Gareth Purnell - Editor

Gareth has been in angling journalism for 16 years and is editor of Total Coarse Fishing and owner of the website www.total-fishing.com. He joined Angling Times as a reporter in 1990 and was made news editor in 1991 before moving on to edit Improve Your Coarse Fishing in 1996. Under his editorship it sold over 80,000 copies per month.

Gareth joined DHP for the launch of Midland Angler in 2001 and also oversaw the launch of Southern Angler. During this time Midland Angler was voted Angling Magazine of the Year by the Angling Writer’s Guild. Gareth has also been voted Angling Writer of the year. He is an international angler, representing the United States for 10 of the last 11 years, his best result being 16th overall. He supports Aston Villa.

Steve Martin - Deputy Editor

Prior to joining DHP Steve worked for 22 years in the IT industry in Dorset. His break into angling journalism came after he became involved with the matchangler.com website and was asked to cover the Embassy Challenge Final on the River Ebro in Spain in 2001. This resulted in Steve gaining freelance work from the weekly angling newspapers and in 2003, after being made redundant, he went fulltime to gain more experience with the goal of earning a staff position in angling publishing. This dream turned to reality the following year when David Hall decided to launch Southern Angler, and, under the guidance of Gareth Purnell, Steve played a key roll on the regional monthly newspaper until it was sold in July 2006 at which point he joined the tcf team.
Steve is an all-round angler who has a number of match successes to his name, primarily captaining Ringwood & District AA to the Angling Times/Van den Eynde Supercup title in 2001 and winning the total-fishing.com ACA festival in 2003. Although he loves match fishing, Steve is most at home fishing float tactics for chub and roach on his favourite venues the Hampshire Avon and the Dorset Stour.

Do you like to catch quality fish from great venues and keep your fishing varied? Do you want to know all about modern techniques? Interested in getting the most from your baits? If the answer is yes to these questions, then TCF is for you. Launched in 2006, TCF will inspire you and show you how to catch more quality fish. TCF is the also mag you can trust to give honest tackle reviews. Even better, we’ll reward you for your catches with our fantastic Korum Challenge!

The Complete History Of Total Coarse Fishing Magazine

Total Course Fishing (TCF) is aimed at the angler who likes to catch quality fish from quality venues, and learn more about how to enjoy the sport.

The magazine has its roots partly in DHP’s former publications Midland Angler and Southern Angler. Meetings took place at DHP at the end of 2005 when the staff of these publications was invited to say where it thought the two titles were heading. The main protagonists, editor Gareth Purnell and deputy editor Steve Martin, felt they had taken the two regional titles as far as they could, but that the time was right for a new national magazine aimed at the everyday angler who likes to keep their fishing varied. The rest is history.

Midland Angler and Southern Angler were sold and Total Coarse Fishing hit the shelves in the summer of 2006, accompanied by a television advertising campaign. The timing was also right for Ultima, and DHP included a spool of its new Power Plus line on each of the first three issues.

At the time of writing this, only a few issues in, feedback from the public has been simply fantastic and sales are excellent and growing. DHP’s aim is to create a brand that the readers can trust and believes that it is doing just that, and in a way that’s easy to follow.

Angling has changed so much in the last 15 years and TCF is bringing those who have lost track of some of the latest bait developments bang up to date. Detailed TCF bait and technique guides are featured each month, which are great for the newcomer and give plenty of excellent advice to the improving angler too.

DHP prides itself on the fact that TCF contains the highest-quality of photography, writing and design that really makes you want to get out there and do it. It has also managed to team up with some of the best angling writers in the business – indeed many have contacted DHP after seeing the first two issues.

The TCF contributing team includes Ian Welch, John Bailey, Jan Porter, Steve Collett, Chris Ponsford, Alex Bones and Bob James, among others. These guys have been selected because DHP feels that the average angler can identity with them, and is careful to make sure that they are never writing ‘over our readers’ heads’. TCF is going places and we hope you want to come along for the ride.