Let’s go fishing

Welcome...

It may have seemed a long time coming, but finally July 1 is upon us and anglers will be permitted, if they wish, to take one bass a day of more than 42cm for the remainder of the year, after enduring six months of a controversail ban on retaining these popular sporting fish.

While most recognise the need for bass conservation and the benefits of catch and release, there has been voiciferous and justified anger at a perceived unfairness to anglers in favour of commercial fishing interests. Since the measures were announced late in 2015, we’ve given plenty of coverage to this contentious issue and given space to all sides of the arguement.

I’d recommend that you check out our contributor Dave Barham’s view on how it has affected his bass fishing mindset - turn to page 122.

While we’ve got our usual comprehensive mixture of shore and boat angling in this issue, it includes a special 26-page section highlighting a selection of summer shore hotspots across the UK and Ireland – it starts on page 9. For boat and kayak anglers there are 28 pages packed with advice, tactics and stories - so turn to page 66.

Don’t miss the shore and boat fishing advice in our Sea School section - from page 50. We’ve also got lure fishing, LRF and match fishing covered too, together with a tackle section packed with products and tests.