Sad day magazine feature

[AL_Peters]

Yesterday me and a couple of friends of mine fished Greenhalghs Lodge at Greenhalgh in Lancashire a favourite venue of mine [].

When we arrived at the venue the Bailiff came over and told us pegs 5-6-7 where reserved for a match angler to do a feature for a well known angling publication, this fascinated me as I have always wondered how these features are done and i have a lot of respect and admeration for the quality of match anglers the u.k turns out year after year in fact we have such an angler on here called Lee, I decided to fish peg 25 directly facing peg 5 and 2 my pals who came with me fished 26 & 27 which face pegs 6 & 7.

The match angler in question arrived with another angler and the angler being featured fished peg 5 with his mate fishing peg 7 and the guy taking all the pictures had is gear set up on peg 6 before I go any further this venue mainly only stocks carp and they go to 20llb but average out at about 8llbs this is a picture of a typical carp out of this venue


Me and my mates where catching steadily and the match angler and his mate where struggling to get bites until the bailiff popped over and gave them a few tips and told them about a gravel bar that runs in the middle of the lake both where fishing on the tip using the inline feeder method with a short tail which is the right tactics on this venue for the time of year.

Eventually the mate of the angler being featured hooked in to a fish and what occurred next and for the rest of the day saddened me and my mates, the angler walked down 2 pegs and passed his rod over to the featured angler and he dually landed the fish whilst being pictured he then put in his keep net (I wont go on about this issue to much as I have already made a post concerning keep nets and the double standards involved, both on this forum and in the national press, double standards yet again one rule for the elite another for Mr Pleasure angler) the fish was pictured and it seemed like an age before it was placed in the keep net anyway a hour later again the same angler hooked in to a fish and promptly passed down his rod to the featured angler time after time he let the hooked fish run when it could have been landed easily so the camera man could get decent shots at one point he even let it out of his landing net to land it again for the perfect shot, this time I timed how long the fish was out of the water and it was 5 minutes and a very good fish approx 10llbs which was held in all kinds of poses and taken all over the bank again for the perfect shot.

This went on for most of the day and just for the record the featured angler actually caught a grand total of 1 (one) fish the rest a total of 6 where actually hooked by his mate in fact it will be very interesting to see the write up in the angling publication because one angler was using a gold reel and the other a black one with identical rods you dont have to be Einstein to work that one out.

To finish the feature the keep net was dually dragged up the bank and the fish where placed all over the ground and arranged in all kinds of manner again for the perfect shot, what really tickled me was the comment from the featured angler to the camera man to get all the s**t gear in the shot all the s**t gear by the way he probably gets for nothing of a very well known tackle shop and match outfit in Preston who are good enough to sponsor him, maybe if he paid for his gear like most dedicated match and pleasure anglers do he would change his tune.

All I can say and this is my opinion which my mates shared with me 100% is if thats the way they do a feature (I am not saying all features are done like this by the way but I have only ever seen one done) and sell magazines they can stuff them where the sun dont shine I would sooner see healthy fish and things done right and honestly than see fish suffer like that, what a farce not only did the angler in question have a bad day which each and every angler in the world as had and will have again he took advantage if a very privileged post ion he is very lucky to have and most up and coming match anglers would give there right arm for.

I was just thankful there where no Antis looking on because what I saw today is the bad side of angling and needs to be addressed and just gives the antis fuel for there campaign.

A sad day for me a very sad day [][][][][][][][]

AL Peters





Happiness is playin wif yer rod

 

[Colin Payne]

When the fish were laid out was there no unhooking mat too?
[][]

 

[norm]

dont forget AL
some of these top class anglers will only fish were there is loads of fish

at the bob nudd talk some one asked him if he would come up our end to fish

i bet you could guess what his answer was

 

[Lid]

That's appalling Al, but I'm not surprised. I feel that much of what we read is either fixed or inaccurate. Looks like fishing features are no exception.

Lid []

 

[joe32]

Makes you wonder if this is a common pratice,I wonder how many magazine articles have been produced in exactly the same way.
I recall hearing a similar story a few years ago about a certain high profile carp angler,when making a video,about rehooking fish,letting them swim out of the net and then re-playing them.Needless to say that when all of it became public he didn't sell many videos.It will be interesting to see which one of the weekly rags it appears in.

Joe [] []

Don't argue with an idiot they will only bring you down to there level and beat you on experience

 

[Chopper]

Don't suppose you know who the featured angler was?

Or what team he fished for, who he was sponsored by?

I'm trying to think of some good teams and anglers in Lancashire but I can't coz they're all in YORKSHIRE!!!!!

But seriously though, that does sound bad and I have never heard of that happening before.

Not done a feature myself apart from the world club champs but I know a lot of anglers that have on the River Don, Calder and Hebble canal near me and fleets dam in Barnsley and none of them were conducted in a manner like that.

I would be interested to know who it was and who he fished for.

Lee Saville - Colmic Team Ossett

Individual 2002 World Club Champion, Zagreb - Croatia.
Individual 2002 Angling Times North East Region Winter League Champion.
2001 Embassy Division 1 National Team Champions.

www.colmic.com

 

[Simon R]

This isn't quite as bad as Al's story but still shocked me when I heard it.

Winter before last a friend of mine went to Woodlands with a pal who hadn't fished before but fancied giving it a go. They dropped onto Kestrel Lake and it being winter both fished the feeder.

They'd had a couple of fish each when (I won't mention his name but he works in the on-site shop) arrived with a photographer in tow (the article later appeared in Match Angling)

To cut a long story short the "star" couldn't get a bite whilst my mate and his pal were getting one-a-chuck almost. After a while the photographer came along with a keepnet and asked my mate to bung his fish in it, thinking he might get his face in the angling press my mate agreed.

Couple of hours later he had about a dozen fish in the net - the best one being a carp of about 6lbs with a funny parrot's beak shaped mouth. The keepnet was removed and passed to our "star" for him to pose with [:0].

My mate told me all this when he got home and sure enough a couple of months later there was the smiling face of .......... holding the carp with the dodgy gob and details of how he'd caught all the fish (three-quarters of which weren't his!)

Since then I always take any article which has been set-up purely for a feature with a very large pinch of salt.

Tight Lines

Simon

 

[Dave]

A typical example Simon is when the AM photographer at Renny's had the two guest anglers empty there keepnets into one for a photo of a bulging net.

I haven't seen the photo in the Mail yet so I don't know what caption was used but I could hazard a guess...

[]

Dave

 

[Lid]

I suppose I am guilty of a similar thing. [:I] Way back in 1977, when I was 16 me and friend went on a camp in Scotland next to the River Feschee close to where it joins the River Spey and near Loch Inch. It wasn't primarily for fishing, but we took our fishing gear and did a fair bit, when we could. [}]

We only caught small pike and the odd trout, and I think we had been asked to kill the pike. Anyway one day some-one came to make a film (no videos then) to show schools how great these camps are and he wanted to film us catching a fish.

Now it had rained overnight and the river was up about 2'. The prospects were poor, so I suggested re-catching a couple of dead pike we had stashed by our tent. This was agreed, so he filmed us fishing and then my mate cast out a dead pike and played it back in for the camera. The trouble was that when I landed it for him, it looked rather lifeless, seeing as it was a day or so dead.

I never saw the finished film. []

Lid []

 

[TINY]

Thats a very sad report guys[]
It would be nice for the veiws of the "stars"on this one[]

Andy.

 

[Chopper]

I haven't bought any of the monthly magazines for a long time as they just seemed to be stuffed full of carp fishing and advertisements.

But I do recall when I did buy them some of the features. If one of the guys featured did have a bad day it was reflected in the mag, ie photo's of just a couple fish and an explanation of what went wrong, conditions etc and what he could have possibly done to have increased his catch and to help get a better result next time he fished the venue.

I strongly disagree with what went on in the original post and it just shows that most magazines/papers are full of rubbish.

It's no good seeing 'stars' bagging up all the time, it doesn't work like that, everyone has a bad draw or a bad day occasionally.

I don't think one guy hooking a fish and passing his rod to his mate to land is really a big issue, I'm sure lots of Dads will do this when fishing with young sons, ok, it causes a little bit more greif for the fish but not really a big issue.

I do like to get the fish back in the water as soon as poss but they are capable of living out of water for probably more than 30mins, for example these specimen carp that get stolen get put in ruck sacks and driven 30+ miles away and put back into another venue.

You should see how they treat fish in Europe and the rest of the world, you aint seen nothing over here!

I think the most cruel thing an angler can do is live bait, shoving big trebble hooks through a fishes spine and/or tail and then leave it slowly dying and suspended just to get chewed up by a pike.

But that's another issue!!

Lee Saville - Colmic Team Ossett

Individual 2002 World Club Champion, Zagreb - Croatia.
Individual 2002 Angling Times North East Region Winter League Champion.
2001 Embassy Division 1 National Team Champions.

www.colmic.com

 

[AL_Peters]

I recieved the following reply this morning form the editor of iycf as i am not going to let this rest and i am taking it as far as my finaces will allow i have started by writing to all the angling publications, as i said in my previous post all anglers have bad days and will continue to do so i don't care how good they are, the magazines should show this when selling there product they would get a lot more respect instead of leading a lot of gulable anglers in to thinking they bag up on every venue they fish what i saw the other day sickened me and the more i think about it the more angry i become here is the letter of Kevin

Hello,

Thanks for your letter. I for one would be extremely annoyed to hear of anything like you describe occurring on a feature for Improve Your Coarse Fishing.

Certainly when our permanent staff and photographers do features, you canrest assured this kind of thing never happens, but you have given me a timely reminder to stress to our freelancers not to do it either.

Thanks again, and best regards

Kevin Wilmot

In answer to your questions

1. no carp mats where used
2. lee i have sent you a pm

At the end of the day if thats what they have to do to sell there magazines then to be honest i won't be buying any more and my subscriptions will be cancelled, but having said that they do have a right to reply and it will be very interesting to see if any of the publications have the bottle to publish the letter because if the letter is not published i will have all my answers [].

I have given Kevin wilmot the Address if this thread and i will post it on to Tim at Anglers mail hopefully they will reply on here to.

Happiness is playin wif yer rod

 

[AL_Peters]

Quote from LEE : I don't think one guy hooking a fish and passing his rod to his mate to land is really a big issue, I'm sure lots of Dads will do this when fishing with young sons, ok, it causes a little bit more greif for the fish but not really a big issue.

I do like to get the fish back in the water as soon as poss but they are capable of living out of water for probably more than 30mins, for example these specimen carp that get stolen get put in ruck sacks and driven 30+ miles away and put back into another venue.

I strongly disagree with you here mate i personally dont care if a fish is ok to be left out of the water for 30 mins its wrong and so is passsing a rod down 2 pegs to a angler and letting a fish run again and again when it could have been landed for a glory shot as for dads passing there rods on to lads how on earth are they going to learn there craft bt doing that its not about dragging fish in its about learning the craft to be able to catch fish and learning by your mistakes i for one would never pass my rod on to a child or any other angler full stop.

Happiness is playin wif yer rod

 

[Ian C]

Hi AL,

Although I'm appauled, I can't honestly say I'm shocked!
I read articles and watch the fishing programmes with a certain degree of "hmmmm".
Angling is big money, so big in fact I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at the total spent on angling in a year as it must be astronomical! And the companies and magazines all want their share, so they will probably go to some lengths to make it appear that their bait/tackle/venue/magazine is the best, so that we go out and spend our hard earned cash on their stuff. (Anyone familiar with the saying...don't sell the bacon, sell the sizzle?)
I can understand why you haven't named the angler (

) concerned, but I'd love to know who it was. By the way, did I tell you I love anagrams? [][][][][]
I'd just like to add that I thought your report was excellent

Ian C

 

[AL_Peters]

The reason i didn't name the Angler is i did not want Dave (owner of MD) to get in lumber or i would have done beleive me mate i would.

Happiness is playin wif yer rod

 

[MALC]

Al,

Sadly it happens more than some people think.

Over the past 10 years or so i've witnessed various features being filmed for video's, mag's and the weeklies.

On one occasion back in the early days of commercials after fishing an open we were all asked to put any carp over 3lb into a couple of keepnets the owner had laid out in the lake.

Upon asking why we were told it was for a known angler to do a feature the following day and as he would only be there for 2 hours they wanted to make sure there was a net full of fish to photograph.

Needless to say me being me refused and tipped mine back to which the owner of the pools then told me i was banned from his fishery for not doing as he wanted.

A few weeks later the feature was in the weeklies telling how the star had caught 100lb+ net of carp.

Another instance was only last year when an angler done a feature at a certain 300lb+ British Waterways carp water near me and the feature quoted he was using and fishing in a totally different way to what he actually did.
He sat and fished with a certain pole and heavy rigs yet everytime the feature showed a close up of the rigs and pole used they were changed to totally different gear.

And thats a fact as i was sat chattering to him for the 5 hours he was there and had to keep moving out of the way for the photographer.

I saw the angler on an open a few weeks after the feature was in the mag and asked why all the B######T was printed and his comment was "well who believes everything they read".

It's the same with another certain fishery expert that fishes in the midlands almost every word that is printed in his articles are just total rubbish he says one thing yet you will never see him fish in that way.

Trouble is a lot of the top anglers do not try to hide things yet as in all walks of life the 1 or 2 in the minority are seen to be blatantly lying in their features and then all the good guys get tarnished with the same brush.




MALC

IT'S CATCHING ...BUT ARE YOU !!!

 

[AL_Peters]

Ditto Malc and as for you being banned they should ahve given you a free lifetime membership mate.

Happiness is playin wif yer rod

 

[Lid]

Malc. Well done mate!! It would have been good though if you had followed up your ban with a letter to both the local press and the fishing comics. .... Or did you do this anyway? I can understand a bit of 'poetic license' when making a video, we don't want to watch three hours of blanking, but what you were asked to do was downright outrageous!!

As to fish living 30 mins out of water, I would say the absolute maximum is 5 mins in Summer and 10 mins in Winter. Personally I put a fish back in the water to get their breath back if I end up keeping out for more than 3-4 mins.

A warning, particularly to younger or less experienced readers of this thread. Please do not attempt to keep fish out of water for more than a few minutes.

Dave
When there's enough info in this thread, why don't you send it to the angling
comics? Or perhaps some-one good with words could summarise the detail and write a letter. You never know, they might publish it. Then again pigs might fly.

Whoops, sorry AL, I missed your post where you say you are already doing this. [:I]

Lid []

 

[scouse]

hi al
why dont you send keith arthur
a email on tightlines or his
radio program fishermans blues
and see what he has to say[!]

dave

scouse (and proud of it)

 

[AL_Peters]

Whats his address dave ?

Happiness is playin wif yer rod