Before moving on to the main business of this entry - that lovely looking common further down the page - indulge me for a moment and turn your attention to the first photograph. Not to the lake shimmering in the April sunlight (though that is a fine sight) nor to the rod (a 12ft Conoflex as it happens, swapped for a Psion Series 5 with the angling writer and photographer Henry Gilbey) nor the reel (out of sight, but a solid TFG Gear centrepin, stocked with Maxima 6lb line) but to the rod rest. 

Tags: carp

Despite the startling lack of activity on these pages in recent months...nay, years...I've actually been fishing more often since the pandemic struck than I have in the last 10 years. It's a funny business, writing about fishing...

Tags: angling, bream, carp, chub, gudgeon, perch, rudd

Carp photos? What do you take me for?

Tags: carp

I don’t know what they’re feeding the geese at Flintstones but it’s going through them like a dose of the proverbials and means it’s almost impossible to walk two steps in a straight line without encountering something that squirted from a goose’s arse...

Tags: carp

I once heard the English fascination with caravans described thus: it's because we love things that fold away. Simple as that. Not because we yearn for the freedom of the open road or because of some deep-seated need to take our houses with us, but simply because...

Tags: carp

My wife asked my this morning how fast carp swim. Seriously. I love that woman. I'd been talking about the wild carp (or near as dammit wild carp - lean, little torpedoes that look more like barbel than carp) in a local lake that I hadn't fished for years. I'd forgotten what they were like...

Tags: carp

It's nights like these that I feel extremely fortunate to be living here and now. There's enough wrong with England in the 21st century - this spiteful government for starters - that it's easy to forget places like this still exist, pretty much on your doorstep...

Tags: carp, tench

I nearly bottled it. Driving back from Bucks through sheets of rain (and only a poncho in the boot because the brolly's still under Marion's bed) I just thought I'd leave it. I'd get soaked, the banks would be beyond treacherous - and recalling my last visit, well...

Tags: carp

t's about this time of the year that I gently re-introduce myself to fishing after the winter break. There's some fun poking about rustiness, occasionally something more esoteric where I worry over losing the fishing gene that's supplied me with so much fun and contentment over the years...

Tags: carp

Tags: carp