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The two weather conditions that strike fear into most river anglers, Indeed most anglers full stop, are ‘frost’ and ‘flood’ and this season we have had more than our fair share of both! In this two-part blog I’m going to be taking a quick look at both and, hopefully, be removing some of that fear…

For some reason floodwater seems to stump more river anglers than the cold, clear and frosty conditions I looked at in the first part of this two-part blog and that, to me is a mystery as flood conditions – so long as they are the ‘right’ type of flood conditions are the very best of…

Fishing floodwater – providing you are careful – can be one of the most productive of all conditions for catching barbel, especially if the flood is as a result of heavy, warm rainfall after a cold snap. Indeed, I would go as far as to say it is my favourite of all barbel conditions –…

This time last year I was still fishing in a T-shirt and can vividly remember bemoaning the fact that there was no sign of a ‘proper’ winter; in fact I seem to remember writing in mid-December that we had yet to see a frost! What a difference a year makes…  

Well OK, they have not so much ‘gone’ on my local rivers but they are certainly not where they should be and the anglers who have been catching well during the first couple of months of the season have not always been those you might expect. Indeed if you were a complete barbel novice I…

  Jim Gibbinson’s original line aligner remains one of the important ‘breakthrough’ rigs in modern times, second only to the hair rig some would say, and I don’t think I would argue with that. In fact I remember vividly being a young kid in the small audience of the talk when Jim first unveiled the…

When it comes to catching bream, as any carp angler will tell you, it‘s hard to find a bait they do not like and will not take; in fact if anyone ever invents a bream-free bait they stand to make a fortune.