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9 April 2006
Fly-fishing has given me a lot. My best friends are fly-fishers; my favourite places in the world to be are fly-fishing spots. There really is nothing I’d rather do. I meet people who regard this as pathetic, as if I should get a life or something, but the way I look at it I do pretty well everything they do, and a lot more. I mean, I hold down a real job, pay a mortgage, read books and go to the movies, I surf the net, shop, listen to music, go to the pub, and watch X-Factor, just like ... more
5 June 2005
All anglers know the fascination of water, maybe better than anyone, and running water has its own special attractions. Like a fire, you can spend hours just staring into it. It’s one of the last reliable sources of magic. Fly-fishers who spend their formative years on streams and rivers never get them out of their blood, and even a wee burn exerts an irresistible pull. I know plenty of middle-aged anglers who get as excited as schoolboys when they sight a burn in spate. It’s all they can do ... more
16 March 2005
Odd, isn’t it, how a fly that inspired complete confidence ten, twenty or thirty years ago just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore? Why is that? Some anglers think it’s because trout are getting smarter, have wised up to our tricks and it takes something new to get them interested. Every time a new fly works it reinforces that idea, a new ‘only thing they would take’ is born, and more anglers tie one on their leader – and so it goes. This kind of thing is the strongest kind of reinforcement, ... more
19 February 2005
This year, I have had the questionable pleasure of two winters. No sooner had I emerged from the under the grim skies of a Scottish spring when I was plunged into the nearly identical grip of a New Zealand winter. Needless to say, it has been a long time between casts – the trout season was closed and weather kept me off the estuaries, where I had hoped to team up with my pal Bruce Masson for some sea-runners. No fishing meant we had plenty of time to compare fishing experiences and wrestle ... more
16 October 2004
A letter by Davy Wotton got me thinking (FF&FT, June). He was pointing out some clear examples of where, in order of importance, the fly itself outweighed presentation. Davy’s examples included the San Juan, in New Mexico, where thousands of anglers pursue thousands of wild trout. These fish have seen a lot of flies, and are apparently not bothered by the constant presence of anglers. Davy says they have become so inured to anglers that they even follow them around, feeding on the insects ... more
13 October 2004
Ever stop to wonder why your favourite flies work? Really, when you look at these things, they don’t look much like the bugs they’re supposed to imitate, do they? Who cares, you say, it’s a need to know deal. The good old attractor patterns continue to attract, the modern ‘trigger’ designs seem to pull the trigger, and the close-copy replicas dupe the trout just fine, thanks, without us needing to know why. Like a water faucet, who cares where the water comes from, as long as it works? We ... more
1 June 2004
Determined that my pal Bob should get the full western trout bum experience and that no expense would be spared, I grinned at the little blonde behind the bar and slapped my money down. Thirty-five bucks (about fifteen quid to you Brits). Each. For this sum you get a tidy cinder block cell with an air conditioner of sorts, a sheet metal shower and a fridge for your six pack. Luxury indeed to a drunk cowboy, but it was the bar we had come for, a David Lynch movie set without a whif of ... more
5 January 2004
There should be an organisation like Alcoholics Anonymous for tackle junkies. There are millions of us, and we need to reach out. It’s a hard thing, though. I mean, let’s face it, the habit is incurable, so group therapy is doomed from the start. For one thing, a mutual support meeting would degenerate into a swap meet within seconds. Myself, I’m supporting a bad reel habit, and those evil tackle cartels keep bringing new models onto the market - sleek, no glare, deep anodized beauties, with ... more
1 January 2004
Okay, I thought to myself, now this is a New Zealand moment. I was sitting at the table in a sheepherder’s hut, hell and gone back in the tussock grass country of the South Island, drinking whisky and shooting the bull with Keith Mitchell, presenter of New Zealand Trophy Waters, when Bruce Masson, producer of that classic video series, walks through the door holding a live and pissed-off twenty pound possum by the tail. It was snapping and growling and trying to bite Keith on the ... more
4 January 2003
Gray’s Sporting Journal, April 2003
The associations you have with a place are partly the associations you have with the people in your life, and it is impossible to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. Because they are inextricably part of each other, to describe Refuge Cove I must first describe my old friend John Dixon. They are the same thing.
Dixon is a complicated guy. He is physically large, at once domineering. over-sensitive and articulate to the ... more
1 August 2002
Gray’s Sporting Journal, August 2002
(With apologies to Ivan Turgenev)
I was thinking about how I got into the wing-shooting thing, and remembered that it was through the efforts of a high-school pal. Jim and I did a lot of trout fishing together, and in terms of those always-competitive adolescent male relationships I think I maybe had the edge on him there. My family took only fly-fishing seriously. Hunting was done with a rifle, for deer. Bird shooting was ... more
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