Opinion

Best wishes to everyone for the festive period.  Here’s to bulging landing nets for the New Year! With the snow-melt predicted over the next couple of days it’s seriously going to cool the waters down, making most species difficult to catch.  I’m hoping to fit in a grayling session and a chub session, but if it gets ever so slightly milder and the rivers don’t colour up too much I might contemplate a pike session.  It’s over a month now since I wet a line and I’m getting very itchy to do so!  I’ll be paying close attention to the weather forecasts and EA rivercall messages to help me decide what I should target when.  …Although I’ll probably still get it wrong! Before I can fit in any fishing, I’ll be potentially risking life & limb for no good reason other than for a laugh, by entering the MATLOCK RAFT RACE on the River Derwent! Had I thought about it earlier, I could have got sponspored for charity but as it stands I’m doing it for no-one’s benefit, not even my own! With the snow melting into the river it’ll be a wee bit chilly on the extremeties, to put it politely. Finally, …

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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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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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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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