The Coarse Fishing Guide To Great Britain with Dean Macey

I've never met Dean Macey, but as he's from the same county as me, I'd like to start off straight away by saying that he's a top bloke, a fantastic angler and that he speaks with a proper accent! I've heard that he's quite handy round an athletics track, too, but I'm built for comfort, not speed, so I won't push him on that!

In all seriousness, Dean's name and face have been bandied about a lot in the angling press recently, mainly due to his own range of tackle, produced in conjunction with Nash Tackle. He's got a beaming smile and, coming from the Olympic background that he does, I'd hazard a guess that he's the type of person who excels in pretty much everything he puts his hand to. (Gaffer, the Anglers' Net carp guru, is similar in this regard – he's annoyingly good at everything, from martial arts to golf!).

That said, the cover of this DVD box set says:
“Follow the advice and expert analysis of Britain's top fisherman as he scours the length and breadth of the UK for that big catch”.

I'm 100% certain that Dean's a good angler, but that “Britain's top fisherman” part may well have been inserted by an over-zealous marketeer, I feel! In fact, the whole basis of this series is that Dean meets up with some of the UK's top fishermen in order to pick their brains for advice in hunting down each elusive specimen.

I understand that On Coarse With Dean Macey was shown on the Discovery Real Time TV channel. As I don't have satellite TV, I was blissfully unaware of it until the DVD box set arrived. And what a box set it is...

Comprising of five DVD's, the species covered are Pike, Crucian Carp, Barbel, Bream, Tench, Chub, Roach, Catfish, Carp and Grayling. In each 'episode', Dean travels around the country to fish with an expert for the species. For example, carp fishing is with Terry Hearn, Catfish fishing is with Nige Williams, Bob Church helps with the tench, etc.

Whilst there are lots of little tips for the viewer to pick up along the way, I wouldn't class this as an instructional DVD set per se. In a way, it reminded me of a modern day John Wilson series, in that it provides a great deal of light entertainment, without being too taxing on the brain. To cover ten species in 230 minutes and expect to be an expert in each would be asking too much. However, as a DVD set to sit down and unwind to, I found it perfect.

Dean Macey comes across as a keen and amiable angler and I get the feeling that we'll be seeing more of him on TV. Well, those of us without satellite-blocking trees in our garden! Could it be that Matt Hayes has some competition? We'll have to see. In the meantime, it's nice to know that there are some decent angling presenters coming through the system. Now, if only we could get a terrestrial channel to realise that many of their current audience are anglers....

In the meantime, praise be to Duke Video for their vast catalogue of angling titles. Until a few months ago, I only knew of them as motorsport specialists. I'm a complete petrol-head and have been aware of Duke Video for years. Now that I've seen what else they do, they've become one of my favourite companies of all time!

The Coarse Fishing Guide To Great Britain with Dean Macey is a five DVD box set available from www.DukeVideo.com and is nicely priced at just £29.99.