What kind of articles are you looking for?
We tend to favour strong instructional/educational/technical/tactical pieces rather than stories of your catches. In practice this means we are far more likely to accept an article on, say, how to catch fish at a particular type of venue, or fish a particular method, than we are to publish a story which just told us you had caught a fish.

Generally, our readers are not so much interested in what you caught as how you caught it! True, we do publish some stories, but these tend to have some unique/unusual angle to them. In the main stories are usually more acceptable if they are being used to illustrate or clarify a particular point or idea. 

Remember too, that we are a specialist magazine and therefore our articles tend to be a little more specialised than you would find in the rest of the angling press. In practice this means that you can really go into a lot more detail, and even devote whole articles to subjects which would only rate a couple of paragraphs in less specialised publications. Original articles only please, no duplicate submissions of the same article to other publications.

How many words does the article need to be?
This obviously depends on the subject, but anything between 1,300 and 3,000 words is usually appropriate. Although we occasionally find acceptable articles shorter than this (though any less than 700 words is usually a candidate for the letters page). However, too often most short pieces generally indicate to us that the author has not gone into sufficient detail about the subject he or she is writing about.

How should I present the article to you?
Although it is not a cast-iron rule, we tend to favour articles which have been typed over those which have been hand-written. Apart from the occasional problem of legibility with hand-written contributions, typed articles are much easier for us to process.

If you are using a typewriter, or more commonly these days, a computer, please type your article on one side of the sheet of paper, number each sheet clearly, and leave plenty of space around all the margins. Paper isn't expensive, so don't try to cram a 2,000-word article on two sheets of paper!

An increasing number of writers are sending us their contributions on computer disk or emailing them. 

Do I need to provide photos?
Yes! One of the most common reasons we can't use an author's article is that they have either not sent any photographs to accompany the piece, or the photos they have sent are of poor quality. The photos you send are every bit as important as the written text.

It is also no use sending us an article and promising to send us suitable photos if it is accepted. We have to see both the photos and the text before we can decide whether the piece is acceptable.

Photographs must also be relevant to the piece you have written. If, for example, you have written about a certain type of lure, then photographs of that lure and fish caught on that lure would be appropriate. If you have written about a certain type of water, then photos of that type of water, preferably with an angler in the foreground, as well as a couple of photos of fish caught from those type of venues, would be perfectly acceptable. Generally speaking, we need between five to ten good quality images for each article. If you are at all serious about writing artlcles on a regular basis, then we would strongly suggest to purchase a digital camera of at least three million pixels. Further advice about sending us digital images can be found at the foot of this page

I would like to write an article on a certain subject, but you already have someone who writes regularly on the same subject?
This is a surprisingly common reason for anglers being unwilling to write an article for us.

Provided you have some different ideas on the subject or approach it from a slightly different angle, it doesn't matter. For example, the editor often writes articles on boat fishing, but that doesn't stop him accepting articles on the same subject from other authors. Everybody has different experiences and ideas about the same method(s), this variety should be expressed in the pages of this magazine.

Do I have to be famous/well known to write for you?
Certainly not! Some of the best articles we have ever published have been written by 'unknown' anglers. The only qualifications you need to write for us, is a good idea, and the ability to put that over in clear English (and a few relevant photos of course!) We are always on the lookout for good, original articles, we don't care who you are or where you come from.

If you are unsure that your idea for an article is suitable or need any further clarification of the points above, then contact the editor on (01430) 440624 or email carper@btconnect.com.

Remember too, we pay you for any of your articles we publish. Frankly, it's not a fortune, but it will certainly help with the old tackle expenses

# Further advice on sending digital images for articles
Digital images can be emailed to us at carper@btconnect.com. You can also burn them onto a cd rom and send us them by post. If you are emailing a lot of images, then it is often a good idea to email just four or five at once to stop the server 'timing out'.

However, in order for us to reproduce images from your media cards they have to be of a high resolution. A brief guide below explains how you can check before you send.

An image that is 640 pixels across printed at 250 pixels per inch gives you a print size of 2.5inches which is too small for us to reproduce in the magazine.

Below is a step-by-step guide to find out if your image is big enough to reproduce.

Step 1: Locate the image on your camera's media card.

1500 pixels width / 250 pixels per inch (print resolution) = 6inches

1500 pixels width / 98.42 pixels per cm (print resolution) = 15.2cm