Tag Archives: TV

If you were fishing in the 1980s and 1990s, John Wilson’s name was synonymous with angling; due to his various books, but predominantly due to his TV series. Go Fishing with John Wilson was the first of his TV shows, and his unique mixture of knowledge, enthusiasm and infectious laugh proved a hit with viewers – anglers and non-anglers alike! A YouTube user, Andy Creigh, has uploaded all of the original four Anglia Television series of Go Fishing – which he’s recorded from original VHS tapes – so those of us who can remember over three decades ago can relive JW’s on-screen charisma. Hopefully some younger anglers will now also see the earliest TV forays of this angling legend for the first time too. My own personal favourite episodes mainly revolve around the ones I had on VHS myself. These included: crucian and tench fishing at Diss Mere, small river barbel fishing on the Teme, fly fishing for mullet on a tributary of the Ebro, fishing for tench (but catching perch) from the dam of an old estate lake and then eventually catching tench whilst fishing in chest waders (Series 3, Episode 1 – Fishing Summer Lakes), and my all-time …

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Watch Screaming Reels on All 4! (’90s TV angling show starring Nick Fisher) One of the most entertaining, unconventional, series about fishing has to be Nick Fisher’s primetime Channel 4 show, Screaming Reels. With a format of short clips, OTT sound effects, weird visuals and fronted by a cheeky, irreverent, but ultimatley knowledgeable presenter in Nick Fisher, Screaming Reels wasn’t for everyone. I was a teenager when this show was on TV and I thought it was bloody brilliant! For context, A Passion for Angling aired on the BBC around a similar time to the first series of Screaming Reels. Like many anglers, I hold A Passion… in a league of its own as my GOAT fishing programme (although Caught In The Act has been a recent favourite). They are polar opposite series, in both style and approach, to what is essentially the same subject matter; but I can happily watch and enjoy both. In this era of online streaming services and binge-watching series box sets, Channel 4 have kindly made available all episodes of Screaming Reels series 1 & 2 to view for free; on their All 4 platform (previously “4oD”) here: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/screaming-reels/episode-guide which has given me chance to …

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Boycott Extreme Fishing with Robson Green Andrew agrees with the Angling Trust and also urges all anglers to refuse to watch Robson Green’s “angling” programmes It is very rare I would discourage any programme showing fishing on the TV, but having watched certain episodes of Robson Green’s programme – now inexplicably into its second series – Extreme Fishing, I feel that I really must. Personally I was horrified by some of the methods depicted as “Fishing” to an unsuspecting UK TV audience (and a surprisingly large one at that!), and also by Robson’s attitude throughout. I do not recognise Robson as an angler; indeed I never knew he fished until his first series came out. From what I’ve seen of his skills, he’s not even a very good angler, and certainly not of the calibre I’d expect to see presenting an angling show on prime-time terrestrial TV. There is nothing wrong with some of the methods he uses – when they are taken in the context of being successful methods for catching fish as FOOD, by cultures which have practised these methods for centuries – but all of this should be properly explained in the programme, rather than Mr Green …

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