The Secret Angler

Some anglers have big egos and the bigger the ego the thinner the eggshell that protects it. One of the teacup storms on Traditionalfisherman forum is a recent example. Trevor Harrop, one of the two anglers who started the Avon Roach Project, an amateur fish hatchery for restocking the Hampshire Avon with roach, joined the forum last week, apparently to take issue with another member who finds his book about the ARP waffly and the project itself largely a waste of effort. Used to being lauded just about everywhere, his self-regard obviously took a bit of a hit.

This blog has already commented on the ARP. The Environment Agency 2005 Avon survey that Harrop cites does not appear to exist; at any rate I’ve never found any link to it on the EA website, although its navigation is notoriously bad. The ARP reproduces a single bar chart that has little meaning without information about how the data were gathered. Certainly there is no reason for a ‘sad sense of empty desperation’. Far from roach being in ‘serious decline’, the full survey data show that the species was doing fine in 2005, better in fact than most subsequent years. This of course assumes that the EA data samples are a reliable guide to fish stocks, but Harrop’s hyperbole has nothing to back it up beyond fishermen’s not entirely trustworthy anecdotes and reference to a mysterious report.

The ARP is not shy about bigging itself up, boasting about ‘ground-breaking techniques’. Collecting fish spawn had been done long before the ARP filled the first tub with roach eggs. Stocking with hatchery fry is now believed ineffective, but I have discussed this elsewhere. What of the mini squabble on TFF, my attention to which was kindly drawn by a spectator? The impetus came from a recent video about roach fishing by Harrop, the titles of which refer modestly to his ‘selfless dedication’, which led to further chat about his book. The heretic who questioned the merits of book and project is an accomplished roach angler himself, an author of two books on the subject, with a good knowledge of the Avon. Cracks in his eggshell very obvious, Harrop launched into a diatribe accusing his critic at some length of jealousy. Quite what there is to be jealous about is unclear. Should any readers want to look at the exchange it is too late. Mark ‘very nice’ Sarul, the administrator, who can’t bear even the mildest disagreement, has taken the posts down. Now all you can read is how wonderful everything is.

What of the book itself? Well I’m not about to buy it. Who wants to read about something that was almost certainly a futile exercise? But I have found an excerpt online. The TFF critic is correct. It is cliché and waffle. Still, that never stopped a fishing book selling a few copies.

The ARP has no evidence to back up its grandiose claims but on the other hand has unlikely to have done any harm, and just possibly some good, especially with work on habitat improvement. Not everyone thinks so and Harrop must be prepared to accept criticism without insulting the critic. Otherwise he is no more than a puffed up ego fed by unjustified lavish praise that he has listened to with too much pleasure.

Reading has been going out of fashion for some time. Modern attention spans just don’t seem up to getting through a few hundred words, let alone the tens of thousands that make up a worthwhile book. Perhaps the Wild Trout Trust had this in mind when they commissioned all and sundry to write 160-word pieces for a fund-raising book. According to the blurb on its website, it is a collection of ‘riverside moments’ that aims to achieve the effect of the Mortimer and Whitehouse Gone Fishing book, whatever that might be. I’ve only read the opening chapters of that celebrity book, which detail their respective illnesses and life on the showbiz circuit. Like the TV programme, not especially interesting. The most striking feature of their relationship is Whitehouse’s obvious irritation with Bob Mortimer’s ham-fisted incompetence handling a fishing rod.

What can we expect from the WTT book titled Not Really Fishing? Writing very short pieces of 160 words and making them interesting is a lot more difficult than for a longer chapter. I doubt the editors had much to work with going by the example sections I’ve seen. Each contribution is followed by a factoid on the subject of the vignette. The theme of the book seems to follow the false romantic myth that runs through dozens of bad fishing articles now — the fishing isn’t important compared to the delirious joy of being on the bank.

For a conservation organisation, I question the WTT’s choice of the retail behemoth Amazon as a publishing partner. Big business has done plenty to pollute the environment and Amazon is also busy chewing up the High Streets around the country. But then a charity that aligned itself with serial polluter Thames Water to sponsor its awards tends to overlook such discomforting points.

I note the WTT raises more money from sales through its website than Amazon’s. So if you want to buy the book best get it direct.