Angling on the BBC

Sorry for the quietness of late apart from a piking session earlier in the year I've barely wet a line due to being busy with filming (can't moan!) I'm hoping to get a fly fishing session in before christmas and small river chub fishing which has to be among my favourite angling techniques.

16lb Pike from Grantham Canal

Now I'm sure a few of you would of seen the recent BBC Angling Series 'Earth's Wildest Waters: The Big Fish' Its great to see angling back on the BBC for a full series the last one I remember is The Accidental Angler which was a great mini series.

Those of you used to Matt Hayes stuff on Discovery Shed or Quest will be in for a shock as this show is less heavy on the rigs and more about the people behind the rod and rightly so as the sort of shows more hardcore anglers like would never take off on terrestrial TV. Its got a bake off style to it and thats no accident as its the same producer! I think it juggles the mixture of actual angling and competition element quite well and have to say I did rather enjoy the series (despite not being picked as a cameraman!) 

Matt, Me & George

Matt comes across knowledgeable if a little under used but at the end of the day the show is about the contestants. I've had the pleasure of working with Matt and he's a genuine and friendly chap.

Lets hope its the start of something and see a few more fishing shows on the BBC though a UK one would be great to see. I don't think we'll ever see anything like A Passion for Angling again but in a way sometimes its best to leave things alone especially when you think how much angling and the UK's rivers have changed since it aired in the early 90's.

Zander with Matt Hayes

Today saw me wrapping up the last shoot for my Beneath the water line short film which is spilt into two parts the first part is myself presenting and roving around the country talking to various groups and individuals interested in freshwater fish a often over looked group of wildlife in the UK. The plight of eels, getting more attention for fish from nature reserves/NGOs, connecting children with wildlife and other stories including invasive species which brought me to the midlands fishing for Zander with Matt Hayes. The second part is getting footage of all 54 freshwater fish species in the UK (42 so far!)

I've watched Matts angling programmes since I started fishing in the early noughties and was fantastic to meet and wet a line with him. This was the last shoot of my film talking about non native fish namely Zander and if they are a problem or not which is a hot topic in angling. The difficult thing with invasive's in waterways is they are very hard to remove once established but should we remove zander? this was one of the questions I put to Matt.

As well as me filming my film, BBC Inside Out East Midlands came along to film some of the fishing with Matt as they are covering my work behind the scenes which will be on BBC later this year. On the whole the shoot went really well with a few fish bagged and despite being a bit wet the weather wasn't to bad. The film is now off to the edit room and will be released in April this Year.

Big thanks to Chris Lowe who's local knowledge was invaluable in finding the fish which we caught on the second cast! I also need to thank him for the pictures as I was to busy in front of the camera to take any!

These smaller Zander have superb colouration and average out at a few pounds in weight. Filming fishing as Matt well knows can be very frustrating so I was so relieved when the first Zander went into the net.

                                 Matt, Myself and upcoming cameraman George Howard

Zander are very difficult to film underwater due to them either living in murky water or deep down which is one of the main reasons I opted to fish for them to show on camera rather then underwater shots however I did manage some underwater work at Rutland Water last year.