A Passion For Angling - The Complete Series

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I use my blog to promote admirable activities like this, along with the work of the Angling Trust, the Catching the Impossible’ is a different kettle of fish, intentionally of course as I felt it ridiculous to try to

I'm working on a film for the Trust this winter, highlighting the excessive predation of our fish life by cormorants and the long term damage this may be doing to our bio-diversity. Without fish, our herons, grebes and kingfishers might decline, along with bitterns, and who knows, even those perennial favourites, our otters and ospreys might suffer too. We need a "Royal Society for the Protection of Fish" and the sooner our conservation organisations realise the urgent need to protect our rivers and lakes, the more likely we are to save our diversity of wetland wildlife. Like all creative endeavours, making films is an inexact art, there is no right or wrong … which is probably why I was able to earn a living making wildlife films! I have made over sixty now, for all the worlds major TV companies, so I guess I got some of it right. Whatever the truth, it was a privilege to go to so many wild places to share my life with charismatic animals and meet so many great guys and gals.

Thank you for your continuing enthusiasm for what has become a cultural icon, “A Passion for Angling”. Hugh Miles, Angling Trust Ambassador and film maker, said Bernard was a creative genius – and a very good angler. Yates was one of two central characters in BBC2's 1993 TV series A Passion for Angling, made by Hugh Miles and also featuring Bob James, in which the pair go fishing for carp, salmon and other species across Britain. The series was shown in many countries including Mexico, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Italy, Norway and Japan. [4] Radio [ edit ] The DVD is still available – and always will be – and is still considered by many to be the best fishing series ever made. Sales remain strong year after year, with new generations of anglers discovering that there is a whole world of fishing out there that doesn’t have to revolve entirely around carp, bolt-rigs and boilies. Most experiences are more enjoyable when shared with close friends and a May visit to Skomer Island with Robin, who I've known since childhood was particularly memorable, with puffins and flowers covering the island. Sharing the roach fishing with Trevor at Sway was always enjoyable and on two summer days I managed to catch sixteen two pound roach up to 2lbs 12oz, though the angling press ignored this story in favour of yet more carp stories - a sad reflection on their judgement of 'priorities' in angling.

A Passion for Angling (with Rodger McPhail), BBC Books/Merlin Unwin Books 1993 ( ISBN 978-0563367413) Passion’ was first shown on BBC 2 in September 1993 and it’s remarkable that it’s appeal lives on so strongly. Most TV programmes are dead in the water within a year or two but in spite of the BBC investing heavily in a new angling series recently called ‘Earth’s Wildest Waters - The Big Fish’, it seems inescapable that any films on angling get compared to the attractions so widely shared by our Passion enthusiasts. Our star anglers, Bob James and Chris Yates are understandably honoured that so many folk think PFA is the best angling programme ever made. Having filmed, written and produced the stories, I feel chuffed that this belief among so many lives on.Many in the angling world will remember Bernard as the voice of ‘Passion for Angling’ in which he described the adventures of Chris Yates and Bob James, and for his contributions in the ‘Catching the Impossible’ series with Martin Bowler, which featured some of the best angling films ever produced. Chris Yates is an angler, photographer, broadcaster, tea connoisseur and author born on 19 April 1948. He is a former holder of the record for the heaviest-recorded British carp, a 51.5lb specimen captured from Redmire pool in 1980. [1] Yates is a former co-editor (with Jon Ward-Allen) of Waterlog magazine, [2] and is a regular contributor to The Idler.

We all say it, but what happened to last year? It just flew by! It's been so busy that I don't know how I ever had time to spend my life making wildlife films. But thankfully, the year has been a lot of fun, not only because I got to make a few films - I love it - but also went fishing...not a lot...but being out there is always a treat, especially with close friends Trevor Harrop and Chris Yates. Also managed a few days fishing with friends in the summer. Our computer guru Chris Wild landed a PB roach of 1lb 15oz. Mahseer Magic pal Steve Darby joined me in some mullet madness, Gary Newman too. Martin Bowler joined me for some Avon barbelling and we had the rare treat of a get-together with Bernard Cribbins for a "Catching the Impossible" 'fluff-fling' on the River Test with friend John Slader. We caught lots of brown trout too. HUGH MILES:“We did see Harry once when they were up the tree and I was on the scaffold with the camera. There was a place where Harry (Teesdale) said that he’d seen him the previous week in the deep hole. That’s where he was and we just saw him poke his head out from underneath a patch of weed.There are also inland breeding cormorants, 2,096 at the last count in 2005, so the pressure on our freshwater fish is relentless and surely unsustainable. This is damaging our bio-diversity, and some rivers have already been denuded of their fish life. Members of the Avon Roach Project created a petition to attempt to change the law and make it easier for us to protect our wildlife from excessive cormorant predation. We plan to deliver the 16,000+ signature petition to the Fisheries Minister in February. I’m first and foremost a roach and rudd angler so was delighted in April when I beat my ‘best ever’ roach by an ounce, all 3lb 5ozs of silver beauty. Bernard with his beautiful 22lb snapper - it grew on to be over thirty pounds and was named Bernard!