Boxes of Old Fishing Magazines

A quick look through the garage here and at my mum's has produced 6 large boxes of fishing magazines. While I do the trading for the next few days I am planning to work my was through these, keeping a selection of articles and organising them in some way. For the moment there are a number of huge piles of magazines in the study.

The first fishing magazines I bought were Course fisherman and Angling, starting around 1975. The latter only lasted a few more years, while CF staggered on until just a few years ago I think. In CF, I really loved the articles by Brian Morland, but he seemed to stop writing by around 1980. Am I right in thinking that he was involved in some sort of scandal related to the chapter of a large barbel that may have been during the close season? CF also had the rather bizarre Chris Binyon, pike angler and overall reprobate. Angling had the first articles I ever read by Tony Miles - two articles on summer and winter chub fishing.

One article that I had forgotten about in CF was an interview with Ray Webb. He had co-authored one of my first fishing books, Fishing for Big Pike, which my parents bought me for Christmas in 1975 or 76. He had famously quit work to fish full time, but had then been afflicted by a series of mental problems, resulting in his hospitalisation, which is where the interview took place. Harrowing stuff.

Other piles include the eccentric Waterlog, lots of different fly fishing magazines, early issues of Improve your Course Fishing, my current favourite, Course Angling Today (going back to 2005) and the excellent Practical Course Fishing, perhaps my all time favourite, as one issue featured me fishing the Hampshire Avon with Tony Miles. And then there are loads of magazines that seemed to only survive a short time, like Course Fishing Monthly. But I do have about twenty issues of Specialist Angler - whatever happened to the National Association of Specialist Anglers (or NASA as it was confusingly called)? I even seem to have some copies of Barbel Fisher - are they still going?

First fishing trip for ages

I am currently having a big throw out of old magazines and this week's theme has been fishing magazines - mainly fairly recent issues of Course Fishing Today (I haven't managed to find the boxes of older magazines which must be lurking in the garage somewhere). The weather forecast is quite poor for the next few days and I was inspired to try and sneak in a trip before the weather got much worse.

The chosen venue was a local stretch of the Evenlode. No time to make bait, so I am forced into buying some at the fishing tackle shop in Witney. As I parked near the farm, I was approached by a guy who I thought might be going to ask me to leave, but it turned out that he was just curious who I was, having not seen many members of the club on this stretch in the two years he has lived there.

The river looked really bad - I have never seen it so low. I would guess it was two foot below the lowest level I have ever seen it before. This could be a problem as some of the spots I planned to fish were now effectively shallows. I decide on a relatively static approach, baiting up a longish, reasonably deep run where I have had a few nice fish in the past. But it is not a great afternoon and I manage just one fish, a chub of about 2lbs.

Maybe the rain we are due will perk it up a bit and I can have another trip over Christmas.