Wintle's World ? Location

Some nice fishing there Mark.Well done.

I think though we should gaurd against devaluing good fish that come from more well known waters.Whilst it is always satisfying to catch good fish far from the madding crowd, a lot of anglers do not have the intimate knowledge of their local rivers that Mark has built up over the years and Throop and the like offer their best chance of a truly outsize fish. That is no criticism of Mark,merely an observation.A 6lb chub ior 2lb Grayling is worthy of merit wherever it comes from.After all the fish cannot choose where it lives!

Nigel,

The big difference to me is that the fish come from the quiet waters that I fish. The swims are unknown. There is no keeper to point out the hot swims. You have to do the hard work yourself by fishing the water to learn where the fish are. On Throop the swims are incredibly well known with plenty willing to help you. The huge amount of bait going creates an artificial situation of a massive concentration of big chub that is not found elsewhere on the same river. There is merit in a 6lb chub from Throop but allow for the fact that it produces fish over 8lbs (one last Sunday rumoured of 8-03!) and a 6lber looks like a 4lb fish elsewhere. The upper Stour stretch I often fish has yet to produce a 4lb fish for me though I don't doubt they exist in there. As for grayling; I have fished that stretch of Frome since 1970 but because the fishing is generally poor nowadays I don't bother much but every 15 years it somehow producess a few grayling over 2lbs which is why finally nobbling one is so satisfying bearing in mind my previous best from that stretch was 1-08. It is much easier to build up an impressive PB list by fishing all the going waters and there are plenty that do that but it doesn't mean much to me personally. Another instance is that I had is being privileged to fish a good crucian water a couple of times this season and getting far more big crucians in two sessions than I get the rest of the season. I know where it really matters - when I get one from my heavily fished local pit.