Theo
Editing, Flyfishers' Journal, Writing
Apart from his reputation as an outspoken environmentalist and dedicated salmon fisher, King Charles III has also been Patron of the Flyfishers’ Club for many years…
… and the latest edition of the Flyfishers’ Journal records the gifts presented by the Club to commemorate his coronation in May 2023.
These included boxes of specially-tied salmon flies (one of which caught him a grilse on the Thurso the very next day!) as well as trout flies for his grandchildren, and three fully-dressed salmon fly brooches for Queen Camilla, one of which is shown on the front cover.
This issue of the Journal also celebrates the Flyfishers’ royal connections with the River Em in Sweden – dating back to 1926 when Prince Gustav Adolf invited the first party of English guests to sample the sea-trout fishing there, an era revisited in detail by my Swedish research colleague Martin Sandgren.
There are features, too, from Neil Patterson (fry-fishing in Neuquen), Patrick Mileham (ancestral voices from the Salisbury Avon) and Bob Bradley (continuing the Avon theme with musings on Ollie Kite) as well as an important piece about imitating the Olive Upright hatch from David Marriott and Andrew Farr, and Barry Ord Clarke’s step-by-step tying interpretation of the classic Avon fly, the Pheasant Tail Nymph.
Last but not least, this time round, our chosen ‘good cause’ is the Mayfly Project UK, which provides opportunities for children in foster homes to learn about fly-fishing, conservation and the outdoors with safe mentors – with an inspiring article from founder and executive director Susan Skrupa. Please support this worthy charity if you can!
(The Flyfishers’ Journal is a complimentary benefit for all Members of the Flyfishers’ Club, and it’s also available to non-members by subscription).
Jan 02 2024
I knew all those years of working in charity marketing agencies would come in handy some day… This autumn – apart from editing the latest issue of the Flyfishers’ Journal and hitting a really important new publisher’s deadline of my own (announcement coming soon!) – I’ve also been pulling together the Wild Trout Trust’s autumn […]
Tags: Trout, Urban rivers, Wild Trout Trust, Writing
Dec 20 2023
Earlier this year, the Flyfishers’ Club achieved an amazing coup by acquiring a cased set of six copies of Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler – representing all the versions of the book which were published in IW’s own lifetime. To celebrate this momentous addition to the Club’s Library, we somehow persuaded the talented fly-fishing photographer […]
Tags: Editing, Flyfishers' Journal, Writing
Sep 01 2023
One of the nearly-unavoidable hazards of traditional print production seems to be the way that important details can go out of date almost as soon as the book is published (and this situation has only deteriorated as we’ve started including more and more references to fundamentally ephemeral digital media!) In the case of my own […]
Tags: Invasive non-native species, Pocket Guide to Balsam Bashing, Writing
Aug 12 2023
As part of my busy and newly-expanded role with the Wild Trout Trust, where I’m now leading comms activity as well as continuing to develop urban river projects across the south of England, I’ve recently written a couple of articles for the Sportfish website… … describing how WTT’s river restoration projects are focused on improving […]
Tags: Chalkstreams, River restoration, Wild Trout Trust, Writing
Jul 28 2023
Mayflies in midwinter: the latest issue of the Flyfishers’ Journal has been landing in the midst of a week-long deep freeze for much of the UK… … but I hope it’ll bring something of the warming hope of a springtime hatch to this beautiful-but-Baltic season. Cyril Bennett is on the front cover, hunting bugs in […]
Tags: Editing, Flyfishers' Journal, Writing
Dec 18 2022
There’s a definite urban vibe to the latest issue of Fly Culture magazine (step forward, Matt Eastham, Dan Osmond, Nick Thomas and Peter Coleman-Smith!) and for once it hasn’t very much to do with me… … unless you count a little tale which I might have heard in my old south London local (or much […]
Tags: Fly Culture, Writing
Jun 21 2022
On the few occasions when I’ve tried saltwater flyfishing – also known to its real cognoscenti as SWFFing – around the coast of Britain, I’m happy to admit that I’ve not been very successful. Yet if the fish were fairly insignificant (mainly small pollack or coalfish lured up from forests of kelp with sinking lines […]
Tags: Editing, Flyfishers' Journal, Writing
Jun 05 2022
This month, it’s 10 years since Trout in Dirty Places launched on a (mostly) unsuspecting world. Merlin Unwin Books and Granger’s fly shop in South Kensington threw us one hell of a party, and for a few days, the weird idea of fishing for trout and grayling in urban rivers was making headlines across the […]
Tags: Trout in Dirty Places, Writing
Apr 30 2022
Mayflies must surely constitute some of the most perfect symbolism of a flyfisher’s sport. Beautiful, fragile and famously ephemeral. Patient and enduring, living stoically and nearly-invisibly among dark stones and silt for a year or more… before emerging together into light and air for a celebration of life that seems all the more urgent and […]
Tags: Editing, Flyfishers' Journal
Dec 23 2021