IVAN MARKS: THE PEOPLE'S CHAMPION. HIS GREATEST EVER STORIES. By Ivan Marks.

2011 1st edition. 8vo (145 x 216mm). Pp312. Colour and b/w photographs. Grey paper-covered boards, upper board and spine titled in silver-gilt.

"I have often said that if you want to be a successful angler - pleasure man or matchman - you must think like a fish." (Ivan Marks, August 1976). "Ivan Marks wasn't just the finest match angler of his generation, he was perhaps the greatest of all-time. Throughout the 1970s and 80s he dominated the sport, claiming more big wins than anyone else alive and enjoying a profile that few, if any, have ever come close to matching... In this book, for the first time ever, you'll find the best of the weekly columns he wrote for Angling Times. He covers the big match wins, what it was like to fish for England, the success of the 'Likely Lads' and how he plundered Ireland during the glory years. There are also chapters on the tackle, bait and tactics he used to become the country's most famous angler." A great book that is now, unfortunately, out-of-print. Chapters include: Match fishing - the great peg debate, the Great Ouse championships, the Welland, First Division National, sponsors and bookies, secrets that won the Great Ouse match, Robert Tesse a great angler, the Severn, France, Denmark; fishing for England - my first England cap, 1974 World Championships, Stan Smith the Don Revie of match fishing; tackle - floats good and bad, line the most vital link, using a centrepin, swimfeeder secrets, poling can win anything, roach poles, go barbless you won't regret it; tactics - float control, tips for swingers, don't copy the cracks stick to your own style, winter bream, choose the right rod for tip fishing, art of good casting, how I made my name as a bleak catcher, float-legering, feeding accurately is kid's stuff, think like a fish, the men who can catch 1,600 fish in three hours; bait; Ireland - the Promised Land for anglers, 200 lb of bream is not a dream, storm ruins the grand finale, it's coming...a 200lb bag of roach; everything else - closed season nonsense, opening day is a thrill, the daggers in my back, take a kid out fishing, the Trent is the best winter match water, scientific investigation, learn from specimen hunters, I challenge Dick Walker to a match.