A Passion For Angling - The Complete Series

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Just two weeks ago I was fishing with Chris on the River Wye and he caught his first ever Wye barbel … only 7+lbs but a beautiful fish in a glorious corner of our countryside. 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. Amazing really, for twenty one years after ‘Passion’ was first aired on BBC2 [Sept 1993] it is still going strong. Most TV programmes are dead in the water after a year or three but thanks to the fact that many of you still think these films are the best series of fishing programmes ever made, Bob and Chris and their adventures live on. We started filming in 1989 so as my wife Sue says ‘everything is a long time ago’! If you want to read more about our year and conservation issues, please visit our blog … we have had 67,000 views already so some of you obviously have time to waste … http://hughmiles9.blogspot.co.uk/ We felt that the ‘Passion’ films had to include the famous record carp water, Redmire. In fact, my initial plan was to only make one film but our time at that magical pool was so idyllic and so successful that I convinced Bob and Chris that we ought to make a series of six films. After a further four years of hard graft, they were both wishing that they hadn’t agreed!

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. Sadly for them, Chris and I have decided to go fishing instead of making more films for the series …

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We all became great friends and would have included Bernard in every ‘impossible’ challenge but he was very busy at the time, chasing David Tennant’s Dr Who round the film sets at night. Even worse, he was suffering from cancer and had to put up with chemo every week. How he managed to successfully battle big carp and 20lb pike after all those challenges was remarkable. 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 ] 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.

CARPOLOGY: I know you can’t say where the lake is, but could you paint a picture of what it looked like… the size and shape etc?HUGH MILES:“I was up on the scaffolding and we saw the fish approach. We’d agreed a signal, Chris whistled, the line tightened and it all went solid. Then ping! “Shall we go and have a cup of tea?” I think Bob said straight after! Martin caught so many big fish that it’s difficult to believe but I was there with the camera to record the truth and we all know the camera never lies don’t we! Among our targets was a forty pound carp on the float, a fifteen pound barbel, a seven pound chub, a one pound dace, a ten pound tench, a thirty pound pike and a perch of over four pounds. proving ever more popular, even in countries as far flung as Alaska, Russia and Brazil. So if you’re Mr James, 47, said yesterday he was saddened by the episode, after eight years working with the ACA, and that he had fallen foul of a wider jealousy in the world of angling. Fishing yesterday with his close friend Mr Tarrant, he said: "Both my wife and I are very sad that it came to this. We absolutely deny that we did anything wrong. But there are lots of people out there who have become green-eyed monsters.

This is a series that follows the adventures of Martin Bowler as he attempts to catch some of the biggest fish in Britain, the targets for the many species being of a size that might attract the impossible tag. Of course, nothing is ‘impossible’ and I hoped that Martin would prove this to be true! He is accompanied by narrator and ace angler Bernard Cribbins … when Bernard had the time to spare from his hectic schedule, especially when filming Dr.Who… and as they say, “didn’t they do well’! A Passion for Angling (with Rodger McPhail), BBC Books/Merlin Unwin Books 1993 ( ISBN 978-0563367413) I’m bound to say that because I filmed and produced them, along with funding their production but because so many folk write complimentary letters constantly assuring us that they are the best fishing films that have ever been made, who are we to argue! Thank you for your continuing enthusiasm for what has become a cultural icon, “A Passion for Angling”. I mention the perch last as Martin had already caught twenty-three perch of that size and we thought it would be easy to achieve. Wrong! The challenge nearly broke our resolve but in the end we didn’t just hit the target, Martin actually caught a perch of five pounds four ounces. The Angling Times informed us that it was the biggest perch ever caught from a river, [not any more], but at the time we were blown away by it’s size – and we still are!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 also filmed a gudgeon match ‘to the death’, the pair reluctantly punting out into the hallowed waters through the mist as the sun was rising. Chris doesn’t do early mornings so it was a struggle, even if we did capture the most evocative summer sequence in the whole series. Chris had harboured this crazy idea for years but had been ‘dissuaded’ by the various syndicates to try it. I was much more liberal and jumped at the idea. The plan was to place a manikin in the shallows in the area where he had caught his record fish. It would be dressed in Chris’s coat and hat and be holding a rod. Once installed, we baited the spot for several days and the carp became habituated to this silent, stationary ‘angler’ and ended up feeding within a couple of feet … a lesson there for our modern day impatient and noisy angling.