The Secret Angler

About this time of year I press my nose to the window of the Wild Trout Trust’s annual fundraising auction. It’s a good earner for the Trust, £81k in 2021, it says on its website. Easy to see why when you look at the guide prices (often exceeded), especially of lots in my part of the world, the chalklands of southern England. I do have a liking for the chalk rivers and have even got to fish some of them, though not the super-famous beats on the Test or the Bourne Rivulet, perhaps the most celebrated of all the trout streams. But £500 for a single day’s fishing? There must still be some who can stump up this much in these indigent times.

Quite a few of these waters are not so exclusive that you can’t get on them other than via the WTT auction. Some are available through the fishing companies that have turned the fly fishing game into a cottage industry. As a matter of fact a day’s fishing purchased direct may well cost you rather less than winning the auction lot. Some are a bit more exclusive. Lots are offered to fish for les truites brune in France, the only other country in the world blessed with chalk streams. (I wonder if France extracts the quantity of water from or pours the amount of shit into them that we do ours.) I am relieved to see the overseas lots restricted to relatively local Belgium and France, with only one long-haul jolly available to Montana in the US. On offer is a private stretch, but for one third the money you can get to fish many miles of famous rivers, as the spiel makes clear. Perhaps the WTT read my last post on the topic.

I know, it’s in a good cause and the WTT does do some good work, and trout rivers need all the help they can get, and more. Yet when I see that some of the money is spent on these expensive and restricted rivers in the south, accessible to only a very few, I imagine I’m not the only angler to pause for thought. I would, though, be very sad to see their demise. So if you fancy a bit of Alice-through-the-looking-glass fishing, or just something cheaper away from Hampshire, head over to the WTT website. You have five days left. Meanwhile my nose is still pressed to the glass.

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The editor of Fly Culture magazine, Pete Tyjas, doesn’t like me. Before he started up FC, he ran an online fishing ’zine with the trout-bum title, EatSleepFish, which invited contributions from anyone, although most came from fellow fishing guides. It was non-profit, and non-paying of course.

When four or five years ago Tyjas set up Fly Culture he publicised it on Flyfishing.co.uk. I’d heard that contributors would not be paid so I raised this with him on the forum. I was quite persistent and he didn’t like that. But fair dos, he did start paying for articles once income was sufficient.

I don’t think he’s forgiven me though. The magazine makes a bit of a thing about looking after fish, which is all right and proper. ‘Grip and grins’, the corny fish and captor portraiture, are discouraged; photos with the fish held close to the water for its protection and absenting the angler’s mug are preferred. This does make for more attractive fishy snaps, although close-ups of fish heads and fish tails are rapidly becoming the new corny.

So I was a little amused to see a picture appear on my Twitter timeline of Pete holding a fish and grinning beardily at the camera. I don’t follow him but sometimes other accounts pop up depending on all sorts of algorithms designed to throw junk your way. So I replied, somewhat mischievously, ‘Is that a grip and grin?’ Turns out he blocked me for that. I think I must have touched a nerve.

No great loss of course as I’m not wildly interested in the Tyjas outlook. But it does illustrate once more how sensitive many are to the mildest criticism, especially among those inclined to a bit of hypocrisy. Since Fly Culture trails environmental credentials, it behoves the editor to practise his preaching. Fishy photos are trivial, but less trivial are the foreign fishing trips (on one of which this snap was taken) published in the mag, and the large truck I know he drives. A bit of consistency would be good, but when he can’t be consistent he should not get upset when it’s pointed out.

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