Issue 135

In the latest edition of Classic Angling

* British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who thought he had won a guarantee of peace from Hitler, eased the extreme pressures of his job by going fishing at every opportunity
* The owners of Lang’s auctions have shocked the collecting world by announcing that they are retiring. What next for the world’s biggest fishing auction site, we wonder
* We solve the mystery of how three golden orfe came to be caught from the trout-rich waters of the river Test at Romsey in 1975
* The famous (and highly secret) Wood Pool made famous by BB’s book A Carp Water is undergoing restoration after many decades of neglect, we discover
* A 14lb thick-lipped mullet caught in a Welsh lagoon in 1979 should rightfully be the world record, we believe. We are forwarding a mass of evidence to the IGFA to support the claim
* Taimen, largest of the salmonids, could grow as large as 200lb, a wide-ranging new book on fishing in Russia discloses
* A brook trout plaque by Oscar Peterson, which made $70,000, was one of several works by the famed Michigan carver to reach a high price at auction
* The craze for everything camouflaged, from reels to boats, goes back far, far earlier than we realise. But does it really help anglers?
* Monkeys living in one of the world’s coldest regions survive the fierce winters by going fishing for brown trout
* Goldfish might seem harmless enough, but their spread is causing huge problems in lakes in Canada and the US
* An ultra-rare set of Louis Vuitton fishing luggage that sold for £5500 was the highlight of Mullock’s latest online auction
* Some amazing fishing trips to exotic venues are among the International Game Fish Association’s annual online auction
*A new book due out shortly will pays homage to the influential angling traveller Fred J Taylor. who wrote around 40 books, mostly on fishing
* Chris Sandford tells the story of how he managed to reunite the rod, reel and net used by Richard Walker when he caught his record 44lb carp from Redmire Pool
* Neil Freeman is astonished to find that salmon numbers enjoyed a bumper year in 2020. But what were the reasons for this?
* John Bailey started to worry that his move from Norfolk to the Wye Valley had been a huge mistake – until he found the barbel
* John Stephenson enjoys Christmas thanks to a wealth of rare and unusual items from one eclectic collection
* The spectacular Lang’s sale (the final one?) and Guyette & Deeter’s abundance of decoys dominate our auction pages
* John Drewett, forced to cancel his annual steelhead trip, finds action closer to home by spinning for pike while using a Hardy Super Silex
* Our fictional story about a US art gallery exhibition entitled A River Runs Through It has a happy ending for the curators– thanks to a carp
* Our letter pages discuss the late Jack Harrigan, shed some light on the tackle dealer William Brown and puzzle over the fate of the Thames Angling Preservation Society
* Our books pages range from works on Malham Tarn, crucian carp and Scottish salmon pools to Hardy stablemates, with our critics not pulling any punches
* Keith Arthur remembers his tackle-dealing days and golden times when a stretch of canal just outside London regularly threw up 20lb roach nets
Plus much, much more