Features

Let's take a look at the years Before Bait Boats. Well, if we look back through the ages we will find that long, long ago, David slew Goliath with a slingshot, an instrument designed to propel a pebble or stone.

Until I relocated I was unaware of the amazing extent to which spate-rivers so drastically change from season to season. In the space of just three years I have seen parts of Geoff Maynard's stretch of the Wye at Llanthomas totally transformed by winter floods, deluges that conceal their dirty work for weeks on end until the water recedes and reveals the damage - a term I use here for convenience, for 'damage' may not be the appropriate word to describe drastic change.

No prizes this time, just a bit of fun trying to pin-point where this shot was taken some 10 years ago. Naturally, a great many viewers won't have a clue, but the spot will be well-known to a great many anglers from all over the country. The precise location is required!

The jungle pressed hard against the banks of the river. Viewed from a distance, it was a wall of undifferentiated green with no breaks in the foliage. Up close, I could make out individual trees. They all rose to a uniform height as if kept in check by a divine hedge clipper. You rarely saw a tree that managed to outgrow the others by more than a foot or two as they fought each other for sunlight.

They're blood sucking prehistoric ‘vampire’ fish and are in a river near you, so should North East swimmers be concerned? Their real name is lamprey...

It is probable that the majority of both FM readers and the general public are unable to endorse or detract from Martin's and Mr Benyon's thoughts on the EU's commercial fishing policy; they are shown here with confidence and in the very best of faith. Nonetheless, Fishing Magic would welcome similar contributions from those with an alternative view.

The young anglers of today, and perhaps even some older ones, will not remember the B.B. years ('Before Bivvies') that I and some of my friends can recall.

Trev is not one of your by-the-book, bureaucratic bailiffs who examines every minute detail of everybody's tackle and membership card; quite the reverse in fact. Membership cards he checks once a season, and that is it. He knows all his clientele at Cowpat Lake at least by sight - once seen, never forgotten in some cases. He also knows everyone's favourite method and swim.

I have to put my cards on the table here, I'm not a great fan of carp puddles, but I must concede that for various reasons they are now a fact of angling life.

FM's editor once wrote in an article called 'Black to White' of how it is possible to turn previously unassailable beliefs upside-down. Here's another classic example from American carp bum, Chris Hunt.