Ian Pretty

Ian Pretty

In the beginning

My early days were a far cry from where I am today! I come from Winchester in Hampshire and started my fishing career (my wife would say obsession!) on the chalk streams of the Rivers Test and Itchen. These are two of the most exclusive trout streams in the country and in the case of the River Test, quite possibly the world! Season tickets for these rivers cost thousands, but as a ten or eleven year old school boy poacher the pickings were lucrative. Catching trout and the odd salmon (p.b. 21 lb!) for the local restaurants and hotels kept me in fags for years!!

As I got older I started to go coarse fishing with a neighbour and spent most of my time on the Hampshire Avon and the Dorset Stour. At about this time I discovered girls and alcohol (well I was 13 by now!) and fishing took a back seat for a few years.

The 70's

In the mid seventies I moved to Milton Keynes, got married, had kids and discovered lots of reasons to take up fishing again! I had made friends with a few lads who fished club matches on the GUC and I soon joined in. It wasn’t long before I started framing and then winning on a regular basis and got into team fishing for the first time on the local canal leagues. I was absolutely mad for it by then and either fished or watched others fishing as often as possible. I was eventually asked to join a local pub team called Crown AC who had all the best local anglers fishing for them and was one of the strongest canal teams in the country, reaching the final of the Captain Morgan knock out cup, losing in the final to the all conquering Barnsley. This was fished on the River Bann in Northern Ireland, a very different venue to the GUC!

Eventually the team folded and I was asked to join the newly formed Milton Keynes Match Group. Over the next few years the team turned into a very strong outfit, and won a national on the Stainforth Canal. We fished the match genuinely feeling we couldn’t be beaten and duly blitzed it. During this period we had a list of anglers fishing for the team that included Billy Makin and Ray Mills, the Vincent ‘Twins’ Dave and Mick and former world champ Ian Heaps. Pretty impressive squad I reckon!

Moving on

All good things come to an end and after 20 odd years with MK it was time to move on. Towards the end of my time there the commercial fishery scene had started to develop and with Heyford and Makins close by I started to develop my carping skills. As a team we entered the Makins winter league, the biggest in the country and won it at the second attempt. The carping bug had GOT me!

After a couple of years fishing solo I was very fortunate to be asked to join the GOT team. I have been privileged to watch the GOT machine in action and the more I see the more impressed I become. Trevor and Gary make a great partnership and the energy, knowledge and enthusiasm that goes into running and developing the company is there for all to see. The innovative products they produce and the quality they maintain is testament to their hard work.

Favourite methods

Although I am never likely to do it again, my all time favourite method was whip fishing on the canal. We really had this perfected to almost an art form and it won me lots of money during my time as a canal head!

My favourite method now is fishing the method. This has been developed and refined so much over the years that it is barely recognisable from it’s early days. Anglers like Andy Findlay and Steve Ringer have been responsible for much of this development and for a while Findlay was almost unbeatable on it.

My project for this summer is going to be getting the most out of the new GOT groundbaits and some of the atomic range as a method mix. Roll on the warmer days. I’ll let you know how I get on!