Angling Direct Staff Spotlight April – Steve Swan

This entry was posted on 23rd May, 2013

Read other posts from this series: Angling Direct Staff: Scott ‘Slayer’ Kingsley Angling Direct Staff: Nathan ‘Bumpy’ Highley Angling Direct Staff: Rob Shanks Angling Direct Staff: Steve 'Swany' Swan

Introducing…

Well its time for the latest instalment of the Angling Direct staff spotlight and this month we speak to Insurance Despatch manager Steve Swan, or ‘Swany’ as he more widely known . Steve has been a long standing member of the Angling Direct family, starting work originally at Norwich Angling Centre (before it became Angling Direct) when he was just 13!

I’ve known Steve since those early days, as when he worked in Norwich Angling Centre I worked in the Tom Boultons shop and I would guess, Steve would probably describe himself as a Carp angler, but there are many more strings to his bow as you will find out, reading this post.

He boasts a very impressive list of PB’s and if it has fins Steve will have either caught it, or will have tried to catch it!

Anyway, that’s enough from me; here are a few words from Steve himself, about his life in angling so far.

I started fishing when I was just 4 years of age, I think I was probably dragged along by my father, who was a keen angler and ever since I’ve had the bug.

In the real early days I started off as a match and pleasure angler, I suppose I followed in my Dads footsteps, as he was also a very keen competition angler! As most youngsters do, I started out fishing a few small club matches, with the odd larger open match on the river mixed in; probably my highlight was fishing the junior national championship at the age of 12. The match itself didn’t really go my way, but it was a fantastic experience at such a young age and it’s an achievement I am very proud of! However it wasn’t too many years after this event that my fishing changed, I’d had enough of catching small fish and wanted to take a dip into the specimen world.

Looking back I suppose this was partly due to the fact I’d started working a few hours at the local tackle shop, Norwich Angling Centre. I used to work a few hours after school on a Friday and on Saturdays, as you can imagine being the new boy I got all the glamorous jobs, cleaning the maggots, stacking the groundbait, counting the worms and making the tea, were just a few of my regular tasks!  Being surrounded by many good anglers (it was owned by the legendary Dave Plummer) probably sparked my specimen angling career.

My first taste of big Carp fishing came at the age of 14 , when I banked one just under twenty pounds from a local lake I’d recently joined, I fished the lake for a few years and managed quite a few nice fish. I think fishing the same lake regularly, enabled me to really fine tune my techniques and grow my skills, especially my watercraft, as I knew how to catch the fish, it was just a case of finding them.



At the age of 19 I left college and pondered my future, I didn’t know what I was going to do, as no longer would a part time job pay the bills! Luckily for me a full time position came up in the shop and I was given first refusal, this was an opportunity I grabbed with both hands! I started off working full time as a shop assistant, but as the business grew and when we moved premises (with Angling Direct) I started work in the insurance department. With the new job, a car and age on my side I was able to spread my wings and this is what I did and still do now!



In the past ten or so years Carp have been my number one target and I’ve been lucky enough to fish and to catch some fantastic waters, the likes of Kingfisher Lakes, Charity Lakes, Gunton Hall Estate Lake, Layfield Lakes, Bawburgh lakes and Costessey Pits. In this period I have also fished many different day ticket waters like Catch 22, A1 Pits, Linear Fisheries, Taverham mills, Taswood lakes and many many more.

Along the way I’ve also managed some very nice fish, a few angling highlights include landing the famous fish known as Single Scale from the ultra hard Pit No.3 at Taverham Mills, landing Kens Fish from the Bawburgh complex and landing the fish now known as ‘Babyface’ from the Lenwade charity lakes. Fishing these waters saw my PB rise many times through the years and it now stands at 39lb 1oz for a Mirror Carp and 34lb 4oz for a Common Carp.

Obviously fishing for Carp has taken up a lot of my hours on the bank, but I always make time for other species. I like fishing rivers for Barbell and Chub and once again I’ve been lucky enough to fish and catch from rivers like the Wensum, Trent, Thames, Bure and Yare. With the same dedication from my Carp fishing and eagerness to succeed I’ve also landed some nice specimens from the river, these include Barbel from the river Trent to 14lb 4oz, Pike from the River Bure to 28lb, Zander to 8lb 4oz  from the Fens and Roach to 2lb 8oz from the River Yare. I have also spent a little time on the rivers trying to catch Carp and have managed to catch fish to over 30lb.

With Stillwater and Flowing water covered I also occasionally turn my hand to fishing in Saltwater, only from the shore though as Boats and me do not go well together! A few times every year I’ll spend some evenings down the beach, it’s extremely relaxing and is totally different to what I’m used to, there’s also a massive sense of the unknown!

I suppose my overall angling mentality is to try and catch the largest fish of the particular fish I’m fishing for, and as you’ve probably read this could be a Barbel, Carp, Tench, Chub or even Bass!

My current PB list is written below and its something I’m always trying to update, there’s also one fish missing from the list that I have my sights set on and that’s the Grayling! Hopefully you may see me back on these pages in the near future with me proudly holding one!

Pb list

Roach 2.8lb Pike 28.8lb Mirror carp 39.01lb Common carp 34.4lb Fully scales carp 28.8lb Leather carp 28.8lb Catfish 26.0lb Tench 8.8lb Bream 12.10lb Zander  8.4lb Perch 2.15lb Barbel  14.4lb Chub 7.4lb

Steve's Tackle Box:

Daiwa Entoh X-Line Flurocarbon Delkim Txi Plus Bite Alarms Greys Prodigy Carp Rods Mainline Boilies