coarse & carp mainline but it’s now sold as a sea and predator line. It’s still the same stuff on the spool though! I can’t fathom why it’s no longer pushed towards specimen anglers. With the properties it has, it’s ideal. For the first few years I used Power Steel purely for hooklinks – predominantly for barbel and perch – I was really impressed with how tough it was. I had previously experienced many breakages of mono, braid and fluorocarbon hooklinks when fishing for barbel – especially around snags. It was the part of my set up I had least faith in so I chopped and changed regularly, hoping I’d find something I could trust. After reading good things about Power Steel (back when it was still marketed towards coarse & specimen anglers) and, being familiar with the Ultima brand …

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Click on the image slider below to open a full gallery of the coarse fishing, match fishing, pole fishing, pleasure fishing & specimen / specialist fishing tackle department at local independent fishing tackle shop, Phil’s Bait & Tackle at Sutton-in-Ashfield. Phil’s has a large department catering for general coarse, specialist/specimen, match and pole fishing, with large stocks of: float rods, quivertip rods, avon & multi-tip barbel rods, poles & whips, free spool & baitrunner reels, bait (live maggots, casters & worms, groundbait, boilies, freezer baits, pellets, particles, flavours, glugs, oils, frozen pike deadbaits, hemp, luncheon meat, sweetcorn, etc.), luggage, terminal tackle, hooks, leads & swimfeeders, mainline, hooklinks, floats, lures, rod rests, fishing chairs, seat boxes, metalware, landing nets & keepnets, bivvies, bedchairs, unhooking mats, cookware and many accessories. Brands stocked include: Korum, Drennan, Preston Innovations, Middy, Maver, Shimano, Daiwa, Chub, Guru, MAP, Dinsmores, Matrix, Shakespeare, Fox Rage, Kamasan, Gardner, Dynamite Baits, Mainline Baits, Sticky Baits, Sensas, Sonubaits, Marukyu, Ringers, Van Den Eynde, Baitbox & Bait-Tech. Their well-stocked shop is open to browse and try out the latest fishing gear and there’s always someone on hand to provide advice on tackle, bait and local in-form venues. Phil’s Bait & Tackle also …

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Since my last post I’ve fished a few times but it’s been pretty slow going.  Just last night I went Zander fishing and ended up with an 8lb pike and lost a good fish, which may well have been a zed, but I’ll never know… This follows an all-day barbel session last week with friends Craig and Kev.  I fished all day on a prolific stretch of the Trent and despite trying all sorts of baits, fining down, stepping up to a 6 foot hooklength and even trying single maggot hookbaits, I didn’t even get a sniff of a barbel.  I caught a couple of dace when fishing maggot (on a 2.25lb TC barbel rod, size 16 hook and 14lb mainline!), which is a species I haven’t caught since I don’t know when. I even spotted a pike swim towards a plastic bag which was fluttering downstream.  It then proceeded to follow it downstream, deciding whether or not to strike at it!  Interesting to see such behaviour, but it was a stark reminder just what harm our rubbish can potentially do to our wildlife and with the pike season just around the corner (come on frosts!), please take care with your …

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I recently captured my best-ever chub brace, landing this 5lb 2oz specimen (left), followed by a 4lb 8oz fish while I was setting up my camera! I risked life & limb to land the latter fish, because I was fishing a peg with a very steep – almost vertical – bank leading down to the water. I wanted to rest the chub in my landing net, in the margins, but as this wasn’t possible where I was fishing, I took the net and fish a couple of swims downstream where the margins were shallow and calm. As I was setting up the self-timer function on my camera, the alarm on my other rod screamed!  I was left to battle the fish in a deep, fast-water peg with no landing net! Standing between me and the net were 3 trees, overhanging the water. There was no way over or around them, so I had to (in the dark), scale the steep bank, test the margin depth with my toe whilst holding onto a tree with one hand and the rod in the other. Luckily there was a narrow, rocky ledge about a foot under the water, so I slowly shuffled along this, negotiated the trees and a …

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Well, I didn’t get fishing too much over the closed season, but two of the more notable sessions were fishing for Crucian carp at Carr Vale Pond near Bolsover and Tench fishing with my friend and erstwhile www.anglerstoday.co.uk editor, Kevin Miles. I tried fishing light for the crucians, as is normally required to hook one, but for some reason couldn’t connect with the bites. When I eventually swapped to fishing the lift method (which is one of my favourites for close-range fishing) and swimfeeder, I did start hooking fish. The first came to the lift method on a single grain of corn and it went 1lb 4oz. Later on, my “sleeper” feeder rod – which I’d loaded with a big hook, a whole lobworm and a grain of corn in the hope of a big tench – was nearly dragged in by an absolute screaming run, which I assumed must be a tench or carp. After a good scrap for 30 seconds or so, the fish seemed to give up, almost like a bream would. I brought the fish to the net wondering what on earth I’d hooked. It turned out to be another, bigger crucian at a PB weight …

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Anyone familiar with my website will likely know that I’m not the biggest fan of Robson Green’s fishing show, “Extreme Fishing with Robson Green“.  I do explain myself further on my website, but my main gripe with the show is the inhumanity and contempt he shows towards fish and other creatures (moorhens, to be precise!). Anyway, I received an email a few weeks ago from an Australian writer, who maintains a blog called Sting In The Tail. She had seen a couple of episodes with her husband and made a few comments about Robson’s treatment of fish on her Twitter account. A baffling, but hilarious, exchange ensued – with Robson posting several knee-jerk responses to her comments. I was aghast when I read it, and as a result Mr Green has dropped further in my estimation. Before I thought he was a pillock when given a fishing rod, but it seems he’s just a full-time pillock! The full dialogue is detailed Here – Robson Green vs Sheila in Twitter verbal battle. I’d recommend you give it a read; it’s both amusing and enlightening! As for fishing at the moment, I have no sessions planned.  The last time I fished I was out on the Trent …

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Hi, this is not a proper blog post – I intend to post one of those very soon – it’s just a test to see how my profile’s looking. A lovely Barbel I caught last-cast on the simplest of methods; touch-legering luncheon meat under a near-bank tree Once properly up and running this is going to be a blog about fishing in the UK and abroad, updated whenever I’ve got something to say in between writing my Fishing Articles. If you like to fish for specimen Barbel, Pike, Perch, Zander, Chub, Roach, Rudd, Grayling and occasionally Carp, then head over to my website to check out some of my instructional articles & videos, then check back here soon for new blog posts. Thanks for checking my stuff out!

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Each May marks another year since the demise of Chatsworth Angling Fair; a show which in my eyes was much more than an event. It was an angling institution. Its omission from the year’s angling calendar is a sad loss for our sport. Very rarely are so many angling disciplines showcased in one place together; with Coarse, Match, Sea, Fly, Carp and Predator fishing all strongly represented. I have many fond memories of the Angling Fair, stretching back to when I first attended, aged twelve. Two of us were dropped off nearby, and made our way to the main entrance, where we realised children were only allowed free entry when accompanied by a paying adult. Having saved pocket money for a few months, we didn’t want to “waste” part of it on the entry fee. So, being a bit slimmer in those days, we found an area of fence we could slither beneath, and headed towards the tented village that made up the majority of the fair. What a revelation it was to find row upon row of tackle dealers plying their wares, with bargains to be found wherever you looked! We spent hours perusing the stalls, testing out tackle, …

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