My recent visit to the UK afforded me an afternoon on the Test (see my last video), but before that, I went hunting for clean water and willing trout in the Westcountry (Devon and Cornwall). Rain, and the calendar were both against me….. (Oh, and by way of explanation….most sheep I saw on Dartmoor had red arses……) [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hMmoJIt0xs]
Readers might have noticed that I have started doing some video work (aka Vlogging) . To up my game I have been teaching myself some much more complex, bit of course much more capable software. In many respects the complexity has meant that I have taken 2 steps backwards. Trying to get this package to do what I want it to has been a challenge to say the least. Old dogs, new tricks… So do bear with my amateur attempts. Hopefully the offerings will get more slick as I progress. This video covers a visit to the River Test in
I am deeply fortunate to be able to able to identify the symphony and serendipity in ordinary things, or perhaps I am fortunate in that overtly serendipitous things do in fact befall me more than others. Either way, these things are not lost on me. Far from it…I savour them. So here’s one. You tell me if this is a delightful chance, or if its just me being a sentimental fool: So…I found myself in Stockbridge, in a fly shop, being served by a fellow South African. And the shop had a better collection of books than the one over
“Thus, Instead of spiking his rod when the morning rise is over, and taking his Walton or his Marcus Aurelius or his Omar Khayyam from his pockets, let the wise angler concentrate on the casual feeder; and if his reward be not great, there is every chance of it being quite respectable , and he may be saved the humiliation of an empty creel”. GEM Skues, Minor tactics of the Chalkstream . 1910. Now I don’t know about you, but I reckon if I took my “Omar Khayyam” from my pocket while out fishing, I think I wouldn’t be saved
“In the corner of a smokey bar She’s singing Hallelujah All the fools are shouting over her But she keeps singing Hallelujah” From the song ”I hear your song, Sweetness”, by George Taylor Keeping with a musical theme, who remembers Feargal Sharkey ? I was pleasantly surprised to learn recently that Feargal Sharkey is now a champion of the environment in the UK. More specifically, he is the champion of England’s beleaguered chalk streams. Sharkey is doing a whole lot to publicise the abuse of these unique and beautiful streams, that are in many places almost beyond rescue. Who
“It is old, old fishing landscape, scarred with its human contacts, familiar and friendly and kind to the frailties of anglers.” Howard T Walden. Upstream and down. 1938. The colonial idiosyncrasies of our heritage have us leaning to a tamed and manicured world. A conquered wilderness, which we celebrate as “wild” but enjoy for its comforts of stonemasonry, or footpaths and trimmed briar. I for one hanker after the quaint, the named, and the iconic. Do you revel in relating the story of your catch, replete with the name of the pool? Do you inwardly sigh with nostalgic affection at
“His system was to attach a split shot sinker well above a nymph, and fish it on a short and fairly taught line with a colourful leader and a little sleeve of orange marker. His success was phenomenal …….” Charles F Waterman, writing of George Anderson fishing the Madison some time in the 1960’s. From “Mist on the River” Published in 1986. The outrigger technique : “The upstream, dead drift, tight line, high rod, weighted nymph technique” ….Chuck Fothergill in The Masters of the Nymph 1979 An old American fly fishing technique, by Al Simpson