What's in the issue

“Easy captures leave photographs. The impossible ones leave whole chapters of your life behind them,” says this month’s cover star, Myles Gibson, during his conversation with Jake Barker. For Myles, carp fishing isn’t relaxation. It’s obsession—the same impulse that sends climbers into thin air, runners into deserts and explorers towards the edge of what’s sensible. It’s graft, punishment, patience and pain, all in pursuit of the carp that feel almost impossible to catch. It puts him in the one per cent, and couldn’t be further removed from how most of us fish—but that’s what makes this conversation so thrilling and insightful.

Elsewhere, we have another huge Big Interview with Gary Bayes, who shares his thoughts on Nashbait’s demise and why he believes things might have been different had he and Kev remained at the helm. And Lewis Porter concludes his big interview with Thom Airs where he explains how he achieved his lifelong goal: to dig his own lake. Tim Paisley continues his journey through the mid-2010s, revisiting an era that saw an astonishing 128 different 50lb-plus carp caught during 2016, while Adam Penning explains why data collecting remains one of the biggest—and most overlooked—edges in modern carp fishing.

And if you’re in the market for a new bankside living room, don’t miss our Social Shelter Test, where Fox, Solar, Trakker and more go head-to-head to discover which one comes out on top.