Where’s the fun in featureless fisheries?

Thinking Tackle, Discovery Shed, Wednesday July 13, 4pm

Hooked on Fishing, Discovery Shed, Saturday July 16, 2pm I HAVE a lot of commercials close to where I live, and what has become noticeable is that a lot of the owners have lost their way.

Back when I started fishing around 20 years ago the setting was just as important as the fishing itself, but these days the surroundings are often completely forgotten. BACK in the 1980s I used to fish the Oxford Canal a lot, even in the depths of winter, when we would often have to break the ice.

There were lots of weird and wonderful ways concocted to do this, and some of the more adventurous anglers even stood on the ice with axes and chainsaws to cut or smash through it.

Anyway, on one winter match I was drawn next to a chap called Paul Marsiglio, who was proudly brandishing his own ice breaker in the form of a large axe.

The ice was several inches thick and Paul stepped on it, kneeling

Paul disappeared into his own axe-created ice hole. John Wilson’s Dream Fishing, Quest, Friday July 15, 6pm

Tench fishing, youtube.com/ user/FromTheWatersEdgeTV

Fly fishing for carp, youtube. com/watch?v=2t9r0Qe_EYA down and chipping away, following the ice as he broke it.

He duly made a neat cut four metres into the canal, then turned to make a two-metre-wide rectangle before retreating to the safety of the bank.

Unfortunately, Paul had forgotten that he was now in the middle of his ice hole, and halfway back to the bank the cut ice gave way and tipped him gracefully into the water.

I was still laughing as he drove home, shivering... Three groundbait bowls in a heavy duty waterproof material. The largest has a zipped top and the two smaller ones fit neatly inside.