Destination Angler by Dave Lewes
Foreward by Chris Tarrant

I've had some of the best days fishing of my life with Dave Lewis, I've also had at least one of the very worst. On that occasion the now retired Welsh Fire Fighter had left a message inviting me for some shark fishing. Great, I thought, with visions of marathon battles with Great Whites off the coast of South Africa, or giant tiger sharks and hammerheads off the shores of Western Australia. I couldn't wait, check the passport, pack the sun cream and with visions of "you’re gonna need a bigger boat", I rang him excitedly back.

Where are we going then Dave I asked? Florida, Darwin, Cape Town? “Bit closer than that" said Dave, matter of factly; “Wales!” Wales, I said trying to hide my disappointment. “Yes we’ll be fishing off the coast of Milford Haven. There are hundreds of sharks out there, mainly blues but always a good chance of a porbeagle, it's brilliant fishing”.

And so it was, that on a beautiful autumn afternoon I found myself driving down past Cardiff and Port Talbot to Milford Haven. In fairness it was stunning, really spectacular, the trees were all pure gold, the October sun beat down and there wasn't a breath of wind, and for all my grumbling I was quietly rather looking forward to it. It would be just great to be there and a few sharks would be a bonus. Dave and I met up at a nice hotel and went straight to the bar. Des Taylor an old fishing mate of ours from the Midlands and a great fisherman, at least in his own mind, was already in the bar.

The three of us hadn't fished together for a year or so, so there was much catching up with tales of our fishing exploits, and much beer to drink. We had a superb meal with the fishing stories getting more outrageous and the drink orders getting more and more expensive. Then there were mouthwatering desserts followed by cheese, and yet more drink. It was a great catch up but I have to say as I finally wobbled to my room I was a little delicate to say the least, in fact I was very delicate indeed. Still we could have a light breakfast followed by a lovely gentle day in the autumn sunshine.

Sometime in the small hours of the morning I was vaguely aware of a rustling from the hitherto motionless trees outside, and by the time I'd got down to a breakfast of black coffee and Anadin the wind was absolutely howling outside. There had been storm damage all around the Welsh coast overnight, it was a virtual hurricane, the only consolation was that at least we wouldn't be going fishing as all boat trips would obviously be cancelled. We’d had a good night, it had been nice to see the old boys, and I could gently make my way back to London.

Only none of this was obvious at all to Dave when he came down to order a great mountain of sausage, eggs and bacon. “Wild water out there, the sharks will love it.” Well they might love it, I thought, but I'm pretty sure I won't. And sure enough I didn't, I didn't love it at all. I was absolutely green before we even undid the mooring ropes in the harbour and by the time we were less than a hundred yards out to sea, to the loud joy of the Welshmen and even the Brummy who was nearly as green as I was, I threw up, and again, and again. I threw up all day till there was nothing left, and still I threw up some more. Each time I hung my head over the side of the boat through that seemingly endless day there were screams of "Big English pansy " from the Welsh and, “yow big southern softy" from Des. All the time as the boat heaved and I heaved there were two mas sive buckets of rubby dubby, chopped fish guts and rancid pilchard oil, swilling about right next to my nose. And then, of course, there were the sharks. Dave was right, they were feeding like mad in the wild weather. We must have caught twenty or thirty of the damned things, and because we were supposed to be making a photo feature every one of them needed to be held out lovingly for the cameras. There was shark slime and sick covering my jumper, and fish guts and pilchard oil swilling all over the deck. I absolutely hated every single minute, but I suppose it does show how dedicated and obsessive Dave is about his fishing.

Dave travels all over the world for his fishing, I've been lucky enough to go with him lots of times, and he does everything humanly possible to make the trip a success. Always he is meticulous in his preparation, he expects to catch fish so his bait is always fresh, he hates to lose a fish, so his tackle is checked and checked again.

As you will see through the wonderfully varied pages of this book chronicling just some of Dave’s extensive world travels, he loves to fish, and he loves to catch fish, big fish, some huge fish, and he is great company.

Order your copy by emailing Dave Lewis.