Chasing Dreams

Reviewed by Graham Marsden

Tony Miles makes no bones about the fact that he is an out and outbig fish angler, a specialist angler to the core.

Although he is primarily known for his barbel and chub catchesfrom, in recent years, the Great Ouse, he has caught big fish of mostcoarse species. And when I say ‘big’, I mean very big.

‘Chasing Dreams’ is about one man’s obsession with big fish; TonyMiles’ obsession, charting his progress over 40 years of specialistangling.

Following the introduction the first chapter ‘Early Days’ beginswith the first day a 13 year old Tony ever went fishing. It was withthe inevitable ‘old fella’, in this case Alf, who showed him theropes and for launching Tony on a career that is no less thanextraordinary.

The following chapters cover many famous waters, including the TCPit, Queenford Lagoon, the French Lake Cassien, the Hampshire Avon,Redmire Pool, and, of course, the Great Ouse.

There are many good stories to fire the desire to go fishing andcatch a monster, but I must say I especially enjoyed the ‘AnimalMagic’ chapter in which Tony relates some fearsome and funny storiesabout his run-in with bulls and other cuddly, and not so cuddly,creatures.

Without being petty there is little not to recommend about thisbook, although I would like to put the record straight about oneunderstandable error. Tony makes one or two references to the oldbream record of 15lb 6oz, stating that it came from Cheshire. Itdidn’t come from Cheshire, but Copmere in Staffordshire. For sometime the British Record Fish List stated it came from Cheshirebecause the captor wanted to throw anyone off the scent regarding thetrue location and it was me who exposed the lie and got the recordlist altered to reflect the truth.

An excellent book by Tony Miles, and shouldn’t be missed by anyonewho has got even the slightest interest in catching dream fish.

Case bound with a total of 312 pages, numerous illustrations, 100mono shots and more than 40 colour photographs.