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The timelessness of a river

“..the river moves on and on ; the heart follows, willingly, always glad to be Hunter, discoverer.”   Harry Middleton We describe rivers as living beings. The concept resonates and it allows for the attachment of a personality to a thread of water in Trout country. That seems appropriate. Yet rivers, if they are to be living things, are an anomaly, because they never die.  Sure, in the lowlands, some factory may dump waste and the river “dies”. But even there, look at the Thames and its tributaries now compared to how they were in the industrial revolution!  When man has

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5 March 2015

Terminal Chancer

When two publishers turned James Gilbraith down, he showed them the finger, and published his book himself.  I am thankful that he (through his highly esteemed “Guild of Reason”) did that, because had he not done so, I would have been deprived some snortingly good laughs. These typically happened in public places like coffee shops, where other patrons looked at me sideways. That would be fitting, since in his book, Gilbraith manages to touch on, and fittingly describe, many of those thoughts that we have, but  which we somehow don’t feel we can express publicly. It is no coincidence that

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26 February 2015

Good Indications : Indicators , depth, and the fly zone

I often read about “hanging a fly under an indicator”. I don’t get it. If the fly is hanging, it must be heavy, and if the indicator is holding it up, it must be HUGE. Maybe its just a turn of phrase. I did however try casting a thingamabobber the other day. That would hold a fly up. It was the smallest one you could get. It was like trying to throw one of those practice golf balls. It made a lot of noise, and went nowhere. When it did land it was with a great big PLOP. No thanks.

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17 February 2015

Mid summer stream fishing

A celebration of our upland Trout streams on video://player.vimeo.com/video/117028709 Summer streams, Summer dreams from Andrew Fowler on Vimeo. View on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6bvftJdnjc

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19 January 2015

Attracted by magnets

I posted a week or two back about the limited number of truly useful developments in fishing tackle. PD pointed out to me that I had omitted the now ubiquitous net magnet. He is right: that was an oversight. A magnet that holds your net at your nape, or on the side of your pack, is one of the truly clever innovations of the last decade or more. It got me thinking though, just how many applications there are for magnets in our sport. Firstly, Graeme arrived bright and early Saturday for our mornings fishing, and presented me with a

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12 January 2015

Tackling developments

Last night I was washing and treating my fly-lines, and I got to thinking. Firstly, I was treating them with some “water shed”. If you haven’t got some of this stuff, do yourself a favour.  It really is great. It floats flies, furled leaders and the tips of your floating lines. It smells a lot like Hydrostop, which I used to use years ago. Maybe it’s the same stuff in a new bottle. I don’t know. But like I say, it works a treat on the special high floating tip of my new fly line. Sinks like a stone that

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31 December 2014
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