Match Fishing Videos with Ian Heaps

I have just been watching, not for the first time, Ian Heaps’ basic match fishing videos numbers 1, 2 and 4 on bread fishing, waggler fishing and the feeder. There are three others, which I haven’t been fortunate enough to see, on sliders, the long pole on rivers and the long pole on still waters. But if they are as good as the ones I have then they make an excellent set of six.

Angling videos have come a long way since the hesitant presentation and strange editing of the early days, and these Ian Heaps’ videos are amongst the best you’ll ever see. For starters Ian himself is relaxed, easy and a gifted and highly informative speaker. I guess it might be scripted, but it certainly doesn’t seem so, in fact, I suspect the content of each clip is planned, but not scripted in any formal sense.

Each video is filmed in good surrounding scenery, which makes the days fishing very pleasant. And it has to be said that he does not over emphasize the competitive element of match fishing – what he emphasizes is how to get a good catch by the best techniques. He also points out how to handle fish properly and how to return them to the water safely. For example, he doesn’t roll the fish down the length of the keepnet, but turns the net inside out and eases the fish back. Mind you, I have always thought that a keepnet with a drawstring or zip would ease the problems of weighing and returning. It really should not be beyond the inventive genius of the manufacturers to come up with a very workable system. I used a homemade drawstring for years on my keepnets and they worked excellently. There are those who claim that keepnets are unnecessary because they cause suffering to the fish, and that returning fish as caught is the best way.

Well this doesn’t help the match angler, does it? And anyone who thinks returning the fish straight to the water does not result in the shoal swimming off hasn’t done a lot of fishing. It doesn’t happen always, but it happens often. Nor do fish suffer at all in a correctly used keepnet -which is the way Ian Heaps uses one.

The first video, on bread, has features which run through all three, such as how to make up first class groundbait, how to shot tackle and why, and how exactly the bait is presented. His instructions on bread bait preparations are superb – non-match anglers would get a lot out of this. One thing that intrigued me was Ian’s suggestion that prepared bread cubes are sometimes better than bread punch preparations, and he explained why. I always used to use prepared cubes, but recently have used the punch or torn off a strip of crust.

The waggler video is just as good as the bread video. When I first heard the term waggler I didn’t realise that I’d been using it for thirty years! It is simply a float attached at the bottom end only: as boys we’d done this to combat surface drift among other things. There’s a super section in this video on the preparation of casters (again, as boys we called them chrysalis, and we used both sinkers and floaters, depending on the circumstances). He’s fishing a nice little lake near Whittlesey and catches tench as well as roach, rudd and carp – a very leisurely day, but with a big bag resulting.

The feeder video explains the countdown method of getting the depths, and hence the contours of the swim, and then he shows the rapid change method of using lead or feeder. He also varies the tail length with particular objectives, catches on the drop (deliberately) and gradually works up a bream shoal after initially catching roach.

I sit on a forum once a year with Ian, and he really is a very informed and experienced angler – a true world champion. And all this comes over well in the videos. Any angler, match angler or not, would benefit greatly from these videos, and I shall certainly be watching them again. And notice, too, that the birds feed quite happily in the vicinity of Ian. He becomes an inconspicuous part of his environment for the day.