Message from Hugh & Sue Miles 15th. September 2007

Dear All, Do hope you avoided the worst effects of our wonderful “summer” and kept your feet dry. The lack of sunshine certainly made filming difficult but that is of little concern compared with you poor folk who got flooded out. Firstly, thank you again for all your orders but above all for your many letters of praise and encouragement and even phone calls explaining your enthusiasm for “A Passion for Angling” and “Caught in Time”. I always pass these letters on to Bob and Chris and I know they appreciate them too. We’ll have lots of copies available for Christmas presents so if you have friends or fishing pals who don’t know where we are, please pass on our website details. One point of concern is the continuing illegal copying of ‘Passion’ for sale on Ebay etc. This is against the law and is stealing, so any thieves out there making copies should know that the police are coming after you. But I feel sorry for those who’ve been unfortunate to buy these counterfeit copies because they will be of seriously inferior quality. We are the ONLY suppliers of these titles so don’t encourage the thieves by buying rubbish... and thank you to those customers who have kindly informed us of these illegal copies. As the pictures alongside this indicate, we’ve been out with the cameras whenever the sun has shone to continue filming our new series “Catching the Impossible”. This portrait of angling has been three years in the making, with the eight one hour films revealing the underwater world of freshwater as never before, along with catching some seriously big fish. The Spring sunshine saw us on the River Dee with England’s Youth Fly Fishing captain Lisa Isles and I’m happy to report that Lisa recently returned from the World Championships in America with a Bronze medal, the team having beaten the hosts into fourth place - so congrats to you Lisa. We also filmed her fly fishing at Lechlade with Des Taylor, catching some beaut. brownies. May saw us in Scotland on the beautiful River Spey with Salmon and Trout Association chairman James Carr. The salmon proved elusive but we got lovely film of ospreys and red squirrels while catching brownies among the dippers and grey wagtails. We caught some gorgeous carp with Frank Warwick at Linear Fisheries near Oxford. Then Bernard and John Wilson had some fun trying to catch carp using a fly rod... quite tricky when the weather is cold but lots of laughter too - yes that laugh! Then we’ve just finished a sequence of ‘mullet mayhem’ in Christchurch Harbour, where the mullet gave us a serious beating... they sure can pull! So we’re still on schedule to complete the series by the winter of 2008. Still lots of editing to do so in the meantime, please go and catch a fish for me and enjoy. With best wishes, Hugh and Sue.

Message from Hugh & Sue Miles 22nd February 2007

‘Dear All, Thanks to all your orders, Sue had a busy time before Christmas trying to ensure you all received your DVD's for the festive season... we hope we achieved that. Inevitably it seems, there is always the odd one that goes missing when with the G.P.O., or that have technical faults, so if you are one of the unfortunate ones, please let us know. But whatever the cause, we will always replace problematic DVD's... and we still have lots of DVD's (and VHS's if you'd prefer) of both titles. As the new pictures indicate, we've been very busy filming the new series 'Catching the Impossible', our eight one hour programmes on the underwater world and the catching of some of Britain's biggest fish. Recent highlights included the madness of floodwater barbel fishing, inspiring underwater images of big carp wintering under some trees, big roach on the Hampshire Avon, River Wye piking, Young Abe catching his first... and second pike - a thirteen pounder, film of a kingfisher on the rod and Bernard Cribbins catching a large pike but more of that another time. We've also been out fishing with that famous big fish duo and close friends Terry Lampard and Tim Norman and you'll notice on our website details of Terry's book 'First Cast' and where you can purchase a copy. I can assure you that it is the best assembly of stories about big fish that I've ever had the joy to share. I used to fish with Terry and Tim for the same giant roach that lived on the River Stour in the heady days when we caught three pounders and that chapter is as good as anything ever written about fishing. And it was wonderful that last winter we filmed Terry catching a 3lb 5oz roach from the River Stour, his first three pound roach since 1990 and equal to his largest ever, as mentioned in his book. It really is a great read. Editing of the series is continuing day and night and the programmes are looking promising; we hope to have them finished by the winter of 2008. No time for me to go fishing but I'll be out roaching before the end of the season. Hope you're all enjoying life too. With best wishes, Hugh and Sue

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Message from Hugh & Sue Miles 25th November 2006

Message from Hugh & Sue Miles 9th July 2006

Dear All,

We do hope you are enjoying your fishing while we have been busy on our new project 'Catching the Impossible'. I have managed a few casts while filming, including the capture of three true crucians over 3lbs to a "PB" of 3lb 12ozs from a beautiful little lake in the Cranborne Chase. We filmed there with Chris Yates and Martin Bowler last week for programme one, and in another lovely lake nearby with Bernard Cribbins for programme six. The film looks gorgeous...early morning mist, sun kissed lilies and golden crucians and tench...in true 'Passion for Angling' style of course.

We still have lots of copies of 'A Passion for Angling' in both DVD and VHS, along with the portrait of Chris (Yates') favourite carp lake called 'Caught in Time'. so any orders will be with you speedily as Sue turns them round at least twice a week. We hear of several 'pirate' versions which is quite distressing as we need the small profit from each sale to help fund this new production. We are the ONLY suppliers of DVD's and VHS's so don't waste your money on inferior quality copies or on expensive 'ebay' purchases.

A lot has happened since our last message in November '05. Chris and I haven't had time to do any more filming for 'Caught in Time' Part II but Chris has now finished his new book 'How to Fish' and it will be available in all good book shops from the end of September. Chris has written an account of a days fishing on a river which becomes a story of his fishing philosophy. Perch and many other fish swim through the pages and it's a cracking read.

Our Snow Leopard film went out on ITV on Jan 2nd and we recieved dozens of messages from folk about how much they'd enjoyed it, so thankyou for those. It is most gratifying after more than four years of hard labour in the mountains to recieve such encouragement so we hope you'll enjoy our new series 'Catching the Impossible' as that will take four and a half years too!

We are nearly two years into the project and during the last six months we have filmed some remarkable events. As you'll see from our previous message our targets included a 30lb pike and a 3lb river roach...'not just impossible but crazy'. Well, on Nov. 30th we caught a 32lb 6oz pike and on Jan. 18th we fished with Terry Lampard and he caught a 3lb 5oz roach from the River Stour. On Dec 22nd Pete Reading caught a near 3lb grayling and on Jan. 26th Martin caught a 1lb 2oz Kennet Dace, followed by a 2lb 15oz roach from a lake near Oxford. As if that wasn't enough, Martin then caught a 5lb 4oz perch frm the Great Ouse - the biggest ever from a river according to the Angling Times - it's capture on a pole sure makes an impressive sequence. Then Des Taylor caught us a 39lb catfish and to cap it all Martin caught a 44lb 4oz common carp from a beautiful lake in Shropshire - on a float - and an Osprey came and fished in the background. So the series promises to be memorable. We have at least two years work to go but will keep you informed of progress.

Hope you enjoy the pictures in the gallery of some of our lovely fish.

With best wishes,
Hugh and Sue

P.S.
We have just received some great news from the U.S.A., our ‘Searching for the Snow Leopard’ film has been nominated for an EMMY, in the category for outstanding achievement in science and documentary... so fingers crossed!