Scotland
2 February 2012 // Books //On Water
An extract from Jon Berry’s new book A Train To Catch: If one journey typified the travels of adventurous Victorians, it was the grand tour of Scotland. These were not the third-class day trips enjoyed by ordinary Thamesmen, but extended excursions for the moneyed gentleman hunter. Shotguns, servants and rod boxes with Pall Mall addresses [...]
The Maggot Train
12 January 2012 // Books //On Water
An extract from Jon Berry’s new book, A Train To Catch: The Wessex rivers owe much to the railways, and may never have flourished without them. Until the final years of Victoria they were ostensibly salmon rivers, but that changed in the 1890s when two fishermen – the Gomm Brothers – used the new railway [...]
Trout Is All
A great short film by Rolf Nylinder. Trout is all from Rolf Nylinder on Vimeo. from the Frontsidefly blog. A little edit from upper Vindelälven. Enough said! the song is “The Tallest Man on Earth – Love is all”
Life of a River
Hampshire man Matt Hamilton showcases the wealth of wildlife at Ichen Navigation. (from the BBC Nature website)
An Ancient Free Fishery on the Wye
by Robert Mann. One hundred years ago, George Harris, fisherman and hedge-layer, of King’s Caple, Herefordshire, and Frank Bailey, from the neighbouring village of Hentland, made what was for them a momentous journey to London. They went up to the House of Lords to hear the Law Lords pass judgement on an appeal which, apart [...]
Robert Macfarlane on Kurt Jackson
pic: Caroline Jackson The introduction to the catalogue for Kurt Jackson’s exhibition of recent works, currently on show at The Redfern Gallery, London. By Robert Macfarlane ‘As I watch the world’, wrote Nan Shepherd in 1945, ‘it arches its back, and each layer of the landscape bristles’. It’s a typically brilliant observation about observation from [...]
Dark Waters
By Michael Smith. The following piece was commissioned for this year’s Richmond Literary Fringe Festival and was given its first public reading, by Michael, at the launch party that we hosted together a week or so ago. To hear it read by the author in his distinctive Teesside lilt as our boat cruised down the [...]
Excuses, Excuses
By Danny Adcock. I have a feeling that man has been making excuses for coming home empty-handed for tens of thousands of years. In an age where ‘just being there’ seems to have become the mantra for the type of angler who appreciates, amongst others, Bernard Venables and Chris Yates, and who approaches his fishing [...]
Low Water at Meare
by Paul Cowlishaw. It was another unusually mild October morning. There was a light breeze from the south- west and when the sun broke through the gaps in the cloud there were bursts of warmth. I stood, facing downstream, on the stone bridge over the River Brue just below Manor Farm, rod and net in [...]
The Last River Rat
BBC – Natural World – Mississippi, Tales of the Last River Rat: A stunningly photographed portrait of the wildlife and landscape of the Mississippi River seen through the eyes of ‘River Rat’ Kenny Salwey, a legendary hunter, trapper and author who lives off the land and shares his watery haunts with beavers, snapping turtles, sturgeons, [...]
