JOHN WILSON
ANOTHER FISHING YEAR
PUBLISHED BY GREEN UMBRELLA
Publication date: Wednesday 1st March 2006.
RRP: £16.99, Hardback, ISBN: 1-905009-37-2
Like the great white shark and the fresh water burbot John Wilson’s first book, A Specimen Fishing Year, has become a rare catch – second-hand examples fetching up to £250. Fishermen and women will therefore want to reel in Another Fishing Year as quickly as possible.
A legend on the river banks, Wilson (a hairdresser and a lithographic printer many years ago) is well-known to readers of The Sunday Express through his weekly column and first brought fishing to TV with Go Fishing back in the 1980’s – still the longest running British angling series. Fans of armchair angling will be pleased to know that Wilson has just re-signed to do another show on Discovery Real Time TV to be screened this coming winter.
Another Fishing Year is John’s diary for 2005 and he begins on a sunny but bitterly cold 2 January. Immediately, his detailed description of the surroundings and nostalgic anecdotes place you right alongside him in the boat. In addition, his precise technical narrative gives you all the elements you need to understand how he secures "a nicely marked and proportioned pike of around 19lbs.One week later he’s off to Brazil and fast into huge, tropical fresh water species. Something which continues throughout the book with extra adventures to Spain, Zambia and Egypt, plus sharks and bass from both home and abroad.
The end of August sees Wilson enjoying a hot and humid day with somebody lucky enough to have won a day’s fishing with him. Two 10mm halibut pellets on a hair-rigged size 10 hook in conjunction with regular helpings of 6mm pellet loose feed, soon has the carp biting.
In November he battles with a monstrous 130 lbs arapaima amongst a plethora of heavyweight adversaries in Thailand. And on the 19 December, Wilson returns to the lake he fished on 2 January and lands an 18lb pike – his last catch of 2005.
Written in Wilson’s usual chatty and informative style, Another Fishing Year is a book that no self-respecting angler will want to let get away. With more than 240 pages, over 100 colour photographs taken by the author and a price of just £16.99, this diary will help you while away many pleasant hours waiting for a bite. If you want to mount it alongside your [PB carp] and [pike catches], how about the special, limited edition, leather-bound version for £99.99?
