trout – Page 2 – The Secret Angler

There seems to be an insatiable appetite among anglers for instruction. At one time there were only the fishing magazines with endless repetitions on how to catch trout in rivers and lakes, salmon in Scotland, and more often these days, anything in distant countries. You can still read these of course in Trout and Salmon and similar titles, the long-winded discourses on rods and reels, leaders and fly line, fly patterns, casting techniques and so on and so forth. Nowadays we can also consume the terabytes of data stored in server farms for regurgitation via YouTube, watch passively as an expert witters on about composition of leaders and where to find fish, all of which are very similar.

Another source of instruction for the angler who feels insufficiently expert in their fishing is the open day, usually run as marketing exercises by tackle companies. Many years ago Orvis ran a couple in spring in the south of the country; Sportfish put on an event each May at its shop at Haywards Farm, also discontinued, replaced now by a ‘Spring Spectacular’ (online videos only). Today I only know of the Guideline two-day show, small scale, held up north so beyond my range. But some of the talks are also recorded online. Presumably the return on investment was insufficient to justify keeping the others going.

I’ve been to a few in my time and watched the personalities do their thing with fishing rod and mike. I don’t mind watching a few of these, provided that I can get a decent cup of coffee somewhere, yet so many of them repeat stuff, and it’s worth bearing in mind that casting demos are not the same as fishing. All these reach casts and twiddly techniques never work quite as well as you might hope, not least because places where fishing is actually done are rarely as spacious and clear of trees as where our expert is showing us what to do.

I’ve been watching Sportfish’s Spectacular. Amongst the tackle placement talks (must-have rods for the new season) are demos on fly-tying and actual fishing, with the odd shameless selling vid, the McLeod tropical holiday one, for instance. Howard Croston, a world champ and Hardy employee so must be good, labours to explain why the new Hardy rods are essential kit for the would-be expert; the rods are very light, sensitive yet powerful, made of ‘very very good quality’ materials — in other words just like most rods manufactured over the past few decades. Presumably Hardy sees the American market as more important than the British because Croston pronounces the letter Z as zee, not zed.

Most fishing videos are amateurish in their production, even those of companies such as Sportfish who should have the resources to do better. The most irritating feature is the awful repetitive bassy music that recurs throughout, hardly fitting the mood of fly fishing, or what I consider the mood to be. But if you can get past that you can view the beardies (yes, they all have beards, except the women of course) at work on the river and listen to commentary of varying degrees of woodenness. To show they mean business they carry two rods so they can flog the water with both dry fly and nymphs, though not necessarily at the same time. The object is to help us ‘catch more fish’. This makes you wonder about the point of fishing. Certainly we all want to catch something; it’s dreary work casting away all day and catching nothing. Yet who wants to catch them one after the other as the videos imply? Even allowing for the boring bits edited out, an awful lot of fish are hauled to the net in typical instructional footage. Fishing as consumption.

The question I ask is whether the average angler needs all this education. Maybe they do, or maybe they are not getting the right advice. Last year I saw a guide whom I know slightly turn up at a venue with a couple of blokes togged up in all the gear, presumably his clients. A couple of days later I was casting to fish under a high bank opposite when a pair of anglers, I suspect those I’d seen with the guide, loomed over the bank smiling with interest and putting my fish down. This season I was standing in the river below a high bank when another angler decided to pass me right on the edge. The rises I was casting to stopped. He couldn’t have helped but see me and could easily have given me a wide berth. Assuming none of them was psychopathic, it shows that too many anglers lack the basic common sense needed for fishing — don’t scare the bloody fish! Mastering this skill will stand you in better stead than any number of fancy rods, tapered leaders and beards.

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It seems to be an article of faith that the north of England has several advantages over the South. Some are true, others are myths. The biggest myth is the reputation for the friendliness of Northerners. I read recently a newspaper article by a young female comedian from the North who couldn’t understand why people believed this. Her experience is that her fellow Northerners, the men in particular, are mickey-taking bullies. Obviously not everyone is like that; I find that people are less reserved, such that the nice ones are warm and friendly but the unpleasant ones are distinctly hostile. This probably has something to do with the infamous Yorkshireman stereotype: ‘Ah speak mah mind, me,’ which, translated, means he airs his prejudices and cares not whom he offends. Applies to some women too.

Another conviction the South-country fly fishermen might hold is the assumed superiority of the trout fishing and fly hatches in the North. At one time they were better but years of agricultural pollution, and now regular sewage discharges, have changed all that. One curiosity are the data readings on pollution taken by citizen scientists. These suggest that water quality on southern rivers is lower than the northern, yet fish stocks are healthier, at least in the better chalk rivers, and not just because there is more stocking down south. Grayling, for example, are numerous in rivers like the Test and Avon, but more thinly spread in the rivers of the northwest particularly. I think perhaps fly hatches are a little better in the spate rivers but nothing like the old books lead you to expect. The old-timers who’ve fished these rivers all their lives will tell you how much poorer they are now, with a steeper decline in fish populations during the last two decades. As with the salmon, so with trout and grayling, though not so acute and for different reasons.

Southerners will all know about the traffic problems we have to live with. The North has the appeal of lower population density and less traffic on the roads, especially the motorways. Once past the major conurbations of Leeds and Manchester, cars on the road are noticeably fewer. But in summer tourism adds to this, especially the two-wheeled tourers I’ve mentioned before. Motorbikes ruin the peace of so much of the beautiful landscape of the Yorkshire Dales, Westmorland and the Lake District. This is not just a northern problem: the Southwest and Snowdonia are also damaged by these ageing beardies on their infernal machines, more polluting than cars. Visit somewhere like Settle in Yorkshire and all you will hear in the warmer months is the banging of engines echoing off the ancient stonework with the acrid stink of exhaust permanently in the air. Like noisy kids playing follow-my-leader, hitting tin drums, they trail around the narrow hilly roads of the area making a din audible from riverbanks and hilltops. Along with all that goes the usual litter along main roads — the commercial drivers — and even sandwich packets, paper cups and all the rest on minor roads, no matter how lovely the surrounding scenery. For the perpetrators environmental degradation is not a concern.

So sadly a fishing trip north no longer affords good fly fishing in peaceful settings. There are stretches that still have reasonable numbers of fish, notably the stocked waters, but overall you’ll find better fishing down south, although possibly more expensive. Some of the Yorkshire towns are delightful though you’ll still get the 4 by 4s blocking pavements with engines running while the occupants fiddle with their phones or guzzle a cake. That’s another myth: Northerners are no more hardy than anyone else; perish the thought they should sit in a cold car.

Still, the fishing is a change of sorts from the South, and you might even get one of those big wild trout that survive yet. But overall I’m glad I’m a Southerner.

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Tag: trout

Masterclasses and other showbiz

The North-South divide