Archive for the 'Trout in Dirty Places' Category

10 years of Trout in Dirty Places

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 […]

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Trout in Dirty Places, Writing Apr 30 2022

Trout in Dirty Places: All sold out!

A few days ago I heard from my publishers Merlin Unwin Books that they’ve finally sold out of all the printed copies of my first book, Trout in Dirty Places. I’m still working out exactly how I feel about this: on one hand, of course, books are supposed to sell out, but on the other, […]

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Trout in Dirty Places, Writing Mar 07 2021

Trote in Posti Sporchi…

… means Trout in Dirty Places in Italian, and this week I’ve been surprised and thrilled to find out that I’ve featured in this article about urban street fishing as an antidote to lockdown and C-19, in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. For urban and rural dwellers alike, being able to #FishWhereYouLive, or anywhere […]

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Fly-fishing, Media coverage, Trout in Dirty Places, Urban rivers Feb 05 2021

Trout in the Town: How I’m joining the Wild Trout Trust

Nearly a week after we broke the news on social media, I’m still finding it hard to express how incredibly excited I am to be joining the Wild Trout Trust as their new Trout in the Town officer for the south of England and Wales. Of course, everything has moved on a long way since […]

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River restoration, Trout, Trout in Dirty Places, Urban rivers, Wild Trout Trust Mar 07 2018

Turrall Flies: 5 top tips for urban fly-fishers

When you’ve already been sniffing out the secrets (hmm…) of urban rivers for more years than you might care to count, it’s easy to forget that not everyone else has been on this journey of discovery for quite that long. So here’s a little guest blog post I wrote recently for my good pal Dominic […]

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Fly-fishing, Trout in Dirty Places, Urban rivers May 10 2016

New life for the Taff

Quite apart from the constant hum of creativity that means we’re now getting to play with some of the finest, most sophisticated tackle ever deployed in search of elusive fish, I think it’s fair to say that two developments – no, movements – within the last 20 years have revolutionised the lives of most of […]

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Fly-fishing, Grayling, River restoration, Taff, Trout, Trout in Dirty Places, Urban rivers, Writing Apr 04 2016

Urban river restoration: Interview for SCALE Magazine

It’s not every day you get interviewed on your home water for an international fishing ezine. So when Germany’s SCALE Magazine offered to send writer-translator Tankred Rinder (also editor of Forelle und Aesche) and photographer Veit Dresmann to south London as part of their round-the-UK road trip in September… … I jumped at the chance […]

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Chalkstreams, Fly-fishing, London, Pocket Guide to Balsam Bashing, River restoration, Trout, Trout in Dirty Places, Urban rivers, Wandle Dec 01 2014

Wet weather in Wincanton

However many urban river restoration projects you get to know (and I got very familiar with a large number of them in the course of researching and writing Trout in Dirty Places), there’s something about meeting new people on the banks of their once-dirty-and-forgotten river that never grows old.  So it was a particular pleasure […]

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Flyfishing.co.uk, River restoration, Trout in Dirty Places, Urban rivers, Writing Mar 19 2014

Discovering the Dour

In September I took a trip down to Dover and discovered another little urban chalkstream that’s spookily similar to the Wandle: Long before recorded history, the Dour was responsible for creating one of Britain’s earliest natural harbours, wearing a deep notch into the chalk cliffs and providing Neolithic boatmen with a safe landing-place in a […]

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Chalkstreams, Flyfishing.co.uk, Trout, Trout in Dirty Places, Urban rivers, Wandle, Writing Nov 02 2013

Writing on the Wandle: Tankred Rinder and George Monbiot get stuck into Trout in Dirty Places

The past few weeks have been busy with new project development (of which, I hope, more soon!) but I’ve also had the thrill of meeting two great and influential writers on the banks of the Wandle. First up was Tankred Rinder, Austrian author and editor of the rapidly-growing Forelle und Aesche e-zine. Tankred fished the Wandle […]

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Fly-fishing, Grayling, London, Media coverage, River restoration, Trout, Trout in Dirty Places, Urban rivers, Wandle Apr 30 2013