Last season, I was fishing with one of my closest friends, a man who, because of his many excellent books and articles, has become a household name in the fly-fishing world. We fell to talking about the tide of angling literature — the thousands of books — that has been published since Dame Juliana Berners gave us the first work on angling in English in 1496. Read all »
It is with some sadness that I watch each year Trout fisheries close in ever more increasing speed. Each year fisheries are opened with such enthusiasm and so much hard work is put into them. I am told the reason is less people are fly fishing these days, Is this the case I wonder certainly in the eighties and nineties fly fishing was hot news in the magazines and there was a huge surge in interest.
But what happened also at this time was strangely peculiar to English Trout Fisheries suddenly investing in technology to grow their trout bigger and bigger. Where a 5 lb fish was once rare fish of 10 lb were stocked then 15 lb soon fish over 20 lb were being produced regularly by fisheries. The game angler was being offered a fish of a lifetime every time they went to a fishery. Unfortunately these fish also took longer to grow and the feed bills went higher and higher with more and more chemicals added. Some stew ponds were now purpose built complexes with ultra violet lighting and tempters controlled to high levels. Read all »
