Innehållsförteckning för Issue 3639 från Angling Times

WHEN I started working on Angling Times back in 2006 I think there were only a few anglers with more than one 50lb carp to their name. If my memory serves me correctly, Terry Hearn, Dave Lane and Jim Shelley had each caught around five fifty-pounders at that time and the British record for the species stood at 65lb 14oz. In the intervening years, while many of the big historic carp of that era have passed away, we’ve seen a new generation of specimens make their way through the ranks, many of which now reside in day-ticket or open-access venues. I couldn’t give you an exact number of how many 50lb-plus fish are currently swimming in UK waters, but it is undoubtedly much higher than in the early noughties. Yet…

SEND US YOUR PICS ■ newsdesk@anglingtimes.co.uk ■ Make sure your pics are hi-res and that you are in them “IT’S MY DREAM FISH!” Phil Spry – 11lb 9oz bream “FOR years, my dad and I have been on a mission to catch a double-figure bream, and the other weekend I finally managed it with this 11lb 9oz specimen. It’s my dream fish, and I could’ve cried when it went into the net! “I have a very busy match calendar, and never get a weekend free to do any pleasure fishing, but last Sunday, a chance came up. I headed to Willen South lake, where some good bream have been caught lately. “I arrived at 7:30am, and a massive lightning storm passed through around midday, totally soaking me. Afterwards though, the…

AS 11-YEAR-OLD Arthur Barclay (pictured top right) proved last week by banking what could be a new British record roach, youngsters have an uncanny knack of catching fish to the type of proportions most of us could only ever dream about. Here we look back at some of the other juniors and teenagers who have etched their names into the annals of angling history over recent decades... RECORD-LIST PERENNIALS… TWO captures made by teenagers still hold their place on the record lists. The first is Steve Terry’s 11lb 2oz eel, taken while carp fishing back in 1978. It beat the old best by 2lb 8oz, and nobody has come close to beating it in the intervening 45 years! The other is James Benfield, who was 19 when he made one…

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT! A short evening session on the River Severn resulted in George Deakin catching his first barbel from the mighty Midlands waterway. The nine-year-old schoolboy was keen to join his dad on an after-work trip so that he could practise his casting and feeding. Setting up a Kamasan feeder with a size 14 hook and an 8mm pellet hookbait, he cast to the middle of the river but unfortunately lost his first bite an hour later. His dad, Andrew, said: “He was determined to keep going and shortly afterwards had a second bite – and this time he successfully played and landed this 5lb 4oz barbel. “He worked hard to learn how to set his rig up and feed properly. His smile says it all!” Mark Hunter 8lb…

STEVE RINGER World Feeder champ abd a constantly successful matchman RICH WILBY Top specimen-hunter and former winner of the Drennan Cup BOB NUDD Four-times World Champ and still a force to be reckoned with! ROB WOOTTON Leading matchman and former Maver Match This winner MARK POLLARD England international and an expert on natural water fishing ALEX DOCKERTY Angling coach and top-flight match angler LEE KERRY England International and professional angling coach What type of pole rig should I be using for bream on rivers? John Clarke, Bicester Well, we’re in desperate need of rain, but when we get it, the rivers will colour up and pick up pace, encouraging all fish to feed, and bream and roach will be two species in particular that become well worth fishing for. For…

BAIT CLINIC Honest advice to help you to catch more fish on every trip, without breaking the bank I TEND to sit firmly in the ‘must-have’ camp over the use of bait flavours although, with a few caveats, I think of them like this… When I’m hungry, I will eat any food that is put in front of me, but even if I am not starving, the smell of frying bacon is enough to send my taste buds into overdrive. Fish don’t feed all the time, especially when conditions are not ideal, so I see adding flavours as a way of attracting and encouraging them to feed when, perhaps, they aren’t really hungry. FIRM FAVOURITES Over the years I’ve tried to work out why some flavours work better than others,…

SG Petch Fish North Final (Sat)  Forest Lane Fishery, Arena Lake (15 pegs) MATTY Higgins is no stranger to winning big-money matches, having taken the ‘Dynamite Baits In The Mix’ event a few years ago, and the Matrix man can add another major title to that list after he took out this year’s SG Petch Fish North event with a fine 230-14-0 net. Lining up against 14 other qualifiers on Forest Lane’s Arena Lake, Matty lifted the trophy and pocketed the £12,000 top prize after spending the day fishing meat short on the pole and in both margins from peg 7 to get stuck into carp averaging 2lb apiece, but even then, victory wasn’t plain sailing. That was because Rob Swan on peg 11 was matching him almost fish…

LAST CAST WITH DOM Dom Garnett – one man determined to keep the pleasure in angling IS THERE such a thing as overstaying your welcome as an angler? Some days, you just feel you’re up against it. You get hot or soaking wet, or feel fed up. Or you have that nasty suspicion that, never mind five more minutes, you could stay another five hours without a sniff. Such was the case on a recent trip with fellow Devonian bass fan Toby Clayton. We’d been looking forward to it for so long, even an absolutely dreadful weather forecast couldn’t deter us. And why the hell not? Summer is brief and the fish are already wet, right? The terrain looked fitting, even if it was barely light on arrival. If…

THIS WEEK EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW FROM THE WORLD OF FISHING IN AN unprecedented achievement for British carp fishing, one angler has banked both a common and mirror over the magical 60lb-mark in the same year from two different waters. Martin Clarke (62), who is something of a household name in the big-carp world, landed the first of the giants on a trip to Buckinghamshire’s Waterside, in the shape of the incredible ‘Big Common’ at the whopping weight of 64lb. And it was only thanks to a cancellation that Martin and a group of five others managed to book onto the lake. “After three days, I was the last person to receive a bite on the venue, and we were actually just packing up when I watched this huge…

FOR the first time in years, an international match fishing event is due to take place on home soil after it was revealed that England will be hosting the new European Feeder Cup next month. The three-day competition will take place at Birmingham’s Barston Lakes, where England will go up against some of the best feeder fishing nations on the planet, with Belgium, Italy, Ireland, and Germany among those in the eight-nation field. Angling Times columnist and England Feeder Team legend, Steve Ringer is relishing the prospect. “This is something to really look forward to – a chance to fish for England on home soil against some of the best feeder teams in Europe, including current world champions Hungary,” he said. “It looks set to be an awesome…

LAST FENLAND TRIP PRODUCES PB RUDD WITH temperatures on the wane, many anglers are turning their attention away from rudd, but during the recent final warm spell, Dave Owens ventured out for one final session after the iconic summer species and managed to bank this fine 3lb 1oz fish. The Lincolnshire angler began by trying to locate a shoal, and once he stumbled across one, it was clear they were ‘on edge’. Feeding bread, he noticed the fish would come in, take a few baits, then disappear for 20 minutes before returning. After an early fish of 2lb 4oz, he spent the next three hours feeding before landing the shoal’s largest member in the shape of the three-pounder. RESERVOIR PERCH IN TOUGH CONDITIONS LAST season we were inundated with reports…

SOME THINGS YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN ON AUGUST 31 I went fishing with a friend, Mick, at a private pool in South Shropshire. Mick had recently lost his son, Steve (51), quite unexpectedly, and the funeral was coming up soon, so taking Mick out to fish was an attempt to help him through a difficult time. We arrived at the lake and were unloading the buggy that carried our kit. I have a vague recollection of seeing Mick lean the yellow carrying bag which contained his chair against the wooden fence adjacent to the swim. Some moments later, with a loud crash, the chair was suddenly at least a metre from where it had been placed. There was no wind, and no animals were nearby in the field. It was odd,…

Can you fish in the margins from the start, and if so, how would you go about this? JASON BEANIE, OXFORD WE ALL think that the margins are best left alone until the last few hours of a session, but on big weight venues, it’s common to catch in the edges from the off, especially if the water is warm. An hour spent fishing here can give you a great start in a match and a lovely confidence boost on a pleasure session, and to catch a big weight of carp I think that you need to catch close. When I say close, I mean within bait throwing range, so normally six pole sections or fewer. “Rather than leaving the float still, I ‘lift and drop’ every 30 seconds...” THICK…

THE VOICE OF MATCH FISHING CARNAGE AT HALLCROFT! TIME is running out for me to get into the Golden Reel Final. This week’s qualifier at Hallcroft gave me a very real chance of managing it, but it was not to be as I finished a very long way off winning. Dan Bennet weighed over 400lb to book his place at Larford, my 228lb getting me second and even though I always felt I was behind Dan, I don’t think I ever realised just how far! My peg was a belter, No5 on the Bridge Pool, but it was a real battlefield as there’s a massive reedbed to fish against. I trashed 10 rigs, lost a good few carp and still have no idea how I came home with my pole…

2011 National champion and a serial winner at both domestic and international levels, Steve Gardener is perhaps best known for his key role in England’s iconic 1980s to 2000s team. Not that he’s any slouch today, remaining a passionate matchman at 71 years young. Dom Garnett caught up with him to discuss everything from classic England encounters to the changing nature of match fishing. Q: Thanks for joining us, Steve. We’re lucky to catch you because you’re still a pretty busy match angler! What keeps you going? I’m not sure I could live without match fishing! I think I’d go mad. I still fish around three matches a week – and I counted 160 matches back in 2021. You have good days and bad days, but I still love the…

I DON’T fish the waggler as much as I should do on commercial venues. It can be a brilliant method, especially when the water clears and the fish become wary of a pole over their heads or a feeder crashing into the peg! One issue many anglers have with the waggler is finding the depth. On a river, it’s easy as the float will drag under if it’s overdepth as the float trots downriver. On a lake, that doesn’t happen, so I try to be fishing roughly at dead depth with the bait just resting on the bottom. To do that, I use an SSG shot on the hook. Casting around, I make little disturbance and can identify areas where the depth changes. You’re never going to be 100%…

NOT all pre-tied bait-band hooklengths are the same. Some are designed for pulling through soft baits like meat, while others suit housing a wafter or pellet. Here are some of the top contenders on the market today, as well as our pick of natural water hooklengths. MIDDY POLE PELLET BAND’EM Using Middy’s medium gauge though surprisingly strong KM-1, the bands on these vary in size to match the hook, meaning a greater section of baits can be used. Tied on a twizzled loop, a knot unique to Middy, to add strength and ensure the remains in line with the shank. Unrivalled value hooklengths, with eight in each pack Bands match the hook size, so suitable for all baits from casters to big pellets and wafters Strong and straight twizzled loop…

I’M LUCKY to have angling friends and contacts all over the world. Together we’ve bonded over catching fish and also by enjoying the countryside and all of its wildlife. I’ve made good friends over the years in Germany; when DAM was the biggest fishing tackle company in Europe I did some work for them and my many visits were always made pleasant by the German people. I also wrote for five years for Fisch & Fang, which is a big glossy German fishing magazine. Its editor, Frerk Peterson, was only too willing to pay for me to fish incredible destinations, not only in Germany but in Scandinavia too, where I caught pike, grayling and even salmon. Those were truly wonderful days, ones I will remember for the rest of my…

AFTER drawing the peg that won last year’s Fishing Association Supercup at a canter, all eyes were on Pete Upperton to do the same in 2023 – and he duly obliged with a crushing win to take the £20,000 top prize! That peg was 11 on the end of Middy Woodland Lakes’ Partridge Lake, scene of Pemb Wrighting’s win 12 months ago. Guru-backed Pete crashed out 324-0-0 of carp to leave it all over bar the shouting with a few hours of the match remaining. His closest challenger was Chris Weeder Junior, who had to settle for the runner-up spot for the second time in this event, with his 183-3-0 bag coming off peg 21 at the other end of Partridge Lake. AT THE PEG “I’d been at Woodlands for…