Fishing UK Specialist Angler & Angling Writer, Andrew Kennedy | Pike Perch Barbel Carp Lure Coarse British angler writing about fishing and specialist angling
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 revisit the series and watch it back with an older, supposedly wiser, head.
I still find the show immensely entertaining! The number of bona-fide angling legends who featured on the show is impressive… Chris Yates, Archie Braddock, Zyg Grygorek, Ray Walton, Nev Fickling, Charlie Bettel, Bob Nudd, Phil Smith, Mike Thrussell, Peter Stone, John Bailey, Paul Whitehouse (see below!)…
Educational segments in the show were few and far between but I remember first hearing about braided fishing lines through the feature on Spider Wire appearing in the “Only in America” part of the show. Plus, the visit to the maggot farm in series 1 is not only informative, it’s legendary!
The show covered pretty much every UK angling discipline – with bait, lure & fly fishing in freshwater and sea. Match fishing got more than its fair share of coverage, as did specialist fishing (targeting some pretty niche species by mid-nineties standards, including specimen eels & zander). Hell, there’s even an Irish bloke wanging 300ft of bailer twine into the sea to catch pollack!
The sequences may be short, in that very ’90s “in ya face” way, and despite being very self-aware the show is frequently self-deprecating about anglers and angling. Tongues are held firmly in cheeks throughout each show and they must have had a great laugh filming it. I think the whole approach and aesthetic make Screaming Reels the most punk fishing show to have ever been on terrestrial TV.
2022 Edit: A couple of days ago, I heard the sad news of Nick Fisher’s death.
Outside of fishing, Nick had a very successful screenwriting career and was a winner of both TV BAFTA and a Sony Radio Award. He also featured in River Cottage, alongside his long-time friend Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (you can also buy Nick’s excellent companion book, which covers both catching and cooking sea fish, Sea Fishing – River Cottage Handbook No.6).
Nick Fisher’s website detailing all of his work can be found at: https://nickfisher.myportfolio.com/.
The BBC has a short tribute to the life and work of Nick Fisher; although this doesn’t mention Screaming Reels.
Rest in peace, Nick.
All 4 is currnently the only place I know of to watch full episodes of Screaming Reels, but Ray Walton has the following clip of his own appearance alongside Nick Fisher, on his YouTube channel (although the sound quality is quite poor – get over to All 4 to watch them properly!).
The Fast Show goes Fishing
Here’s another show with short sequences – The Fast Show! I still love it. A popular opinion is that it revived a genre – the sketch show – which many said was dead, but I think it defined the genre and set a high water mark which no other sketch show has ever reached. Maybe I’m biased because this programme was on TV during my early teens and was duly lapped up and mimicked by me and my peer group at school. In fact I specifically remember a golden TV scheduling season, when The Fast Show and Screaming Reels were both broadcast on the very same night!
Comedian Paul Whitehouse is famously an angler in his spare time (and, more recently, co-presenter of his own BBC TV fishing show – Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing), as well as an Angling Trust Ambassador. He often allows his passion to influence his comedy writing, whether it’s Ted’s futile attempts at teaching Ralph how to fly fish, to convincing Aviva to let him create an angling character, Ollie the Fisherman, for a nationwide advertising campaign! That’s not to mention his latter-day forays into fishing TV with Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing
My personal favourite example of Whitehouse writing angling into comedy has to be the following sketch, with Simon Day playing the brilliantly obnoxious Competitive Dad, who takes his son Peter fishing for the first time…
Watching this it’s obvious that Whitehouse is an angler. The tackle and many of the terms & references are authentic; he’s obviously had some major input in the writing of this scene. However, the angling anoraks (“angloraks”?) amongst us will notice that Simon Day is set-up with a spinner which he just casts out and leaves, rather than retrieving. No wonder he doesn’t catch!
Pike chokes to death on Zander in Netherlands:
We’ve all heard the bulls*t stories of how gluttonous pike can be, “A pike ate my… bull mastif / 4×4 / mother-in-law…”, but this article shows one which really did bite off more than it could chew. The zander’s dorsal spikes failed to put off it’s aggressor and this was the result:
You can read the full story on the BBC News website here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20971848
There’s also another related story on the Daily Mail website, about a pike found choked to death on a carp in Suffolk. I’ve seen various fishing-related stories on there over the years and they’re usually made cringeworthy by the ropey photographs and quotes from their subjects and “experts” (although in this case with Bruno Broughton they at least found an actual expert!), but I had to chuckle at the final sentence, referring to taxidermy costs: “‘So after a couple of days I had to bury it,’ said Mr Walker.”
Human sedative drugs making fish greedy?
According to this online article citing the journal Science, a study carried out on the feeding activities of perch suggests that residues of benzodiazepine passed in human urine may be present in watercourses, in such concentrations that it can “turn fish into greedy, risk-taking loners”! Maybe that explains why there are so many big perch around nowadays?!
http://news.uk.msn.com/odd-news/sedatives-making-fish-greedy
These findings suggest that there is a need to improve sewage treatment so that the chemicals from medications we take don’t find their way into rivers, where – as this study suggests – their effects on the natural world can’t be predicted.
