About Me

In the Beggining...

I began angling at the tender age of  7 after I was introduced to the sport by my Uncle Doug a mad keen Angler, I was lucky enough that my house was an ex flower mill and as such just happened to have a mill pond and river as my back garden! My uncle used to come and fish and I would be fascinated by what he was doing, he soon took me under his wing and before I knew it I was trotting for dace and roach using stick floats. Over the next few years I fished our little bit of the river almost exclusively learning such skills as stret pegging along the way.

When I was 11 years old my uncle Doug introduced me to Carp & Pike, Ill never forget the day, I was in bed and I was awoken by my mum at the crack of dawn “Your uncle Doug is here, do you want to go fishing with him, he is going Carp fishing?” Are you kidding?! I was out of bed in a flash and before I knew it I was at my uncles syndicate lake. I caught my first proper fish that day, a 13lb 9oz Mirror Carp  and that as they say was me well and truly hooked! (Right)

I had many angling adventures with my uncle, I caught my first Pike a year after with a fish of 12lb and this further filled my ‘Passion for Angling’

Over the next 20 years or so I would go on to catch Carp to 52lb 12oz, 2 x UK Pike over 30lb and many other specimen sized fish.

Cobbleacre Lakes

My real goal though, like many others was to actually make a living out of angling and my chance came when I was offered the full time fishery managers job at my local lake Cobbleacre in Norfolk, I was in the RAF at the time but they agreed to let me go 3 weeks early as it was an opportunity of a lifetime. I spent the next 8 years at Cobbleacre turning it from a few untidy holes in the ground into one of Norfolk’s and indeed UK’s finest mixed fisheries with holiday caravans, tackle shop and shower facilities. During this time I wrote a couple of articles for the Angling times and was the midlands correspondent for the Midland Angler Magazine. It was during my time at Cobbleacre that I earned my level 2 coaching certificate through the ADB, to date I have coached over 1000 kids!

Back Home

I left there and returned back to my Midlands roots and worked part time with Dr Bruno Broughton, a leading fishery consultant. Whilst working with Bruno I helped grow and harvest Carp in growing ponds around the UK and decided that I wanted a piece of the action!

To cut a long story short I was lucky enough to acquire an ex club water near to Ansley, Warwickshire which consisted of 2 established fishing lakes and 3 recently dug pools (Ideal for growing fish). I gave up the leese on the day ticket ponds now but still have 8000 fish growing in my stock ponds, I have 3 year classes of Carp between 1lb and 15lb.

Back to Fishery management!

I am now running my angling academy which is really flying at the moment, I am also doing more writing and obviously keeping my hand in the fishery management business by working with Jon Wall fisheries and of course I have got a few pools of my own to keep me busy!