Editing, Flyfishers' Journal

The Flyfishers’ Journal: Winter 2020

Christmas is coming… and so is the Flyfishers’ Journal.

This ‘lockdown edition’ reflects the fact that it’s surely been the strangest fishing season that any of us can remember. For most Members of the Flyfishers’ Club, and that includes me, the simple prospects of getting onto the water, or just contemplating the associations of time spent fishing, have taken on a greater-than-ever significance. So it’s felt completely appropriate to dedicate this issue of the Journal to exploring the themes of our sport and culture, in and out of lockdown, and providing all our readers with plenty of inspiration for when we can all finally go fishing freely again.

So… I’ve been able to persuade Club Members Graham Thomas and and Jan Reidar Abrahamsen to take us back to their favourite locations in Hampshire and Iceland, while Viking salmon fisher Morten Harangen revisits the scene of a previous triumph on his local River Numedalslagen (with nearly-unbelievable results).

My own fishing pal Adrian Grose-Hodge meditates on the meaning of our mutual ‘brotherhood of anglers’, and Bob Bradley says ‘everybody must get stoned’ as he compares Perlidae patterns from both sides of the Atlantic. Also reporting from the USA, Greg Belcamino seems to have spent as much time on bike-based reconnaissance as casting a fly-rod… so far. And just in case lockdown does return in fishing season, Neil Patterson leads with the definitive guide to lying low, under almost any conditions!

More than ever, as Editor of the Journal, I’m hugely grateful to all the contributors who have written such a range of creative and rewarding articles under the most trying and anti-creative of circumstances. Without their generosity, time and effort, this Journal would be so much slimmer and less interesting…