The Independent on Sunday, 12 August 2001, by Keith Elliott.
"Fishing: How to hook 150,000 before 7am."
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Those telly guys have it so easy. It's a sight harder to 
write about the delights of fishing, and even more difficult 
to talk about it without pictures or the written word. 
That's why I have such admiration for Nick Fisher.

OK, he's got an edge with a name like that. But he has still 
managed to come up with a decent talk show about angling, at 
the indecent hour of 6am on Saturdays, for the past seven 
years on Radio 5 Live. The programme, called *Dirty Tackle*, 
even won a Sony award in 1999.

For much of the time, the show, like the station itself, has 
been live. "We have had all sorts of disasters," Fisher 
admits. It has also meant encouraging people into the studio 
at 4.30am. Easy enough to get them to go fishing at that 
hour; the devil of a job to get them just to talk about it.

But Fisher has built up a local audience of an average 
150,000, pretty spectacular for such an unsocial slot. He 
may be a bit manic for some, and his voice sounds like the 
inside of a gravel lorry, but Fisher knows his fish and his 
fishing. He doesn't restrict himself to one aspect; he has 
covered, for example, the Cromer Crab fishermen. It's easy 
to see why he has such a large and loyal audience. All the 
more mysterious, therefore, that Radio 5 Live are axing the 
programme from next March.

At one stage, it looked as if fishing was off the agenda 
altogether. Had a member of the People for Ethical Treatment 
of Animals (Peta) infiltrated the BBC? Would Alan Green and 
Jimmy Armfield be munching nut cutlets instead of meat pies 
for the new football season? Helen Stiles, producer of 
*Dirty Tackle*, feared that BBC mandarins were following a 
political agenda. "We are the only fishing and countryside-
related programme on national radio except for farming," she 
said.

But Moz Dee, the commissioning editor, said: "The fishing 
programme has been with us since Radio 5 Live began. We need 
to freshen that slot up, as we have with every other area of 
our output. *Dirty Tackle* has never been looked at."

He added: "We are decommissioning *Dirty Tackle*, but 
looking at another fishing show. I am seeking advice and 
asking, 'What do you want from a fishing programme?' It's 
nothing to do with money. We actually have more money. But 
it's time to move on."

Fisher is remarkably sanguine about the news, possibly 
because he has been through it all before. On that occasion, 
it was a weekly fishing programme on Channel 4 called 
*Screaming Reels*, a bit like *Dirty Tackle* with pictures.

"It got axed three years ago for political reasons," he 
recalls. "I thought this might be the same thing, but I'm 
pleased to hear that they are going to keep a fishing slot. 
It is very unusual for any show to run for long without 
being tampered with."

He's got plenty to keep him busy. Filming has just started 
on a comedy series he has written for BBC2, starring Nigel 
Havers and Anthony Head. He had a modest sucess with a film 
called *Virtual Sexuality* that he wrote. He writes columns 
for *Shooting Times* and for Teletext.

He's even the agony uncle for the magazine *J17*. Anyone who 
can deal with teenage angst week in, week out, is probably 
pretty good at taking a philosophical view of his own life. 
But come March, 6am on Saturdays just won't be the same.



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