New fishing series on BBC 2

Got forwarded a release from the publisher of the book to accompany it. I assume this is pukka;

Charles Rangeley-Wilson is one of Britain's best-kept secrets. He's an angler, conservationist, traveller, and also one of our finest fishing writers and an award-winning journalist. He is also about to become a very familiar TV personality...

Published to accompany Charles's new primetime BBC TV series which is broadcast from Wed 18th October on BBC 2, The Accidental Angler takes us from the neglected, hidden rivers of London, to Bhutan, Icelandic moonscapes and even to the Seychelles - in fact pretty much anywhere a fishing rod leads.

Whether in the world's most outlandish and awe-inspiring places or just at the end of your road, fishing will introduce you to crabby weather and crabby locals, remarkable tales, and fantastic slippery beasts. And as Charles discovers, a fishing rod will break the ice with local - guides, farmers, shopkeepers, taxi drivers and bar-flies - and take you to the heart of the landscape in a way few other forms of travel can match.

In the book, The Accidental Angler, you'll visit 13 different places.
You'll
battle titanic monsters on a tropical atoll and make-believe sharks on the mushy-peas-and-gravy Wash. You'll chase inscrutable grayling through back gardens in Provence, or phantom sea trout in downtown Southampton. And you'll run away from pill-popping Icelandic farmers and find secret rivers hidden beneath the streets in London. This is a journey that makes the familiar new and the strange familiar.

So who's the Author and TV Presenter?....Charles Rangeley-Wilson is The Field's fishing correspondent and contributes regularly to Gray's Sporting Journal, America's leading literary outdoor magazine.. In 2000 he won the PPA (Periodical Publishers Association) 'Specialist Features Writer of the Year'
Award, and in 2001 was short-listed for IPC Media 'Writer of the Year'
Award.
In 1997 he was a founder of the Wild Trout Trust. The WTT is a charitable trust promoting restoration and conservation work on degraded rivers.
It has
2000 members, and is supported by English Nature, the Environment Agency and the National Trust.

Any positive exposure on television is to be welcomed. I have heard of Charles (sure he writes in Waterlog)and the world wide theme seems designed to create a cross between Chris Yates and Michael Palin.

Please pinch me and tell me it's true - fishing on the BBC and BBC 2 at that. What's the world coming to.

About time as well if its true.

BBC Dave well one thing for sure it will not be showing a northern river and definetely not a nothern angler so i will give it a miss.50 mile out of London and they get lost

Miserable old bugger!

Fred
If it was about you i would watch it me old mate






Just for the laugh

Great news, the more publicity and exposure for angling the better.

I've enjoyed the series up until tonights episode, cos it was supposed to be about catching a brown trout in London. But the Trout was finally caught in Loudwater Herts from a class A river. Last weeks offering from the Amazon was just brill mind, and the fact that he soldiers on with his fly fishing tacticts is just the nuts.

I enjoyed tonights program. The last 5 minutes or so was particularly good as it emphasised the fact that if we clean up our act, such miracles will happen.

His emotion at catching that trout was plain to see and I thought, projected a very positive message.






Not sure about his comment "if a trout doesn't turn up, I'll napalm the river" was wise!! But substitute trout with your chosen fish and I reckon we've all felt like that at one time or another!

I agree, Neil. What a tragic waste of our rivers, pumped dry by abstraction and treated like waste disposal units.

But I'm not sure about hhis definition of London - Hertfordshire isn't really london.

Incidentally, I once sat with a load of anglers right next to Canary Wharf and watched them put together a respectable net iof bream, so maybe it isn't too disgusting.

I thought tonight's offering was excellent. I guess I'm slightly biased, as I've carried out a similar 'crusade' around Manchester's once polluted rivers.

When he finally caught that little Trout it took me back to 2 years ago, when I caught my first Trout out of the Mersey.

Brilliant stuff, pity it was such a short series.

St. Catherines Dock (Tower Bridge) is stuffed full of fish (or it was a few years ago).

I worked just across the road and used to lunch there. Persuaded a boat owner to let me fish off his "pile" and caught over 40lbs of roach, bream and perch.

Bleedin missed it!!!

Not happy :-(

It was good Steve,best one yet IMHO.

24 was good tonight too.

As an ex-Londoner I felt that tonight's programme was far too negative about the Thames and other London rivers and canals. The River Lea, the Regents Canal and the Grand Union now provide fishing that is on a par with anywhere in the country but because he was after trout the coarse fishing wasn't really given the credit it deserved.
The fish population of the tidal Thames in London has for more than 20 years been prolific. I've had quite a few 40lb plus bags of roach and dace from the stretches at Kew and Vauxhall Bridge.
A good series but this episode didn't do it for me.

Excellent program but for one thing. Can we all wander around and climb fences to fish waters that we fancy without obtaining permission.

I felt it would have been better if he had at least mentioned that permission had been obtained first.

The fact that he had finally caught a wild Brownie, was what it all was about i suppose, but he forget to tell people that it was from a stretch of river that you would be more than unwelcome!!!!!