I guess like most lifelong and marginally obsessed anglers – when we aren’t actually fishing, preparing to go fishing or talking to our mates (boring our families) about fishing – we fill in the gaps by reading about fishing. Christmas is a good time to give and receive books so here are my choices for ones you might like to consider this Yuletide.

End Peg by Peter May

This delightful little book on the Highs and Lows of a life in match fishing on the Upper Thames had an obvious appeal for me as someone who grew up further down the Thames Valley and learnt my craft on God’s Own River. But it really is so much more than just a parochial chronicle of the exploits of the author Peter, match secretary Danny, Steve, Andy and the good folk of Plough Angling Club and their various trials and tribulations as they strive to put together a match fishing programme for the year. End Peg is structured around 12 significant days in the life of Peter and his beloved club as they struggle with appalling weather, Environment Agency inspired vandalism of their favourite chub pegs, teams of demonstrably better anglers, pole crushing pensioners and decidedly uncooperative fish. Anyone who has match fished for any length of time will identify with these charmingly told stories and will see, in Peter’s perceptive descriptions of his fellow anglers, many of the characteristics of our own fishing mates.

The massed ranks of the trophy winners of the Plough Angling Club

Interwoven into these tales are some interesting digressions examining some of the background and history of angling including Victorian gudgeon parties, the trade in bleak pearls, how we ended up with close season and the quirks and superstitions that afflict so many anglers. And from time to time we are regaled with quotes from literary luminaries including Izaak Walton – the godfather of fishing and, more obscurely, the fascinating advice on tackle choices to be found in Coburn’s Kalendar of Amusements in Town and Country for 1840. Looking at the array of cultural and historical references that illuminate these stories I’m beginning to think that the author may well be the best read match fisherman of modern times.

End Peg is nicely illustrated throughout

For me the appeal of Peter May’s book is not just the engaging journey through the club match calendar or even his descriptions of stretches of my favourite river which I myself have fished – it is those beautifully told tales of the people and places that turned us into lifelong anglers. His grandfather who fished the Thames at Abingdon and whose knowledge and passion was passed down to his mustard keen grandson, keener to catch numbers of fish than sit patiently waiting for a big one. Or the local hardware shop which doubled as a tackle emporium where us kids would buy 10 pence of maggots to store in our white lidded Efgeeco bait boxes. Which of us who ever fished competitively cannot identify with the satisfaction of lifting a bulging net of sparkling river roach onto the scales or watching dial on the scales swing round to announce the day’s winner (or loser) by a mere, and cruel, few ounces?

There is humour too. The inevitable domestic dramas with escaping worms, disgusting smells and frosty looks from long suffering wives. The bankside banter and practical jokes which turn a poor fishing day into moments of enjoyable suffering in the company of good friends.

Read this book. It may be one man’s homage to angling but it explains, in finely crafted prose, why we fish and why we always will

End Peg by Peter May is published by Merlin Unwin Books who kindly offer a 20% discount to Angling Trust members purchasing through their website. Details can be found here –

https://anglingtrust.net/membership/discounts-tackle-and-books/ and https://merlinunwin.co.uk/products/end-peg

Monsters of River and Rock by Adrian Smith

Adrian Smith is my type of angler. He is utterly compulsive, will fish for anything that looks good and pulls hard and won’t let a little thing like a stellar career with Iron Maiden – one of the ‘most influential and revered rock bands of all time’ – get in the way of a day’s fishing. But I should start with a confession. I’m no Heavy Metal fan boy. In fact I can scarcely name an Iron Maiden song, despite their having sold a staggering 130 million albums worldwide and winning countless musical awards. If truth be told I’m more likely to be found listening to Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan than their rock classic The Number of the Beast. However, I have heard about Adrian’s worldwide fishing exploits. You see Iron Maiden’s lead guitarist is not just a keen angler but a very good one. He can also tell a good tale which is the main reason why this book is such a great read.

Adrian Smith – Being a rock legend is apparently no barrier to becoming a successful angler and author

Woven into each chapter are the various fishing adventures that Adrian manages to squeeze in between Iron Maiden gigs around the world. I guess being in a global rock band with a private plane does give you the opportunity to sample some of the more exotic fishing destinations out there. But this is an angler from humble traditions who retains a love for his coarse fishing.

Adrian was born in East London in 1957 and grew up in Clapton. His angling mentor was his dad Fred, who took him fishing on the Grand Union Canal as soon as he was big enough to hold a rod. Like so many of us he began his angling career happily catching small perch and roach before seeking out bigger challenges. Adrian’s mother, Kathleen was from County Mayo in Ireland and, like her husband, loved music. She was apparently an accomplished violinist in the great tradition of Irish folk music. So it’s not hard to see why the young Adrian Smith was likely to grow up with a love of both music and fishing. And now he’s written a book that combines his two great passions.

A double figure tench from the Colne Valley pits

Heavy Metal aside I found myself identifying with many of Adrian’s angling exploits. I share his love for barbel, chub and tench (carp not so much) and I’ve also had the good fortune to experience the thrill of fly fishing for bonefish in the tropics, catching huge sturgeon in Canada and chasing big predators in the sort of places we can only dream of as kids. But for me the most engaging tales are his carefully crafted and successful campaigns to track down specimen barbel from the Thames at Windsor, huge tench from a well known, and difficult Colne Valley gravel pit, giant chub from the Colne itself and carp almost everywhere he went. Including, we discover, in Paris while Iron Maiden were recording yet another best selling album.

Adrian with a monster chub from a favourite Thames tributary

This book, which has been around for a while now, is well worth adding to your collection. It reaffirms that comforting knowledge that however successful, or not, we become in our ‘other lives’ – underneath it all we remain passionate and committed anglers with the same dreams that keep drawing us back to the water’s edge.

Monsters of River and Rock by Adrian Smith is published by Virgin Books and is available from Amazon here – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Monsters-River-Rock-Maidens-Compulsive/dp/0753554070