When Jimmy came to town

I sometimes wonder why fishing in Britain doesn't get more of a fair shake in the PR stakes when it comes to the sports and pastimes on our nation. You have to ask, is that down to us?

	President Obama with a very excitable Dan Vermillion of Sweetwater Travel (US tour agents for Fishing Breaks) in Montana 2009

Last week we saw the hunters and fishers of the state of Michigan taking to the streets for the right to bear rods and arms. Now, you might well think in the current climate their passion is misdirected, but you can't argue with the passion. Maybe it speaks to a wider belief in the great outdoors that goes deeper in the US than it does in Britain which applies as much, it seems, to our leaders as us.

Believe or not in the post-war era more US Presidents have fished on the River Test than British Prime Ministers: George Bush Snr, Jimmy Carter and Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower was truly passionate about fly fishing; in his time as President he logged over forty fishing trips (mostly to Colorado) and taught Richard Nixon to fly cast, all in between 800 rounds of golf, a number only bettered by Barack Obama who took up fly fishing whilst in the White House.

	Fishing attire 1929 style

And the British list? Well, it is hard enough to find much evidence of any fishing let alone chalkstream fishing of recent incumbents. Of Boris Johnson I can find nothing. On Theresa May, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Major, Jim Callaghan, Ted Heath and Harold Wilson I have drawn a similar blank. I did read somewhere that Margaret Thatcher had one less-than-successful foray. David Cameron married as he is into the Astor family who own a good beat on the Spey, I would guess has had a flick or two.

In fact, you have to go all the way back to 1964 to find a Prime Minster photographed with rod in hand with Sir Alec Douglas-Hume who ended the continuous run of Downing Street anglers of Harold Macmillan (keen on shooting and golf as well), Anthony Eden, Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain. It was the last of these who was the most accomplished. Chamberlain is probably best remembered for his much derided 'peace in our time' photo op but a recent biography titled Neville Chamberlain: Angler, Birdwatcher, Farmer, Prime Minister offers a different side to him.

I was surprised to discover Churchill as a regular, but probably not passionate, fly fisher. He fished as a guest of hotelier Charles Ritz on the Normandy chalkstreams, caught a 188lb marlin off the Californian coast conducting the 30-minute fight from a boat dressed in a three-piece suit, bow tie and smoking a cigar. In 1943 when he travelled to address the US Congress, he and Roosevelt snuck off to the secret Presidential retreat in Maryland to fish. He wrote of the day,

	Menu signed by Jimmy Carter during his stay in Hampshire in 1999

"On Sunday the President wanted to fish in a stream which flowed through lovely woods. He was placed with great care by the side of a pool and sought to entice the nimble and wily fish. I tried for some time myself at other spots. No fish were caught, but he seemed to enjoy it very much, and was in great spirits for the rest of the day."

The naval aide tasked with looking after the pair reported that they had no problem with mosquitoes thanks to Churchill's cigar habit.

All sports need not just champions but championing to catch the public eye. The magic fairy dust of fame. Football has it in spades. Tennis, cricket, rugby, motor racing and horse racing all get their annual place in the sun. But fishing? The 3+ million of us who wander the banks seem untroubled by the lack of attention. 

Maybe that is to our credit?

Snoods to the rescue?

Today should be One Fly Day. For obvious reasons it isn't. And for equally obvious reasons you'll know why I have a cupboard full of branded One Fly Festival giveaways. Hats. Shirts. Snoods. Snoods? Thought: maybe there is a PPE (bet none of us knew what that stood for a month ago?) opportunity here? A full-face Covid-19 mask that actually looks cool. As Del Boy would have said, we'll all be millionaires by Christmas, Rodney. But perhaps not.

Face masks, according to the US authorities, should be made from tightly woven cotton that blocks the transmission of particles when you breathe or cough. Snoods, on the other hand, are mostly made from more loosely woven man-made materials as they are designed primarily for sun protection and ease of breathing.

If you want to know whether your snood can double as a face mask hold it up to a bright light. The New York Times advises, "If light passes really easily through the fibres and you can almost see the fibres, it's not a good fabric."

Sadly, it seems most, if not all, fishing snoods will fail this test.

The Educated Trout vs. The Educated Angler

From our respective offices either side of the Hamphire/Wiltshire divide Charles and I recorded Episode 5 of The Fishing Cast yesterday, courtesy of Zoom.

We discuss the top 10 angling books of all time (bit of disagreement there), answer a question on the best knots for tapered leaders and go back in time to review the BBC World About Us programme The Educated Trout.

You can listen via your usual podcast provider or these links:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Google Podcasts

Cooper & Jardine

Happy listening!

PS Please nominate your favourite fishing film, our topic next time. Email us  your selection(s). 

Poison ivy

Trees by rivers can sometimes be very annoying. They grow for decades, even centuries, until they choose to fall over at both unexpected and inconvenient moments.

Typical is this tree on Beat 3 at Bullington Manor. It is an ash, probably 75 years old, that came down over the weekend. Why, you have to ask? There was no storm. No special event. It is not even in full leaf, a common enough time in the life of a tree to fall down. But fall it did. So, amongst the many spring tasks of a river keeper this is one to add to the list.

I posted the photo on social media - I know exciting stuff - which prompted a French follower to ask (all power to Google translate) why we hadn't stripped the tree of ivy. Aside from the fact that we have hundreds of acres of woodland making such a task impractical it did prompt me to do a bit of research on ivy.

It seems ivy generally doesn't kill trees, but it does tend to target weak or dying trees which sort of marries with my general observations over the years. Top tip if you want to kill ivy: spray the leaves with vinegar. However, it does have plenty of upsides for the local community. Butterflies harvest the nectar in autumn. Birds eat the berries in winter. And small rodents use the dense foliage as a safe and dry place to live. 

Is it poisonous? Well, not to them and only mildly for us. As for ivy on buildings English Heritage conducted a three-year study which, surprisingly, concluded there are many benefits but few detriments. Ivy cover acts both as an insulator and protector from the elements; building walls with ivy were 16% warmer in winter and 36% cooler in summer. That said, ivy roots will exacerbate any existing damage or weaknesses of the structures on which it grows.

An emerging mayfly

What is missing from this scene? As the photo was taken on a spring evening over the Easter weekend it must be people. And perhaps an angler or two.

This is, of course, The Mayfly Inn at Chilbolton just upstream of Stockbridge. Usually every picnic table is jammed, the fish lining up beside the garden wall for a steady stream of crisps. If I fished this beat, I'd be sure to tie up some Kettle Chip deceivers.

It is a glorious spot and a pub that has recently been refurbished under the new owner, Fuller's Inns. They have done a grand job but only reopened a week ahead of the Covid closedown but definitely one to put on the list when fishing resumes.

The private dining room at The Mayfly Inn

My kinda gardening

I confess: I don't like gardening. I hear some people bewailing the continuing closure of garden centres but I cannot empathsise.

I feel the pain of the growers who have had to turn millions of blooms into compost, but truly garden centres are my most hated retail experience. And the actual act of gardening comes a pretty close second.

However, since I think trimming the weed in the back-garden stream here at The Mill probably comes under 'non-essential' travel for our river keeper I took up the scythe. Looks like I haven't forgotten how to do it. 

Pretty spiffy if I don't say so myself.

Quiz

I am indebted to Fishing Breaks regular John Werrett who gave me these questions in return for using some of mine in his village quiz. So, no particular theme this week but as ever, it is all just for fun with the answers at the bottom of the page.

1)    What is a Dorset Naga?

2)   What did Newcastle chemist William Owen invent in 1927 for those who were sick with common illnesses?

3)    What is the only country with a coastline on both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf?

Have a good weekend.

Best wishes,

    

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk

Founder & Managing Director

www.fishingbreaks.co.uk

Answers:

1)      A Chilli (formerly the world's hottest)

2)      Lucozade

3)      Saudi Arabia

What did you do in 2020?

What did you do in 2020?

It's been one of those jobs I've put off for a while. It was hard graft the last time I did it a decade ago. A cast iron steel mill wheel that dates back to the 1860's might well be a thing of a certain beauty but it is not an easy job to repaint.

	The mill with mill stream in foreground. The mill wheel housing is behind the ground floor window on right.

There has been a mill on this site for well over a thousand years; we are listed in the Domesday Book. It is hard to know the exact date of the current building but the foundations are probably 14^th century, the main brick structure of 17^th century Dutch influence (they arrived to construct the water meadows around that time) with the final configuration as we see it today in the late Victorian era. 

The current wheel itself and the water control mechanism is easier to date having been made in the Tasker's foundry in nearby Andover, replacing a wooden wheel.

When I first arrived here in 1999 the wheel had not spun for years; the axle bearings had been stolen (valuable bronze) and the wheel had subsided against one wall, with the sluice gate also nowhere to be seen. I subsequently found the latter in the bed of the brook at the tail of the mill race. It is now repurposed as a sign.

At one point I was considering removing the wheel altogether, but as it turns out bringing the mill wheel back to life was not as hard as I thought. There are still skilled millwrights to be found, so with a series of car jacks, a trip to the foundry for new bearings and a steel fabricator for the control gate the wheel was restored. Today it spins around merrily in the winter months, keeping my home and the village dry, though the grinding mechanism it once powered is long gone.

There are 32 buckets (the proper term for the paddles) plus the spindles and axle all of which have to be scraped of loose rust in preparation for a special corrosion treatment prior to being painted proper. 

Actually, the corrosion treatment is a rather odd paint. It goes on white as you first apply it with a brush, but after a short while it turns blue at which point you have to agitate it for a further two minutes with it giving off all sorts of weird chemical smells. Needless to say, I've been unable to get a suitable mask, so at least that part of the work goes by in something of a haze ....... eventually it dries black.

So, as of today I have completed the full rotation. All the prep work is done. Screwfix have delivered an industrial quantity of black metal paint. You know where to find me.

Where the magic happens .....

Taking a break in the past

Let's be honest, sometimes fishing days can be slow. Or your heart is not entirely in it. Whether it is you. The fish. Or the weather, the stars simply don't align. Sometimes a trip to the pub or a snooze is enough to break the hoodoo. Other times you need something different. And you'd be surprised what history lurks around the turn of many a river bend.

	St Margaret's Church with the Nightingale family plot in the foreground

I was having one of those days a few years ago on the Blackwater, the most downstream of all the River Test tributaries. On the way there, and a hundred times before, I had driven past the road sign that pointed in the direction of St Margaret's Church in East Wellow, the burial place of Florence Nightingale.

In recent years, mostly prompted by two BBC pieces, there has been some revisionist history regarding the Florence Nightingale story: essentially, so it goes, she wasn't the great reformer she was purported to be. It is true she came from high birth. A wealthy family who, remember this is the 1840's, expected her to marry well and do her familial duty. But she had other ideas, determined, in the teeth of fierce parental opposition to pursue her calling from God and the desire to fulfil her belief in public service.

It was as a nurse during the Crimean War of the 1850's that she first highlighted the unsanitary nature of battlefield hospitals where the wounded were ten times more likely to die from disease such as typhoid or cholera rather than the battle wounds themselves. Nightingale implemented handwashing (sound familiar?) and other hygiene practices in the hospitals in which she worked. After the war she returned to England campaigning for better sanitation in both hospitals and homes before setting up a nurse training school with her own money in St Thomas's Hospital, writing and lobbying government (high birth gave her high connections) for the remainder of her life.

	Plaque commemorating her place of birth in Florence, Italy. Her sister was a little less fortunate born in Parthenope, Greece.

So, it was by way of that life that she was laid to rest in the graveyard of a stunningly beautiful Hampshire church at the end of a lane that goes nowhere. St Margaret's is typical of its time and the natural building materials of the locale; squat, thick flint walls with an expansive red tiled roof on hefty oak rafters. The wooden bell tower looks a bit incongruous but that is likely a product of a period in English history when permanent towers and spires were pulled down to avoid taxation.

Though Florence Nightingale was raised in the Wellow parish, home to the family estate at Embley Park, burial in her local church was not a given. To start with she wanted her body to go to medical science, but the family would not posthumously accede to her wish. 

The government of the day confused the picture yet further by offering a full national ceremony with burial in Westminster Abbey; the family declined this offer. So, in something of a compromise, on 20th August 1910, after a funeral service in St. Paul's Cathedral, Nightingale's body was bought by train from London to Romsey, and thence by horse carriage the 5 miles to Wellow for burial with her parents.

If you are ever passing that way, or the fishing day demands it, it is worth the visit.

Fly fishing around the globe

If there is a silver lining to the Covid crisis it probably only lies with the southern hemisphere fly fishing community who are coming toward the end of their season. For the northern hemisphere it really could not have been timed any worse cutting across not only the prime time for the fishing itself but also the prime time for planning trips.

You also have to feel immense sympathy with the warm water salt fly fishing lodges. Many were still rebuilding after the 2019 hurricanes but now, with the shutdown in air travel and probable restrictions to come, 2020 looks to be grim. Even when we return to whatever 'normal' looks like you do wonder whether there will be a fast recovering appetite for international travel.

Australia - fishing allowed in some states (e.g. New South Wales) but not in others (e.g. Victoria)

	Michigan on Wednesday

United Sates - varies according to state. For most it is largely fishing as usual e.g. Florida, Colorado, New York State and Virginia whilst limiting groups to two but no guiding permitted. Others have positively encouraged getting out to fish to the extent of opening the season early e.g. Connecticut, and Rhode Island. However, many popular rivers have been inundated so some states have limited licences to state residents or restricted numbers by surname: last names A-M can fish on even numbered calendar days with N-Z on odd.

The current outlier is Michigan where the shutdown includes all fishing and hunting leading to mass demonstrations and gridlock around the State legislature.

Europe - totally forbidden in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Spain. Permitted in Austria, Holland, Sweden and Switzerland.

New Zealand - banned along with tramping, hunting, boating, surfing.

My view back here at home? Well, the newly extended lockdown takes us to 7/May so I think its fair to assume no fishing before then. However, I'd have thought outdoor activities (golf, national parks, garden centres etc.) will be the first to restart as the lockdown eases. I doubt we'll get any specific government guidance on fishing so we'll have to take our cue from others. Maybe, just maybe, we'll get some Mayfly action .........

Happy

I see 

	Pharrell Williams - Happy (Official Music Video)

Happy by Pharrell Williams is the most played song on UK radio for the decade 2010-19. I mention this because plenty of you have told me I was a bit miserable last week so, the in absence of any more mentions of the Smiths or the Clash, I thought a quick splash of mindless pop might cheer us up.

Likewise, I'm grateful to Rachel Shimell who looks after the PR for those of us who are members of the Southern Tourist Board. 

As I had ignored her email requesting 'good news stories' she dug around on the Fishing Breaks site and rightly reminded me of this great Directors Cut for CHALK.

Happy days are not far away.

	CHALK Directors Cut No. 2 - River Test

Quiz

No particular theme this week but as ever, it is all just for fun with the answers at the bottom of the page.

 

1)      Who fought who in the Crimean War 1853-6?

2)      What unsuccessful island invasion was launched on this day in 1961?

3)      What is the birth flower for the month of April?

Have a good weekend.

Best wishes,

    

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk

Founder & Managing Director

www.fishingbreaks.co.uk

Answers:

1)      Russian Empire lost to an alliance made up of the Ottoman Empire, France, Britain and Sardinia.

2)      Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles .

3)      The Daisy Bellis perennis

Life after Covid

Life after Covid

It is strange watching the spring unfold without fishing; people are the weft and warp of a countryside we have created to reflect our needs. On the one hand it is rather nice to be the solitary guardian of the rivers. But on the other, you have to ask, what really is the point? It's a party without guests. Our merry band of keepers play on, but nobody hears the music. It is sad. We miss you.

Some are taking solace that the shutdown will create space for an ecological renaissance. I'm not so sure. Let me tell you why. And let me tell you why it may well make things worse. The optimist argument goes something like this: the shutdown of commerce and transportation is doing wonders for our pollution levels. The air has never been cleaner. The strain on natural resources much diminished. Wildlife, with us out of the picture, has more space in which to live, breed and breathe. Chalkstreams will return to a wilder, more natural state.

The difficulty with this line of thought is the transitory nature of the Covid crisis; a few weeks or even months set against in the timescale of the centuries of the industrial and agricultural revolution is nothing. In our own simple world, we may stock fewer fish in 2020. There may be much less fishing. But ultimately if 2020 presages a spike in the wild trout population the reason will have nothing to do with Covid but all to do with one of the wettest winters on record.

My worry is that in the aftermath of the crisis, as happened during and after WWII, there will be a major push for domestic home food production. This will inevitably mean more land under the plough. More pesticides. More intensive agriculture. Our departure from the EU is seen as an opportunity to reset farm subsidies from production to conservation; that may well be sacrificed on the altar on farm incomes. The term 'wilding' may disappear as fast as it appeared.

Similarly, the water companies, one of the major contributors to the poor state of our rivers will use the crisis. They could write the book on greenwashing. Let's face it - we know how this one works. Poor sewage treatment. Criminal activity. Abstraction. Chronic lack of investment in reservoirs and desalination. But you'd never guess that they are trashing the water resources of the home nations amidst their flurry of climate change initiatives to save the world. In any economic downturn that comes they will pivot and whine, demanding derogation from the already inadequate environmental legislation.

And sadly, despite, the best will in the world I cannot see the Environment Agency being up to the enforcement task in the years ahead when budgets are squeezed to the point that the austerity era will be fondly remembered as a spend-fest. Likewise, the voluntary sector, that has made so much progress to take up the slack where official bodies have failed us, will be caught in a double bind as grant funding gets squeezed along with the wallets of the general public.

I wish I could see a silver-lining to what is happening all around us but frankly, I can't. All I can promise is whenever fishing restarts, be it next week, next month or (have mercy on us) next year we'll be ready with the banks cut, the weed trimmed and fish ready to outwit you all over again.

Postscript: between writing this and publication Mark Bowler editor of Fly Fishing & Fly Tying broke the news on his Twitter feed that Welsh farmers have been given temporary allowance to spread waste milk on land. He writes, "While milk may not seem as harmful to us as sewage or other pollutants its effect on fish populations can be devastating".

Casting Shadows

In response to the last Newsletter I received an email encouraging me to explain the origins of the nymph vs. dry fly fishing debate. In essence it is pretty simple.

Until the mid-Victorian era people fished as they wished; we'd probably call it piscatorial-fluid these days. But then a bloke called Halford came along and insisted that the dry fly was the only way to catch trout. Then his friend Skues said, wait a moment don't trout mostly eat underwater nymphs? Let me show you how to do it. And so, he did. And far too often and far too successfully to the chagrin of his fellow club members. What Skues gained in fish he lost in friends creating the schism in fly fishing that has existed ever since, culminating in a splenic debate as to the merits of each at the Fly Fishers' Club in February 1938.

However, I have been spared going into further details as this, and much more, is wonderfully explained in Tom Fort's new book Casting Shadows. He writes of Skues,

"The other problem Skues had with his fellow fly fishermen was that he was too damn good at catching trout. The Abbots Barton water on the Itchen, which he fished for half a century, was chalkstream fishing at its most testing. Unlike most other fisheries, it was not stocked, which meant the members of the Gentlemen's Club syndicate that rented it were dependent on a limited and variable population of extremely wary and discriminating trout for their sport.

Skues's expertise with the nymph enabled him to catch and kill - in those days all sizeable fish were killed - what the other members came to regard as a disproportionate share of the decent trout. A groundswell of hostility developed towards him, which he became aware of but - being so sure of himself and something of a social misfit - he preferred to confront. On the last day of May 1936 the 77-year-old Skues, having caught a two-and-a-half pound trout on one of his nymphs, met one of the other syndicate members, Gavin Simonds, on the river bank. Simonds - a leading barrister, later a judge, Law Lord and eventually Lord Chancellor - told Skues that in his view the use of a nymph represented a breach of their lease because it was not an artificial fly any more than a caterpillar was a moth or butterfly.

This specimen of nonsensical sophism was supported by others in the syndicate who were envious of Skues's uncanny ability to catch fish when nobody else could, notably Neville Bostock, the boss of the Northampton shoemakers Lotus. Two years later poor old Skues was, in effect, forced out of the syndicate and off the Itchen."

I am grateful to Tom Fort on two levels; firstly he explains far better than I ever could the long history of fishing from evolution to the modern day, including our little local difficulty on the chalkstreams with the nymph. It is a wonderfully gossipy chapter but not a little sad - it doesn't really reflect well on any of the players. And on the other level Casting Shadows is just wonderful book. It ranges wide and deep across freshwater life: us, fish, the countryside, livelihoods, history and our sport. Pretty well all fishes and types of fishing, commercial and recreational are illuminatingly covered. I can't think that you will not like it.

CASTING SHADOWS - FISH AND FISHING IN BRITAIN by Tom Fort was published by William Collins 2/April. Available to buy as hardback on Waterstones.com and eBook on Amazon.

Fishing in your backyard

I know you read this all around the globe, so I'd love to hear what is happening to fishing in your part of the world. Is it allowed? Are the authorities positively encouraging it?

That is certainly the case in some states of the USA. In Pennsylvania the Fish and Boat Commission bought the opening day forward from April 18 to April 1 to avoid overcrowding. In Switzerland, even though the country is in lockdown, fishing is permitted. In Belgium, France and Holland I'm told it is forbidden.

Email me with news from your part of the world.

Nothing for something

It was an act of boundless optimism: on 31 March I renewed my annual fishing licence which is, by the way, £30 for trout and coarse fish or £82 for salmon and sea trout.

Then, with fishing effectively banned by the government I wondered, as have others judged by social media, whether the Environment Agency was going to grant a licence holiday for those who have bought something they are barred from using. Guess what? The answer is no.

Now I, like you and most people, won't care much about the money aspect of the EA decision but you do wonder about what PR people call the optics. I have long though the rod licence an iniquity, effectively a tax on our pastime. I can't think of another sport where the full force of the law, with the threats of a fine of up £2,500, is demanded as the cost of participation. In fact, quite the reverse: hundreds of millions are doled out by Sports Council annually. Or take the V&A museum. Last year it received £60m in state aid in return for 4.4m visits. We, on the other hand, paid £23m to make 20+m visits to rivers.

But rant aside, I think EA are on the wrong side of the argument. When the countryside reopens waiving the rod licence fee for the remainder of the year would be the most wonderful way to give the rural economy a timely boost.

Quiz

Had to go with a bit of an Easter theme, though the long break seems slightly superfluous at the moment. As someone aptly said, we are reduced to a three-day week: yesterday, today and tomorrow. As ever, it is all just for fun with the answers at the bottom of the page.

1)      On what hill was Christ crucified?

2)      Name one of the three other recognised names for Good Friday

3)      What is the name of the yellow flower pictured?

The Parsonage this week

Happy Easter!

PS In case you missed it the latest edition of The Fishing Cast How to go fishing when you can't go fishing is available via this link an

Best wishes,

    

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk

Founder & Managing Director

www.fishingbreaks.co.uk

Answers:

1)      Calvary

2)      Black Friday, Great Friday or Holy Friday

3)      Lesser celandine (Ficaria verna) a member of the buttercup family