Magic moments – are they just in your dreams?

THIS week’s Angling Times stirs up some great memories of fishing days gone by – magic moments which hit the headlines more than two decades ago.

While they probably stuck in my mind because I wrote the original news stories in the late 1990s, I’m sure most long-term readers will recall reading them too.

The first was a tale about Dorking matchman Paul ‘Tommy’ Hiller who caught the biggest-ever fish in a match – a 46lb catfish – during an NFA event in Spain in 1997. As Keith Arthur recalls in his column on P35, Tommy had to get into the lake to manhandle the fish into his tiny landing net head after spending half-an-hour battling it on a feeder rod.

The second blast from the past is the story surrounding Steve Ringer’s Fish O’ Mania win in 1998 – a victory which accelerated a more than promising career in fishing.

Steve’s win was an unusual one, as the headline to the story alluded to. He’d dreamed the night before exactly how he would win the match.

Call it positive thinking if you will, but premonitions like this seem to be more common than first thought – read our feature on pages 14&15 to see what I mean.

Talking of great memories, when was the last time you caught a big roach from a canal? My colleague Chris Haydon has rolled back the years with his latest catches, topped by a 2lb-plus roach caught on the waggler and hemp from his local cut.

It’s a classic tactic, overlooked these days, but one which can still do the business – so why not give it a go for old times’ sake?

While we’d love the nation to panic buy copies of Angling Times, there’s no shortage of great stories, tactics, venues, and advice in our pages each week.

Grab a brew, sit back, and enjoy the issue.