Euro Fishing: Clint Walker - Northern Angling Show

It’s been a pretty monumental week for me this week, with some very good results, and not all of them on the bank! I’ve had some great fun at the Northern Angling Show with the team from RAD Angling. I always enjoy the Northern Angling Show, its full of very friendly anglers who enjoy some top brand deals and get to meet a few of the ‘celebrity’ turns who frequent the angling world. On a personal note, I met Jeremy Wade for the first time after we discovered his pitch directly opposite ours on the first day of the show, and found him to be a very personable chap. I have no idea how he finds the patience to have a similar minute long chat with everyone who queued to visit him, but he maintained an affable demeanour throughout the whole day, and when you consider that some for two hours to meet him, you can imagine how many times he posed for photographs, and how many books he signed!

But it wasn’t all about television personalities; for me, it’s about meeting other anglers who share similar interests, and whilst on the RAD Angling stand, accommodating those who would like to find out more about the top quality carbon bankware on offer. I have to say that I was humbled by the number of people who came to see me for a chat about my writing too, to enquire about the work I do for Carp-Talk, Angler’s Mail and more, and it was lovely to meet some of you who have emailed or contacted me via social media face to face! Thank you.

As much as I enjoy the show, it’s incredibly hard work, and its testament to the organisers that the queue to get in snaked around much of the car park and beyond. Initial estimates vary between 14-18000 anglers over the weekend, so as you can imagine, it’s non-stop from the minute the doors open, with very little chance to grab a drink or a snack until the doors close again 9 hours later! I love it, and hope that all those who attended did too!

So, in the aftermath of the show, as I sit writing this after a microwaved Sunday lunch, I can reflect on a great weekend. I’ve met up with some good chums for banter and giggles and had introductions to others who I hope will become friends in the future, or with whom I may be able to work at some time. I’ve got sore feet, a dry throat, and backache, eyes that sting and ears that buzz, but it really is superb fun, and if you ever get asked to ‘do’ a show on behalf of a sponsor, then go for it, try it, and enjoy it!

A couple of weeks prior to the show, I was contacted by a gentleman named Andrew who manages much of what goes on at Deeper, makers of the handy little castable sonar which can be used by anglers to map lakes and find fish. I had one of the original Deeper products when they first hit the UK market, and made extensive use of it to find a couple of spots on a target water which held fish; brilliant! As a result of the initial contact, I was invited to join the official Deeper team of anglers, become an advocate for the brand to help showcase the product range on the bank and elsewhere. I was very pleased to accept and took delivery of the brand new Deeper Pro+ and accessories just prior to the show.

I had chance to get an hour on the bank and took my new gadget to a nearby lake to check it out. A hugely improved connectivity range now means that it can be cast to around 100m, and the user can still expect to receive information via WiFi technology! It works at depths to 80m and has a plethora of functionality to allow users to pick up likely fish holding spots, find fish, analyse bottom features, and perhaps most interesting of all, create a real time GPS map of the water in which you are fishing, which can be stored for later date! In truth, I only took it out for a short period of time just to get some product photography ‘in the bag’, but after I’d completed the images, I had chance to explore just a small section of the lake, and was pleased to find some fish holed up… I’m not telling you where though, you’ll just have to get a Deeper to find out!