34 | 9 JULY anglersmail.com
DAVE COSTER
ThMail’s top tactician has been innovating tackle and tactics for decades.
Tever tricks that he uses on the bank will make a big difference to your catches.DAVE COSTER
The Mail
The clever tricks that he uses on the bank will make a big difference to your catches.Rubbing
shoulders
with the
very best
Through my work with Angler’s Mail and
involvement in the fi shing tackle industry, I have
met and fi shed with many famous names in the
world of angling. Some are still here, others sadly
departed, but I will always fondly remember those
who infl uenced me the most.
I fi rst saw Ivan in action on a big
match at Holme Pierrepoint in the
1980s. He was a few pegs away from
me, and I could easily tell it was him,
as he had a massive crowd standing
behind him, cheering every time that
he caught a fi sh, or when he cast a
bomb inch perfectly into the centre
of some ripples created by a ball of
groundbait that he had catapulted
out moments before.
I couldn’t believe what I was
seeing. He was playing to the crowd,
laughing, joking and having great
banter with them, but also fi shing
like the maestro that he was.
I met him again in Denmark, when
fi lming the BBC2 series Hooked. We
were both contestants, and ended up
sitting next to each other on a coach
trip to one of the venues. Ivan quickly
took me under his wing, explaining
some of the things that made him
one of the most successful match
anglers in the history of angling.
The last time I saw Ivan was
not long after he’d had a heart
transplant. He was in London, so we
met up for a curry, and he was still
as effervescent as ever. I think we
nearly drove my wife mad with all the
non-stop fi shing chat that evening.BOB NUDD
Once I got into the
swing of match fi shing,
I managed to win an
event at Stonebridge
Locks with a good bag
of waggler-caught
chub from a swim near
to where a famous
sunken barge used
to be.
Bob Nudd and
Peter Clapperton then
turned up, asking
me if I would like to
join Essex County.
It was the late ’80s,
and they gave me the
chance to be part of
the successful Van den
Eynde-sponsored era
during the early ’90s,
culminating in winning
just about everything.
I owe a lot to Bob, who is
not only a great tactician, but
understands how to let anglers
develop in their own way. He
would often stop and have a
chat with me about what to do
on big team events. I will never
forget when he told me before
an important drain match that I
was fi shing for second place in
my section, because there was
a ‘fl yer’ peg next to a bridge to
contend with.
I fi shed a reasonably safematch, catching plenty of roach,
but nowhere near enough to beat
the 10 lb target that Bob said the
bridge swim always produced.
Every now and then I switched
to a heavy rig down the margin,
hoping to catch a stray tench.
Right at the end of the match,
a desperate last attempt for a
big fi sh paid off, and I won the
section. Bob was the fi rst to
congratulate me. “Brilliant,” he
said. “I didn’t tell you to do that
because I knew you would!”When I had a busy tackle shop
in North London, my business
partner, Tony, who didn’t fi sh,
shouted out one day: “Dave,
there’s some geezer called JohnWilson on the phone and he wants
to speak to you.”
The customers that were
standing at the counter all went
quiet, mouths open in awe. ThatIVAN MARKS
Not only was he a hugely successful match angler, Ivan liked helping
others to catch, too.
JOHN WILSON
Three-times World Champ Bob Nudd is
pictured here with a net of fi sh that helped
him to win his second world title, in 1991.TV’s Mr Angling – the dearly
departed John Wilson.