Writer, fly-fisher, river restorationist
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 […]
Cover: Setting Sail, by Bruno Vincent. Inside: Appreciations for Orri Vigfusson, by Neil Patterson and Adrian Latimer. Salmon flies for Iceland, Norway, Scotland, Wales and the English chalkstreams, by Alex Jardine. Grayling Research Trust work, by Robin Mulholland. Psychedelic craziness on the Varzuga, by Henry Giles. Re-tying 19th century flies from a forgotten creel, by Andrew Herd. […]
This month I’ve been absolutely thrilled to see my long-awaited article about the Wandle appearing in the January 2018 issue of Trout & Salmon, which started dropping on doormats and news-stands last week. It’s not a valedictory – the big move from south London to Somerset has happened for family reasons, and I’m still intending […]
These past couple of months, I’ve been contributing articles to the (increasingly authoritative) Fishtec blog… … on a whole range of subjects, from secret-weapon end-of-season trout flies to much more serious issues like invasive non-native species, and what we can all do to identify and prevent pollution in our rivers: Who’s the daddy? Fishing crane-flies […]
To the best of this editor’s knowledge, there’s never been a big dirty streamer on the front of the Flyfishers’ Journal. Dedicated followers of Halford might want to look away now, but the moment I saw this photo from Neil Patterson (hard evidence of a recent catfishing trip to Florence) I knew what I had […]
It’s been quite the buzz to see my first feature in The Times – a full double page spread in a Times Weekend fishing special, alongside an interview with Orvis ambassador Marina Gibson. Like most listicles of this kind, my Top 20 Places to Fish in the UK is a calculated mixture of wide geographical spread […]
It’s a huge honour to have been asked to contribute an article to Salmon & Trout Conservation UK’s annual Gamefisher magazine, but nothing really prepared me for the shock of opening the envelope and finding my name on the cover alongside Ted Hughes and Jeremy Paxman… With a brief from editor Tom Fort to write […]
Here in south London, trout season opens later than elsewhere, and it’s just another quirk of fishing in the 21st century that social media isn’t letting me forget it. Starting in early March, my Instagram and Twitter feeds have steadily been filling up with photos from big trout hunters in Scotland, Eden, Derbyshire, Wales and the […]
Especially if you’re an angler, invasive non-native species can really spoil your day. From giant hogweed on the banks (with phyto-phototoxic sap which inflicts third-degree burns that’ll keep coming back for years) to signal crayfish and killer shrimp in the water (which destroy the food web from the bottom up by chewing through all the […]
Just before Christmas last year, I got a call from a German design and publishing house which was working on a big new fly-fishing book project and needed another writer to join Andrew Herd to pick up some interviews at short notice. Would I like to come on board? Took me about 3 seconds to […]
