I'm in Anglers Mail

[Fastd]

Its unfortunate but a lot of the info we read in the magazines is well out of date. I guess my one press claim to fame I could make is having a catch report published word for word in the angling times. Me and a friend were fishing the compound on the Royalty fishery, which for those who dont know it , is an area on the royalty beat that is bookable in advance for salmon angling. If no one has booked it you can get lucky and book it for less than the cost of 2 day tickets on the upper royalty and it gives you some nice private barbel fishing.

 

We were fishing it one august bank holiday weekend, glorious sunshine and catching bream in good quantities. About 1pm we went to the pub over the road to replenish fluid levels and have something to eat and bumped into the owner of Davies Tackle who sell the tickets for the riyalty. He asked us how we were doing and we said we had about 100 lb of bream and if things continued the way the morning had been we would easily do 200lb each by evening. As it happens the sun got hotter and we caught little else for the rest of the day...thats fishing.

 

Three weeks later...in angling times back in the old days when they actually made an effort to get proper river reports rather than rely on commercial fisheries ringing them...there was our conversation in the pub almost word for word as the latest river report.

 

Now this is information over three weeks old. This shoal of bream could be in Skegness by now, totally omitting the fact the fish were caught on a max two anglers section and ignoring the fact it was total speculation over a pint that we would probably do 200lb on caster and hemp by the end of the day.

 

Dont believe everything you read in the press, They are in it to make money and not to catch u a fish of a lifetime.

 

I could go on with other examples "how to catch early season tope" in sea angler as front page headlines. When reading the article it was a september trip in holyhead! and this was the june issue!

 

All the reasons i no longer buy the mags.

 

Dave.

ps ...i am not sure what the ruling is now but at the time of the royalty report there was a ban on hemp seed...but the report by the guy who sells the tickets read bream on hemp and caster!

[Malcolm Johns]

Several years ago a mate of mine did a feature article on the Wear with Angling Times. In it they said that 100's of chub over 4lb could be seen between the weedy runs.(which was a load of rubbish anyway) This article went out many weeks later. The week after publication some poor sod telephoned the local tackle shop complaining as he blanked - having travelled from Stoke, by rail!!

[colsmiff]

"I think its not unusual for the angling press to publish a picture of a guy in a t shirt with leaves on the trees holding a pb in the jan issue"....

 

And what about all the pictures you see of river caught fish during the close season!!!