Avid small stream fisher Gary Cullum blows off the excesses of Christmas Day by donning his waders, grabbing his 50-year-old Lucky Strike cane and heads off to his local stream in search of an elusive pound roach before breakfast...

As most of you will know, carp generally move around a lot less in winter than they do in summer. So the usual advice is to fish as close to them as possible, and keep your groundbaiting patterns, if any, very tight.

Sound advice, and fine if you know where the fish are. But what if you don't know where they are? I bet there are more people reading this who won't know where they are than will. I'm one of them. What I'd like to do in this article is to offer some alternative thoughts to the normal winter articles, but excluding the long session approach which, on most waters, will probably pay off in the end whatever you do. I'm not claiming vast catches of winter carp. If you want to catch many carp in winter, you'll have to fish the easier waters, and even then you'll probably have to put the hours in. The following may help put the odd fish on the bank. I think the odd fish is what most people are after in winter anyway.

Humans are very complicated animals! They have evolved traits that probably no other animal in the world possess, and two that come readily to mind are, a conscience, and deep emotion. The human conscience is probably unique, and yet, something that humans quite happily ignore. They have an ability to often foresee the result of their actions, something that must also be fairly unique, and yet often refuse to change course, even though they may appreciate that the consequences will be detrimental to them personally: arrogance?

Some Yates' aficionados don't rate Falling in Again, claiming it isn't up to the quality of some of his earlier works. I for one don't wholly agree with these sentiments. It is certainly better than How to Fish, Yates's last book - which I was very disappointed with.

So, you care about the fish?
Well then, say the antis, why are you sticking hooks in them?

Over recent years, few game anglers can have failed to hear about Czech Nymphing - a seemingly all-conquering grayling tactic for fast & deep water. This article aims to briefly describe the approach and flies utilised, and is based largely upon my own experiences of the last three or four years.