Tours With Lures

Britain’s leading all-round angler loves taking on challenges at all kinds of venues. Read his triumphs and disasters, warts ‘n’ all, exclusively in AM.

- Steve Collett

I’VE got a saying that I nicked off a group of European carp anglers: ‘It’s okay not to pay.’ It relates to stretches of water that are free or uncontrolled at the moment.

I’m all for a bit of free water, in fact, one of the things that I’d like to put to our new governing body gaffer is that he grows the amount of free fishing in the next few years. I think, in turn, that could increase the number of anglers taking up the pastime a little. You try taking someone fishing these days, it ain’t half a bit of a faff trying to book a ticket or sort a guest ticket. Power to the people, I say, and increase the free fishing.

Now I’ve got off my high horse, this week I had all the good intentions of starting a mini-series, visiting various cities across the UK for a bit of dangling.

My first stop was going to be York, a place that’s steeped in history because of its river (the Yorkshire Ouse) and how the Vikings used it to their advantage to plunder the place. Well, I’m a Black Country lad, and I had hopes of plundering it for perch or pike.

I love fishing in town centers and cities, mainly lure fishing, because of its flexibility, and of course the mobility factor. You can fish for an hour, have a pint, fish for another hour and have another if that tickles your fancy.

I have done a fair bit of city fishing in Europe – Paris, Amsterdam, Gent, and many more – and I have enjoyed every single trip. You see, it’s not frowned upon over there. No one gives a hoot if you hop on a bus with a rod and net, and the freedom is amazing. You can fish just about anywhere.

It’s not just the fishing either, as that’s almost secondary. There are the characters, and the buzz around the place is a lot more interesting than fishing in Farmer Farquhar’s pond, filling his pockets with undeclared cash.