Press Release - Wilson's Wife Shows Him How It's Done

[Guest Elton]

Go Fishing with John Wilson: Tuesday 27th June 2000 at 11.30pm

 

Jo Wilson, wife of Britain's best known angler, makes her fishing debut for the TV cameras in the new series of GO FISHING WITH JOHN WILSON - and catches a bigger fish than her husband.

 

British television's longest running angling series begins its fourteenth year on Meridian and Jo's big moment comes in the fifth programme, when she catches a 301b Conger eel, while John's biggest fish is an 81b Bull Huss.

 

"Jo is no mean angler and has been boat fishing off Ireland and in the Seychelles," says John. "She's often said to me 'I wonder what I'd be like with you on one of your programmes,' so I arranged for her to come with us off Weymouth."

 

According to John, however, it was a day when little went to plan. "We hadn't reckoned on the weather which changed from a hot summer's day to freezing cold. I'd suggested we wear colourful shirts and shorts so it looked nice and summery for the cameras. But we were perishing by the end of the shoot and Jo was not a happy bunny!"

 

The monster eel saved the day, however. "I had to show him how it's done," says Jo, who spurned John's offer to help her haul in the fish.

 

John thinks this year's GO FISHING is one of the best ever in terms of showing places to fish and methods of fishing, as he explains:

 

"Most of the locations anybody can fish - either free if it's in the sea or for the price of a day ticket for a trout fishery or a yearly syndicate fee if it's club water."

 

But he also acknowledges that this year's series - filmed last summer - is the most difficult he has ever made. Pressure to deliver the fish in weather conditions that were often adverse to angling put John's mettle to the test.

 

"In a sense you become a victim of your own success," he admits. "When you catch fish of a certain size one year, and the following year you catch fish only half the size, viewers think 'He must be slipping', or 'I caught a fish that size myself last week - what do I need to see him do it for?"

 

But John still relishes the challenge and hopes that GO FISHING will continue to encourage people to do just that. He has already begun filming next year's series.

 

"I would like to see it go on forever," he says.

 

John starts the first programme of the series at the crack of dawn, when he floats through the early mist of the Sussex Downs for a spot of Tench fishing.

 

Other programmes take him to the Boringwheel fishery in East Sussex where plump rainbow trout provide a colourful day's fishing, and to the fast-flowing waters of the River Avon in Hampshire, where guest angler Rupert Morrall gets that sinking feeling in a bid to find the two that got away.

 

Go fishing is an Anglia Television production for Meridian Broadcasting and Anglia Television.

 

------------------

Elton Murphy

Anglers' Net

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk