O.K. You've decided to stop smoking. Great, we don't need to go into all the reasons for you to stop. You've done that to get this far. Of course, now you just want to know how to stop smoking quickly. As quickly as possible right? The first step is to...

When a salmon or a large trout makes a run down stream through heavy water and the chance of stopping him look slim. You can sometimes bring him back by feeding out a lot of slack quickly, if the fish pauses long enough slack to release all of the pull f...

Of course, your rod plays a big part when it comes to playing and landing a fish. Once the fish is hooked, let your rod do the work. A rod works at it's best flexing forward under pressure, recovering when the pressure weakens, when it is held nearly vert...

When using a fly reel, there isn't always a brake, or drag to help you. To prevent big fish from running you can exert varying degrees of thumb pressure inside the spool. Without such pressure there is a real risk that your line will overrun and backlash,...

A big point to remember about ultra-light spinnning tackle, or indeed the use of standard spinning gear on large fish, is that the stretch in the monofilament line and the mechanism of the reel, work in harmony to give the utmost in satisfaction and safet...

The longer you play a fish, the more fun you'll have, and the more exhausted the fish will become. You'll have an easier time landing him if you have thoroughly worn him down with the play. A small fish can be brought in rapidly, but NEVER attempt to h...

Now, you really can't hope to land any sort of decent fish unless you've set the hook properly. As a general rule, it's better to wait a little rather than set the hook too soon. When you are ready to set the hook, bring in all the slack line, bring th...

We've all heard the old angler's stories of how "the big one got away." Well, there is a deal of truth in that old saying (there you go, we DO have an excuse), the big fish, as well as an awful lot of small ones, do get away all too often. The real who...

In the last fifty or so years, no method of casting has gained such popularity as that of spinning. What is spinning? Why did it become so popular? Can you really catch large fish with spinning tackle? Well let's try and answer these questions. The ter...

Following on from a previous article, where I described six of the more common problems that can arise when brewing your own beer, and what to do about it. This seems to be a recurring theme, and people that know me have suggested that I do a few more....

"Excess" means "more than what is right, proper or necessary." When used in medicine, it means "more than is good for continued good health" We can eat too much, work too much, drink too much (including non-alcoholic liquids), sleep too much, and so on; a...

Doctors are often asked whether it is harmful to smoke three cigarettes a day, or five, or fourteen, or a pack; people seem to want a standard measurement. If they exceed it, that would be bad; if they smoked fewer than the standard, that would be all rig...

Whilst it is true that home-brewing can be a very satisfactory and pleasurable pastime, producing good quality beer at economical prices, it is also true that problems can, and do, arise from time to time. The purpose of this article therefore is to de...

Right, you've decided (very wisely I might say) to brew your own beer. What basic equipment do you need? As in many processes the equipment can be varied, and indeed complicated. But to start with you do not really need much in the way of equipment. Th...

There are almost as many classifications of beer as there are people who drink it. O.K. that's something of an exaggeration, but it is a fact that commercial breweries produce an amazing variety of beers with different flavours and textures, to cater for...