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| at 5lb4ozs a simply awesome perch from the Great Ouse - almost impossible |
There is nothing that is
‘impossible’ of course, not when it comes to freshwater fishing … and Martin
Bowler and friends proved this when we made our series of nine films for Ch 4.
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| a tench fishers double delight |
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| an estate lake tench for Bernard as described in our book |
E
verything is a long time ago
when you’re my age and when we started filming this series with Bernard
Cribbins on July 22nd 2004, little did we know that like 'A Passion
for Angling’, our series would still be going strong more than fourteen years
later.
Our name ‘Catching the
Impossible’ was part catchy title and part a challenge to see if we could catch
huge fish to order, preferably with under-water images to match … but the idea
of a three-pound river roach was our most wildly optimistic target.
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| the incomparable Terry Lampard with our 3lb5oz River Stour roach |
The fact that our close
friend Terry Lampard actually achieved that impossible task on film is
testament to his skill and determination, for it equalled his PB and at the
time was probably the only three-pound roach in the River Stour. It was an
amazing day and will always remind us of our sadly departed friend.
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| yet another 7+ chub for Terry and our cameras |
Martin Bowler probably
matches Terry in his angling skills and perseverance as well as proving to be
the best possible company in our long quest for the targets. He started well,
landing our fifteen-pound barbel on the upper Ouse within a few hours of our
cameras rolling.
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| another catch from our book with film clip details |
We’d set our hearts on a
forty plus carp and felt lucky that we caught a beautiful common that matched
Dick Walker’s famous Redmire record. We caught it stalking in the margins too.
The size of carp has
increased so much since then that I guess we would have set our ‘impossible’
target at fifty pounds but one fish that would always be a challenge is a
thirty-pound pike, not from a trout reservoir but an ancient estate lake.
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| job done and at 32lb 6ozs an 'impossible' pike that graced our series |
When we finally landed that
monster we knew that our four years of filming was complete … and in spite of
all the difficult challenges of big fish and poor weather we hardly had a cross
word and remain the best of friends.
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| happy days with Chris Yates plus roach and perch |
It was a remarkable and
unrepeatable adventure and one that lives on to this day in the three DVD’s
that Martin is selling in his on-line shop. There are three one-hour films on
each DVD and all are narrated by the incomparable Bernard Cribbins.
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| Bernard's 22lb plus of hard fighting pike |
He appears in many scenes and
never let us down when we needed him to catch. We’d have included him in every
scene as he and Martin got on like a house on fire but sadly, Bernard was busy
filming Dr.Who at the time, [I think he got his priorities wrong!] along with
TV and theatre work, so wasn’t available.
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| the boxed set of great fishing and wildlife which ... so we're told, won't dissapoint! |
If you want to share our
triumphs and disappointments, the three DVD’s are available individually … and
when we have made some more copies of disc 2 [it sold out] we will sell the
series as a boxed set with a slip case.
DVD’s =
£14 each + p&p
DVD’s X 3 = £42 for the set +
p&p
Martin also has copies of ‘A
Passion for Angling' for sale.
Hi Huge, I'm trying to track down the DVDs for this series. Do you have any left or know where I can buy them from?
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