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Friday, 15 June 2018
Life in a Village
These outdoor events typically held on the village green did, as far as I know, originate in rural England. An afternoon when the villagers come together to raise funds for some worthy cause (usually the church that none of us attend) by way of Thwack the Rat, Apple Bobbing, Produce Stalls, Crazy Golf, Coconut Shy and any other activity you care to think of that could only ever take place at an annual fete.
Saturday, 2 June 2018
Demise of my bogey mayfly
It
sometimes takes a lot to get me out on the river. I'm a bit like (without
drawing too many comparisons ...) one of those ski bums you meet in a mountain
bar who only ventures out for the freshest powder on the emptiest of slopes.
But oftentimes I get my piscatorial kicks simply by being there. Seeing the
hatch. Watching others make a perfectly executed cast. Share in the collective
joy of the fish that rises to the dry fly.
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Crippled Mayfly is in the middle compartment,
bottom row
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So, it has taken
until this week for me to finally venture out with a rod with a Mayfly
specifically on the end of it. As has been much mentioned the arrival of the
2018 Mayfly season has been a very slow burn. The Allen in Dorset, a river we
usually expect to be in the vanguard of the Ephemeral hatch, is two weeks late.
Likewise the River Test, though the tributaries have not been quite so far
behind. The River Itchen was probably the closest to being 'normal' but even
then it took a while to get going.
I must admit I
was going to sneak out a bit sooner but I'm currently in the throes of writing
a new book which is, as The Spectator columnist and general literary
provocateur, Rod Liddle once described it, a bit like having perpetual
homework. My routine is this: each week I set my target at 2,500 words. That is
500 words a day. My writing week starts on a Sunday. So potentially I have two
spare days, but life/work often gets in the way of that plan. So, most days I
am not released from the bonds of the word mill until the daily count is
satisfied. And that doesn't always come easy. So, being the diligent type I
type instead of cast. But this week I played hooky.
We didn't get to
the river until five o'clock on Tuesday evening. The storms that had flooded
Birmingham over the weekend were now in Hampshire. It had rained most of the
day. I could see the river colouring and rising before us. But any thoughts
that the evening might be a bust were dispelled as, even from the car park, we
could see a fish leap to a fluttering Mayfly and hear that satisfying 'gloop'
as another disappeared somewhere around the corner.
I am not one
ever to complain that the fishing is too easy. Those days come around too
infrequently in life to even hint at a complaint. When the fishing Gods smile
on you, smile back as one day, very soon, they will take it all away. Deities
are as fickle as fish. But on a scale of one to five, with five being most
difficult, this was most definitely a one. That said, even in the two hours we
were there, the scales tipped one way to the next. From a river that was alive
with Mayfly and rising fish, to a quiet period when nothing much flew and
nothing much rose. In the trees the Mayfly did their merry dance, the columns
of males rising, then falling, displaying their wares until a female darted in
from the side to grab her chosen partner.
On the river I
did set myself a particular challenge: once a fish was caught I would cut off
that fly and try another. I did cheat once, recasting my all-time favourite the
Thomas Mayfly, only to feel guilty when I caught a second fish. Pretty soon I
was five for six. In case you ask: Grey Drake, Thomas, Gray Wulff, Flyline and
Parachute. As a final hurrah I dragged out of my box a Crippled Mayfly.
Everyone has particular bogey flies and this, in the Mayfly, spectrum, is mine.
Everything tells me it should be good - easy meat for a greedy fish.
Now for some
reason I have always assumed this is a fly that should be fished au naturel
- after all it does have a bit of foam it in. How could floating be a problem?
So, as I have always done in the past I didn't bother with floatant and it
didn't disappoint. Nothing. I decided it would join that special compartment in
my fly box; the one I point to when people I don't like ask me for a fly. But I
wasn't quite done. Every other fly had worked, so why not this one? Floatant.
For once I tried some floatant. And from across the river (to a particularly
poor cast) surged a fish to grab the Cripple first time.
At seven for six
I decided to call it time on the evening and resolved to put the Crippled
Mayfly in the fly box I share with friends.
River
Itchen photo shoot
It was a great pleasure to finally meet Chris McNully whose
articles I have read for many years in many publications.
Chris had arrived on the
Kanara beat with photographer Richard Faulks for one of a pair of articles
about wading the Hampshire chalkstreams. That day it was the River Itchen; the
following was to be at Exton Manor Farm on the River Meon.
I turned up to
just say hello. I did offer to buy lunch but my arrival coincided with a slow
trickle of Mayflies and this rather fine fish (a 1.5lb wild brown), the first
of the day, was rising to a Mayfly and obliged when offered a large Yellow
Humpy.
At that point
all thoughts of food where forgotten, so I left them in peace but I have
subsequently heard both days came up trumps. I am afraid you will have to wait until
next spring to read Chris' articles in Trout
& Salmon.
Summer Camp
I know many of you will be reading this whilst away on Half
Term. Who was that member of officialdom who organised the academic calendar to
time this slap in the middle of Mayfly? Clearly they didn't have children or no
interest in fly fishing.
So, if you
have been unable to persuade your partner or children that the river should
beckon more than the beach it is probably time for some indoctrination. Our
summer Fishing Camp might just be the thing.
This will be
the third year we have run it; four days based here at Nether Wallop Mill where
we range out to cover all sorts and aspects of fly fishing on both lake and
river: casting, knots, fly tying, entomology, gutting fish, nymph vs. dry and
much, much more.
Date: July
16-19
Location:
Nether Wallop Mill & River Test
Fish Camp:
£195/child for 4 days or £75/day (min. 3 days including the first day). 10%
discount for siblings.
Ages: 12-15
years
Price per
child £195.
Monday-Thursday
10am-1pm (Wednesday 3pm).
Includes all
fishing charges, tuition, licences and tackle.
To book or for
more information call 01264 781988 or email
Photo of the Week
I know it
is all about Mayfly this week, but the Crane Flies on my kitchen window last
week are a reminder that different hatches are ahead of us.
I hear there is a new colour
variant of the Robjents Daddy in the store .....
Quiz
More
chances to prove, or improve, your intellect. Answers, as ever, at the
bottom of the page.
1) What date is England's
opening match in the World Cup and who do they play?
2) After which Roman god is
June named?
3) Who wrote:" In June as
many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed
all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them."
Enjoy the weekend.
Best wishes,
Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk
Founder & Managing Director
Quiz answers:
1) Tunisia on Monday June 18th
2) Juno
3) Aldo Leopold
Friday, 18 May 2018
Be careful what you wish for
The old
hippy in me is tempted to misquote The Eagles Hotel California: we haven't had
that water here since nineteen insert any year you like. I'll hazard you'll
never see chalkstreams during the Mayfly in quite this good a condition again
in this life or the next.
As you know I beseech the
rain Gods every winter and this year they listened; the rivers are fast and
full. It is not unalloyed good news, so sometimes you have to be careful what
you wish for. River keepers are mowing with strimmers not mowers having mired a
tractor or two in an unexpectedly wet patch of bank. The lower reaches don't
have the clarity we'd like and the brown trout, who are lazy at the best of
times, have been hiding on the bottom rather than swim against the flow. Many a
feedback form has used the word 'doggo' to describe their lack of feeding.
How has this
impacted on the hatch? Well, Ephemera danica has been hatching along
these banks for millions of years so without the benefit of a calendar the
start/finish of the three week frenzy does slide around. The general consensus
is that, despite the burst of super-hot weather, is that we are late this year.
If you came last week you will have surely seen a few hatching, caught some on
Mayfly imitations, but there is no doubt the start of duffers fortnight is not
yet upon us.
If you are
tempted I'm sure there are a few dates still to be had. Use the Date Checker to take a look.
Chalk Talk
If you don't get enough of me via this bi-weekly blog/newsletter
you'll be pleased (or run screaming for the hills) to hear I am now a regular
columnist for
Trout & Salmon.
I must admit it
did all rather come out of the blue. Something I never thought I would ever do
and my sincere thanks to Editor Andrew Flitcroft for giving me the opportunity
for not one, but two sentimental reasons. Firstly, as a schoolboy, confined to
institutions far away from the chalkstreams Trout & Salmon was my
monthly fix of escapism. A few of us who shared the same passion even managed
to gang up on the librarian to convince her that our cause was as a valid as
that of the rugby and cricket aficionados so she included the magazine on the
library shelves.
The other is to
do with Dermot Wilson, who once lived here at Nether Wallop Mill. This year
marks the 50th anniversary of him setting up shop and by way of some
celebration (more of that later in the year) I went to interview his
widow Renée who
lives not far away on the banks of the River Ebble just outside Salisbury.
For someone who
was so good with words it always surprised me that Dermot only wrote the one
book Fishing the Dry Fly but he was a regular columnist for Trout and
Salmon. Renée tells me that though he did the occasional piece for Country
Life, The Field and so on, they never had much appeal to him and it was his
writing for Trout & Salmon that he held most dear right until his
death. It is strange how the wheels of fate have turned and I am truly
privileged to be able, in some small way, to follow in his footsteps.
Source of much refreshment
I am not sure why this is but chalkstreams are, all of a sudden,
seen to be offering not just great fishing, but the inspiration and source for
refreshment as well.
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Refreshment for mind and body .....
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For many years
we have had Hildon Mineral Water drawn from the aquifers of the Test valley,
which you will find in some of the best hotels and restaurants. Then last year
a cider maker sprung up in the Meon Valley with a range of three pressings
matured in oak barrels that were named respectively Chalkstream, Brown Trout
and Dragonfly. At the confluence of the Anton and Test the Cottonworth Vineyard
is making sparkling wines méthode champenoise in both white and rosé.
So, where
might you ask, is the beer? Well, don't despair as it has arrived in the form
of four enthusiasts who have set up shop behind The Greyhound pub in Broughton,
the next village downstream of Nether Wallop, on the Wallop Brook. The first
brewing is Wallop Gold (what else?!) which we will be sampling here at the
fishing school and at our fishing lunches.
April feedback winner
We have
kicked off the monthly feedback draw little late this month but I'm pleased to
say the winner for April was Robert Smith who fished Avon Springs on the
opening day.
Regular users of the
feedback facility (thank you all) will notice that I have introduced a star
rating to summarise your day. I know it is something of a blunt tool but once
we have sufficient responses I am hoping to use the ratings to rank the
fisheries.
The Fishing Breaks snood is
on the way to Robert and he, like everyone else, goes into the end-of-season
draw for the Simms pliers.
Quiz
More
chances to prove, or improve, your intellect on beer, reading and music.
Answers, as ever, at the bottom of the page.
1) When was Trout &
Salmon magazine first published?
2) In which country is beer
said to have been first brewed?
3) When was the record album
Hotel California released?
Enjoy the Mayfly!
Best wishes,
Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk
Founder & Managing Director
Quiz answers:
1) 1955
2) In what is now known as Iran, some
7,000 years ago
3) 1976
Friday, 4 May 2018
One Fly. Many winners.
Greetings!
There are
not many things that keep me awake at night but the draw for the One Fly does.
There was a time when it was all very relaxed. On the Saturday prior to the
competition we gather for the Guides briefing and way back when we started on
2008 we used to draw both the beats for the guides and the contestants. How we
would laugh and josh as the names came out of the hat, safe in the knowledge
that any snafu could be rectified away from public gaze
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Jason Askey-Wood with his winning fly
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Now in this age
of transparency (dreadful word) and in a bid to notch up the drama, it was
decided that we would hold the contestant draw on the morning of the One Fly
itself. Oh, how I live in fear of it going wrong. In 2016 I peered into the hat
to pull out the 36th and last name to see nothing. Looking up I saw
72 expectant faces eager for the starting gun. Piers Morgan's Stockbridge
Christmas lights disaster had nothing on this, though I am probably one of the
few to feel his pain. Back in the hat I ran my finger under the sweatband that
dislodged the final bit of paper. Crisis averted. This year, I am happy to say,
no such heart-stopping moments as the draw dodged the first of many heavy
showers that were to typify the day.
This wasn't
going to be an easy year. We have had a wet, wet winter and I haven't seen the
chalkstream aquifers pumping water this high and fast since the floods of
2013/14. In some respects it is actually more pronounced. Back in 2014 the
volumes were receding by April; this year they were still on an upward curve
though the peak is now past. So anyone on the lower beats would have to cope
with lots of water, fish still hiding out and in some cases poor clarity. But
that is the challenge of the One Fly; you draw your beat and you adapt
accordingly. And plenty adapted very well.
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A well tied winning fly after 18 fish.
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Top billing is
really shared by Jason Askey-Wood and Grant Harrower, though Jason shaded Grant
to the overall title by just 10 points, which is simply the difference of one
fish being one inch longer. Or in Grant's case hanging onto his fly (worth 75
points) which he lost with still ninety minutes to go. But hey, that's why we
call it the One Fly. Regardless it was a pretty amazing fishing day by both of
them with 41 fish between them, Jason with 18 on the River Kennet at Benham
Estate and Grant on The Greyhound beat catching 23. In all the three dozen
anglers caught 217 fish between them, all of which were released, with everyone
bar three catching at least one fish. The biggest fish of the day was by the
guide/fisher combo of Michael Jacobsen and Kris Kent who landed a monster
24" brown on the Orvis Ginger Beer beat at Kimbridge.
It was a great
day. We came. We fished. We got wet. And we marked the start of a new
chalkstream season, in the course of which we raised over £2,500 for the Alex
Lewis Trust. In ending I have to give special mention to the winning Guide Gary
Allen to accompanied Jason Askey- Wood, donating his £500 winning cheque to be
split equally between the Alex Lewis Trust and another cause close to the heart
of his family. Thank you Gary.
Click here to see the photos from the day.
Stockbridge: shopping valhalla
Plenty of us who live within easy striking distance of Stockbridge
have concluded that with the ubiquity of internet shopping all our consumer
needs are now met online and by the occasional foray into the fly fishing
capital of Britain.
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Elaine Sperber. I'm sorry, I made her do it
.........
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I understand
those of you who live in more metropolitan parts might think of us, to use that
Del Boy term, as carrot crunchers but we are happy with our butcher, baker,
greengrocer, florist, post office, two chic delis, coffee shop, wine store, a
whisky shop on the way .... well, I won't go on but we jam a lot into one single,
and relatively short, High Street.
However, we have
been deficient in one important area: a bookshop. Amazon is all very well but
there is nothing like browsing the shelves, reading the back covers and
flicking through the virgin pages to unearth a new author or rediscover one you
had long forgotten. Well, I am delighted to say The
Bookmark now has to be added to my list above.
The shop has
been opened by Elaine Sperber, an American who long ago came to our shores and
lives in a village not so far away. For most of her professional life she was
in the TV and film business, Head of Drama for Children's BBC, where she
commissioned 53 series including hits Tracy Beaker and Stig of the Dump, with a
whole raft of other independent film and TV producer credits to her name.
After decades of
reading scripts and books for a profession Elaine has a massive fund in
literary knowledge and this is reflected in the diverse and fascinating books
she stocks. Give her your literary brief and in a flash she'll have a selection
that will open new reading doors. The Bookmark is handily located a few doors
down from Robjents and directly opposite Orvis.
The Feather Thief
I don't really like to cut and paste entire articles; it seems a
bit of a cheat. But below I have reproduced in full Maggie Fergusson's review
last week in The Spectator of the Kirk Wallace Johnson book The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession and the Natural History
Heist of the Century.
The truth is I
haven't had a chance to read the book, but even if I had I could not better the
Fergusson review. I suspect you, like me, as you read the piece will wonder
where it is all going but for anyone with an interest in fly fishing, and fly
tying in particular, it will suddenly hit you right between the eyes.
"They don't look like
a natural pair. First there's the author, Kirk Wallace Johnson, a hero of
America's war in Iraq and a modern-day Schindler who, as USAID's only
Arabic-speaking American employee, arranged for hundreds of Iraqis to find safe
haven in the US. In the process, he developed PTSD, sleepwalked through a hotel
window, flung himself from a ledge and plunged, nearly, to his death. Then
there's the stranger-than-fiction Edwin Rist, a brilliant young flautist who,
on a pitch-black night nine years ago, in pursuit of an obsession with rare
bird feathers, risked years in jail in one of the most brazen and bizarre
museum heists ever accomplished. Yet Johnson and Rist are made for one another.
Within pages I was hooked. This is a weird and wonderful book.
On the evening
of 23 June 2009, Rist, then a 20-year-old Royal Academy of Music student who
hoped one day to play principal flute for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,
performed in a concert of Haydn, Handel and Mendelssohn. Then, having taken his
bows, he gathered wire-cutters, an LED torch, latex gloves, a diamond-blade
glass cutter and what must have been a tardis of a wheely suitcase, and caught
a train to Tring in Hertfordshire. From the station, he walked to the Natural
History Museum, once the private repository of Walter Rothschild, the highly
eccentric second Lord Rothschild, who rode about in a carriage pulled by zebra.
Gifted to the nation in 1937, the museum is home to one of the finest
collections of stuffed mammals, ornithological specimens, reptiles and insects
in the UK.
Breaking a
window, Rist hoisted himself into the museum. He had originally planned to be
swift and selective, but as he began to fling open the white steel cabinets of
dead birds he was seduced into a kind of feeding frenzy. It would later be some
small comfort to the museum curators that Rist bypassed Darwin's sizeable
collection of finches, and the skins and skeletons of the Dodo and the Auk,
concentrating instead on birds that appeared more colourful and exotic: Resplendent
Quetzals, gathered in the 1880s from the Chiriqui cloud forests of western
Panama and nearly four feet in length; 14 skins of the Lovely Cotinga; 37
Purple-Breasted Cotinga; 21 Spangled Cotinga; 37 Birds of Paradise; 24
Magnificent Riflebirds; 12 Superb Birds of Paradise; four Blue Birds of
Paradise; 17 Flame Bowerbirds, and so on. When he finally dragged himself back
outside, there were 299 birds stuffed into his suitcase.
Many of the
birds Rist had stolen had been collected by one very remarkable man: Alfred
Russel Wallace, a self-taught naturalist from a humble background who, in the
mid-19th century, worked his way deep into the gloomy forests of the Malay
Archipelago, hunting down mammals, reptiles and birds, funding his expeditions
by selling off duplicate skins. He lived on a diet of alligator, monkey and
turtle, and was prey to malaria, vampire bats, serpents and pirates, all the
while collecting creatures of otherworldly beauty, many of which had thrived
undiscovered by human beings for more than 20 million years.
Killing birds
in pursuit of the study of natural history has, perhaps, some justification.
But in the wake of Wallace's discoveries came a late-Victorian rage for
incorporating them in women's fashion. In what became known as the Age of
Extermination, hundreds of millions of birds - parrots, toucans, quetzals,
snowy egrets, ospreys - were killed mainly, though not exclusively, to adorn
hats. One merchant peddled a shawl made from 8,000 hummingbird skins.
As the birds'
numbers dwindled, they became worth more than their weight in gold. When the
Titanic went down in 1912, the most valuable and highly insured commodity in
its hold was 40 crates of feathers. Not surprising, then, that when Rist
hurried back towards Tring station, he was carrying $1 million worth of
feathers. He had been in the museum three hours. The security guard, glued to a
football match, had failed to notice the alarm indicator blinking.
Johnson is a
master of pacing and suspense. We learn the details of Rist's crime at the very
beginning of the book, but for a good few chapters we are kept wondering
whether he'll be caught, and, if so, how; whether Johnson will get to meet him,
and whether he is now behind bars, or out free in the world playing his flute.
The other
burning question, of course, is what inspired such an outlandish crime. Edwin
Rist was brought up in Claverack, a small town north of New York City, and
home-schooled by parents who bred labradoodles for a living, and who devoted
themselves to nurturing enthusiasms in their two sons. Edwin was just 11 when
he caught by chance on television a demonstration of how to tie a fly for trout
fishing. He was instantly captivated - and very soon as preoccupied with
fly-tying as with his flute. He befriended a retired ornithology professor
willing to sell him bird skins on the cheap. A zookeeper at the Bronx Zoo sent
him feathers from the autumn moult of the Macaw, Spoonbill and Tragopan. He
took a job chopping logs to fund his new addiction, but the rarest, most
gorgeous feathers - and therefore the most elaborate flies - remained,
financially, out of his reach. Meantime, what had begun as a hobby had become
an obsession.
Over the
internet, Rist became part of a shady 'feather underground', a community of
(all-male) fanatics who had no interest whatsoever in fishing - 'People don't
actually fish with this shit, right?' one tells Johnson - but who would go to
almost any lengths to lay their hands on exotic feathers to tie flies. 'God,
Family, Feathers' was the motto of one, while another described fly-tying as
'like a drug, nothing else matters, nothing else compares'.
Rist's new
cronies were a disparate lot: a blacksmith, a retired detective, a dentist
(what is it with dentists and endangered creatures?). But they had in common a
breathtaking hubris: a belief that they could slice apart some of the most
beautiful creatures in the natural world, and put them back together to make
something more beautiful still. Dyed feathers just wouldn't do. 'The knowledge
of the falsity eats at you,' Rist tells Johnson when they finally meet for an
eight-hour hall-of-mirrors encounter during which Rist tries to persuade
Johnson that he is not a thief, and that by snatching the Tring birds he was
actually saving the lives of birds in the wild.
And how did
Johnson become so obsessed with Rist? As he struggled to overcome his PTSD, he
took up fly-fishing as a therapy. One day, as he stood waist-deep in a river in
northern New Mexico, his fishing guide told him of Rist's crime. Johnson knew
nothing of rare birds or salmon flies, and had no experience of tracking
thieves; but, like Rist himself, he became fixated - as tenacious in his
pursuit of truth and justice as any fly-tyer in pursuit of feathers. His
ambition: to find out whether it was really possible that Rist worked alone,
and to restore to Tring all 299 of the stolen birds.
There's no
great climax to this tale, but it's a tribute to Johnson's storytelling gifts
that when I turned the last page I felt bereft. The odd, but obvious, solution?
To seek out his first book, To Be a Friend is Fatal, a memoir of the Iraq
war."
The
Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson
is published by Hutchinson. £20.
Quiz
More
chances to prove, or improve, your intellect. Answers, as ever, at the
bottom of the page.
1) After which saint day on
April 25th is the Hawthorn fly sometimes known?
2) We have just celebrated
Beltane, the day halfway between spring and summer. When is it?
3) When were the first Bank
Holidays officially granted by law in the UK?
Have a great holiday
weekend!
Best wishes,
Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk
Founder & Managing Director
Quiz answers:
1) St
Mark's Day
2)
May 1st, May Day.
3)
The Bank Holidays Act 1871
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