WORDS

Dan Kilgour's name is synonymous with a couple of things, namely big hits of nuts and seeds and also catching big under the radar ones from difficult low stock waters around the valley. If you’ve ever wondered about the mechanics of prepping and priming an area, here’s a technical insight into exactly how Dan goes about it.

The only way to try to get through it all, is by recollecting all the precious moments you've experienced throughout the season, maybe from years gone by, all over again inside your head, and at some point it is about also imagining what lies ahead. Maybe with the help of photos, but they are just tools of aid, you must actually feel those mild and fresh mornings inside you, where that left hand rod suddenly curled around, and the bite alarm melted away in the misty morning sun, as if it would never cease. You get into some sort of...

Just one last brew; a quick cuppa and a catch up with Shaun, and a last farewell - so long and thanks for all the fish! It was the end of that journey, that particular angling chapter of my life. Friends had led me there, friendships had been forged there, fish had even been caught there, a pleasant and refreshing bonus. There were still plenty on ‘the list’, plenty I would have cut my right arm off for, but you can’t win them all. Circumstance, or fate, had conspired to take me from that little pocket of Berkshire dreams. I’d...

He may be a master of the ‘pig-skins’, but my old man is by no means a master of angling, in fact he’s crap, and I had no desire to emulate Buddy Rich, as it was his counterpart, Chris Yates, who captured my imagination. My dad did take me fishing though, and I can vividly remember the first trip, stopping to get sweets from a sweet shop called ’Lanes Tackle Shop’. He returned and passed me a brown paper bag, stuffed to the brim, and bizarrely taped shut at the top. I sat patiently and it must have been a...