Travelling down to Essex with Brian Skoyles recently our conversation wound its way around to other anglers and he asked if I’d met Jerry Hammond. To my knowledge I hadn’t but Brian obviously had because he’d interviewed him for a Carp World magazine article.

“I’d say he’s one of the top ten carp anglers in this country.” Said Brian, “I’ll introduce you later, he’s a really nice bloke.”

Well, I can’t fault Brian’s judgement and meeting Jerry proved to be a genuine pleasure. Since then I’ve got hold of a copy of his book, Catching Memories, and it’s an excellent read. That’s refreshing because when you see what this bloke has done both on and off the bank you might easily expect him to be a bit big-headed but trust me, he’s about as down to earth and normal as you can possibly imagine.

His Compulsive Angler DVD is an excellent watch, too, and you can catch an excerpt here.

However, this is about the book, not the film. Cliff Moulder of MPress has kindly allowed me to publish an extract (you can click on the image below which takes you directly to my Scribd page). It’s in PDF format so you can download it or adjust the size as you see fit. Enjoy it. I certainly did.

Copies can be obtained from Calm Productions at £27 plus P&P.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to meet Jerry along with Terry Hearn, Nigel Sharp and countless others there’s a book signing at the Lands End Pub, Twyford, on Saturday 18th February, 2012…