The Secret Angler

Jeremy Wade is probably Britain’s most famous fisherman on account of his television programmes about giant fish in exotic places. Angling on TV is not of itself very interesting, which is why River Monsters and its spinoffs are a cross between those SAS training shows, in which men (and women) turn themselves into he-men via assorted deprivation and violence, and the house building progs which attempt to manufacture drama with tales of incompetence and lack of cash to finish the job. In Jeremy Wade’s case, as he boats about foreign rivers and seas, the tension comes from tales of giant fish that are reputed to swallow native children whole. Usually the fish, once captured, looks only capable of giving you a nip on the ankles. But Wade, dressed in what looks like army-surplus clobber, cultivates the air of an ex-commando and keeps up the dramatic monologue so to convince us he could very well be turned into bait himself. He’s so hunky!

Wade has already written a couple of books based on these TV shows. His latest is How to Think Like a Fish, in which he exposits how to catch big fish, a subject prompted by all the emails he’s received asking ‘How do I catch big fish, Jeremy?’ I would expect the book to be quite fluent given his TV presentations, but then again I saw him give a talk on fishing and that was surprisingly inarticulate. You might also expect the book to be filled with action, rather like the set pieces that intercut his talks to camera. It is more prosaic. It begins with a narrative from a fish, possibly a catfish, demonstrating by example that the book is about thinking like a fish, or rather reading Jeremy Wade thinking like he thinks a fish should think. Fortunately the mind-of-a-fish stage doesn’t last long and Jeremy gets on with the subject in hand, to wit, how to catch fish. This, inevitably perhaps, is an elaboration of ‘right bait in the right place at the right time.’ As pithy summations go this is very familiar and much of the rest of the book wanders around the theme with further discursions on unexceptional topics as knots. There are some moments of adventure, such as getting lost in the Amazon jungle, but these are matter-of-fact and seem less exciting than they should.

I think the problem is that Wade is not a writer. He does not have his own style of expression other than the melodramatic TV personality, and struggles to convey the colour in his situation. Without the film camera he is working in black and white. Despite his travels to fascinating places, there are only brief reflections of the local people he encounters. The most interesting parts of the book for me were his comments on the environmental damage to the Amazon but these are only in passing. Maybe I’ll find more by the time I finish the book.

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Symmetries do occur. The British election result, aided by the efforts of the Australian propagandist also responsible for returning the climate-change denier Morrison to power in his own country, has serious consequences for the UK environment. As much of the Australian coastal regions burn, the country’s PM has belatedly accepted the reality of heating climate, with record temperatures to rub it in. As I expected some years ago, it takes catastrophes to move minds, though even now some are too set in concrete to budge. More fool them, more devastating the consequences for us. Yet we have still to see whether Morrison translates his Damascene recognition into action, or continues digging coal.

Britain has its own incipient catastrophes though many people are unaware. Even most anglers fail to recognise the dangers. Fly fishermen on the chalk streams will know the problems of low rainfall and shrinking aquifers. Sea anglers know the parlous state of marine fish stocks; yet many are happy to ignore size and bag limits, preferring to blame trawlers, despite evidence that angling has an impact too. Many fishermen drive large four-wheel-drive trucks which are the most polluting vehicles of all. Fish pellets, made from sea fish, are now very popular as baits; even expensive meat is now used for bait, along with the traditional luncheon meat. All these have well publicised high environmental impacts but that does not stop anglers fishing with them. Fly anglers with enough money are fond of flying to exotic overseas destinations as far away as South America, impressing a huge carbon footprint on the planet. Even the Wild Trout Trust and Salmon & Trout Conservation encourage this through articles and auctions. The fly fishing periodicals also popularise these fishing fiestas; one author and organiser I spoke to, when I expressed reservations over long-haul flights, said, ‘Just go.’

Most anglers only worry about the environment in relation to cormorants and otters, which they see as environmental threats to be destroyed rather than what they really are — a demonstration of environmental improvement, or at least a cessation of man’s persecution. It is our destructive behaviour that is the threat to fishing and much else.

The new UK Government holds little promise for future environmental policies. Through its intent to abandon the strong EU environmental protections, along with food safety protocols, there is an immediate danger that decline in our waterways will gather speed. Given the political inclinations of so many fishermen, a great number will have voted for a government that will hurry the destruction of their own sport. What catastrophe might lead to anglers’ own Morrison moment? Now that so much fishing centres around muddy ponds with stocked carp, are there enough to see past the end of a pole? It may already be too late.

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