About Wayne Mansford

I started fishing from the age of five as I grew-up fishing the canals for all array of course fish - roving up and down the Grand Union Canal with half a pint of maggots and a float rod every Sunday after football. I had always seen these big carp in the magazines, on tackle shop walls and the odd carp swimming past my float on the canal until finaly when I was around 11 years old, I managed to catch my first carp! In a typical cliche fashion, I was completely hooked after that very moment and set out to catch more of these elusive fish as I grew-up throughout my early - late teens.

I was fortunate to grow-up surrounding the circuit waters of the Colne Valley, and had Farlows Lake on my doorstep. Being very pressured and also very secretive back in these days, my focus was turned to short 'hit' fishing where the aim was to snare a bite when I could fit the time in. Earning my keep by working in the onsite Farlows tackle shop/cafe and then hopefully a quick bite and doing the off for home time. It was this sort of fishing throughout my teens where I adopted my 'quick bite' approach, which I think is a key strength in my angling and I carried this onto the other waters I fished. 

These days, having a wife and young family can leave my fishing time very limited, and my fishing style and type of fishing depends on what I want to get out of it. I like to compete in the various championship matches from a personal achievement side of things, but I also have the perfect balance of personal fishing for myself and catching the odd nice fish along the way, which keeps the fire burning.

In recent years, I have put a lot of effort into fishing the various UK and European championship competitions. There are a good bunch of lads that enter them, and the banter and friendships made is worth it let alone the trophies. On the plus side to this, I've also managed to nick a few decent results along the way, qualifying for all five different UK and British championships with a 1st, 3rd and a token European Championship title thrown into the mix. The championships require a lot of effort, money, time and bait and without my sponsors and a top quality bait supplier I wouldn't have been able to achieve what I already have.

Through my youth spent growing up around the pressured Colne Valley circuit waters, my forte in carp fishing is probably getting a quick bite when it is needed which I have been able to adapt this into my limited personal fishing and competitions. From fishing the various competitions, I have also learnt and enabled to quickly adapt my style of angling to suit the fish/venue in question, which has definitely put more fish on the bank for myself.