Tight Lines - Richard Donkin's fishing notes

Online fly casting lessons

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:33:00 +0000

I don't know about you, but I find I have to work on my fly casting constantly to help it improve. I didn't have lessons when I started and that's a pity because it meant I got in to some bad habits which still return from time to time.

On the other hand it has meant that I have had all kinds of advice from some of the best casters in the business. If you are just about to embark on fly fishing it might be best to get some tuition.

Even if you have been fishing a while it's worth checking out the experts from time to time to pick up a few refinements. If you can't afford lessons and don't have an experienced friend to help you you could do a lot worse than building your cast from this series of videos.

The most important thing on the cast is to take note of the forward and backward stops. You need to get both of them right. It took me a long time to build in the forward stop and even now I sometimes forget it when salmon casting.

One problem of, course, in concentrating on your cast is that you can be focusing so much on doing long, perfect casts that you forget to fish. If you want to cover the fish that might be nearest to you it's important to start with short casts, sometimes standing well back from the bank.

It's a bloke thing, I suppose, to wade in as far as you dare, then launch great shooting casts across the river. Why? Because you can. You see this all the time in salmon fishing, less so among chalk stream fishers, stalking individual trout by sight.

If a salmon river is swollen after heavy rain, the likelihood is that the fish will be lying quite close in anyway. There will be no need for wading or for long casts. Yes, we all want to cast properly but first we have to think about the fish.

2007 - a bumper year for Scottish salmon

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:42:00 +0000

It seems hard to believe this but according to the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards, the total rod catch of salmon for 2007 was the third highest since consistent recording began in 1952.

Its annual statistical bulletin, Scottish Salmon and Sea Trout Catches, recorded 91,053 salmon caught by anglers in Scotland during the year, of which 55,472 (61 per cent)were released back into the water.

Only two years in the last half century have exceeded that figure - 1988 with 96,488 and 2004 with 92,918. The number of salmon and grilse killed on Scotland's rivers in the year fell to 65,468, of which 19,468, nearly a third, were killed by netsmen

The total reported Scottish catch of sea trout in 2007 was 27,115, compared with 28,824 in 2006. This breaks down to 5,574 killed by netsmen, 10,383 killed by anglers and 11,158 released by rods.

If you, like me, do some of your salmon fishing in the spring, you might be surprised by those figures. It didn't make for bumper catches on the Dee or the Tay - at least when I was there. I suspect that by far the the biggest catches have been recorded in the autumn.

Hugh Campbell Adamson, Chairman of the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards, described the number of salmon entering rivers as "fairly stable and on most rivers robust." He also said that there had been a "quantum leap" in the number of salmon caught and released.

But he said there remained concern over spring stocks, the erratic nature of grilse runs, and the continuing decline in sea trout catches.

If salmon stocks are stabilising I wonder if we are approaching the time when fishery boards could contemplate the tollerance of those anglers taking a week's fishing in the summer months having the option to take a fish of a certain size - say up to 7 lbs?

I remain uncomfortable about blanket catch and release for a game fish unless stocks were critical (in which case it's arguable we shouldn't fishing anyway) but would not want to see a return to the indiscriminate killing of the past.

As more anglers practice catch and release, so they are less likely to want to retain a fish but there are still those, particularly fishing in the last month of the season, intent on killing everything.

Those engaged in salmon conservation increasingly have an encouraging story to tell. It would be a shame if their efforts were undermined by a minority concern to knock everything that's landed on the head.

A 2007 trip to the Dee

Sunray Shadow

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:25:00 +0000

I've written a piece on my web site about fishing the Sunray Shadow on the River Dee. There are also some notes about landing fish. If you need an assistant, take my advice, be careful about asking your better half! Click on the link in the text if you wish to read more.

The picture here shows how it can be done as Andrew Pindar has a salmon netted by his wife, Caroline on the Oykel. All smiles and calmness.

August monsoon on the Dee

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:15:00 +0000

With two big spates in the same week, our trip to the Dee last week (August 2008) was wetter than usual. The fish didn't mind. They were taking advantage of the big flows and tearing up the river as fast as their fins could carry them. I think some of them were veterans of Rob's salmon survival game.

It made tactics interesting. Big fly or small fly? Floating line or intermediate? Sinking tip or no sinking tip? Start casting or have another cuppa in the hut?

The problem with sinking tips, to my mind, is that while they get down to fish that may be resting close to the bottom of the river, they are not crossing that wider cone of vision on the surface.

In the spring when the water is colder and the fish less willing to move far to a fly, the sunk lure is often essential. But in summer when running fish are moving quite close to the surface a sunk line could be fishing beneath them.

It doesn't help either when the water colours up in a spate. I change my flies and my approach too often - I know I do - but I do think you have to keep ringing the changes. It's a matter of degree and I need to be a little more patient, sticking with a fly for the length of a pool at least.

All the salmon I caught and hooked last week (OK we're talking three here) took a surface fly on a floating line (with a Maxima leader in preference fluorocarbon). The only fish I caught on an intermediate line were sea trout. I realise this is not statistically significant, nor is it typical.

My friends on the next beat were catching fish with a mixture of approaches although they too were often struggling in the conditions.

What this says, I think, is that there is no text book approach. Luck and persistence continue to play a big part.

End note: Gill's dad, Alan Barraclough who has been my fishing partner for the past 14 summers in Scotland, has decided his fishing days on the Dee are over. At the age of 82, wading was getting difficult. He isn't hanging up his rod altogether and plans to be fishing on the Tay again come the spring. I'll miss him and will always be grateful for the opportunity he gave me all those years ago to try my hand at salmon fishing.

Rodless fishing

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:07:00 +0000

No rod? No problem!

Splitters

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:04:00 +0000

One of the most disappointing presentations at this year's CLA Game Fair was the debate on angling unity which I can only conclude after the events of recent weeks, is anything but.

The presence on the platform of Mark Lloyd, executive director of the Anglers' Conservation Association alongside Paul Knight, executive director of the Salmon & Trout Association, did little to remove the impression that the unity initiative has been dealt a damaging blow by the withdrawal of the S&TA from the merger.

Both executives had supportive words for each other and Knight had an explanation of sorts in that the S&TA had just been granted full charity status so, he argued, needed to remain outside the new structure. If that was the case, why did it commit itself to merger in the first place?

Judean People's Front

It's only a few weeks ago I was joking about fishing organisations resembling the Life of Brian Monty Python sketch where the Judean People's Front tries to present an image of unity that is far from the truth.

Sadly I did not realise how close I was to reality. The unity initiative prompted Jonathan Young, the editor of The Field, to commission from me an opinion piece asking whether the same might happen in shooting.

The article had to be scrapped shortly before publication in the August issue after the S&TA announced its withdrawal from Unity.

As I pointed out in the article, no-one was saying that unity was going to be easy. Fishing has experienced a number of abortive attempts to create broader representation in the past.

Fresh impetus

A fresh impetus emerged after Lord Moran’s review of salmon and freshwater fisheries in England and Wales ten years ago paved the way for the co-operative body, the Fisheries and Angling Conservation Trust (FACT) in 2005.

It soon became apparent that there were significant overlaps in the work of this group and that of its supporting organisations, hence the merger initiative among six (now five) of those groups.

Imagine pulling together the respective web sites, governing bodies, administrations and their respective marketing departments, memberships, fee structures and benefits. Petty rivalries, internal politics and personal egos had been buried to secure the big prize of a single powerful representation covering a whole series of angling issues - or at least that was story presented to me.

“Laying aside personal differences and hundreds of years of history to pursue this single overriding vision was a big ask,” said Mark Lloyd, speaking just a few weeks ago before the S&TA decision pull out. “But there has been the will to do it,” he said. The words ring a little bit hollow now but Lloyd shouldn't be blamed. He has worked has hard as anyone to make Unity a reality.

Better positioned

The result, he still argues, is a body that should be far better positioned to represent the 1.8m anglers in England and Wales than anything existing at present. While the combined membership of all the participating groups is no more than 25,000 individuals, the prospective body remains confident that it will provide a range of organisational benefits capable of boosting that figure to 100,000 on a par with the bigger field sports associations.

My Field magazine article had asked whether the fishing initiative could be the start of a trend across all field sports? Goodness knows there are enough organisations out there, from the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) with an annual turnover of around £7m and 125,000 members to the comparatively tiny Shooters’ Rights Association.

For those of us who engage in field sports the landscape can sometimes appear unclear, not to mention the competing demands on our pockets. As a paid-up member of three different fishing conservation associations and trusts, I had been mightily relieved that one set of subscription fees would be saved in the fishing merger.

Then a few days ago my annual subscription reminder notice for the S&TA popped through the letter box. Too late. I have resigned my membership and with it my committee membership of the Surrey branch.

Shooting merger

So could there be any merit in discussing a merger in shooting? One big difference between shooting and fishing, arguably, is the greater polarity of interests across shooting. While the nature of fishing means that all anglers are trying to catch wild animals, it is possible to go target or clay shooting without having any interest in pursuing game. I heard a target shooter at the Game Fair making it quite plain that he had no truck with killing animals.

Target shooting organisations based in Bisley – the National Small Bore Rifle Association, National Rifle Association and the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association – have been holding talks on closer co-operation for about a year now but have yet to reach agreement.

“I know that hasn’t been an easy process,” says John Swift, chief executive of the BASC. “This has been driven in large measure by the coming Olympics and opportunities for funding. But I think there will always be a distinction between the competitive target shooting disciplines and what might be called the country shooting interests – wildfowling, deer stalking management and so forth.”

Political focus

He also points to distinctions of function between organisations such as the BASC with its strong political focus, and those such as the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, that are research focused.

“There are similar divisions to this in most countries and I don’t see it as a practical option to merge those organisations,” he says.

The problem with large organisations, he says, is that they are vulnerable to splinter groups emerging after they have formed (back to The Life of Brian). On the other hand, there is nothing like a strong combined body for tackling the biggest political fights, argues Simon Hart, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance. Fewer issues have inflamed the passions of country lovers more than the Fox Hunting Bill.

The Alliance is committed to seeing through repeal of the Foxhunting bill under a future administration. If it succeeds, what then? Hart points out that the Alliance is about far more than fox-hunting. Just now, for example, it is campaigning against the closure of sub post offices in village communities.

But he doesn’t discount closer co-operation between organisations in future and thinks the days of the single-issue pressure group could be numbered. “Shooting is just one part of the jig-saw,” he argues. “I think there is considerable scope for closer working arrangements than is currently the case.

Future of shooting

“There are obvious attractions in merger such as saving overheads on administration and marketing, and providing just one insurance arrangement. The only thing standing in the way of that happening is the internal process. You need to look at the overall objectives of an organisation and may need to set aside some issues.

“The future of shooting, I believe, would be better served in one body rather than interests being broken down in to many smaller bodies. Unless we take a more co-ordinated approach the Government can hold a telescope to one eye when it faces the countryside lobby.

“A whole way of life is under threat and we shouldn’t forget that,” he says. Neither should we forget the broad constituency of field sport enthusiasts. It's good to hear some open-mindedness in shooting, the sort I had believed was making such significant strides in fishing.

Angling Unity is still going ahead. But, make no mistake, the withdrawal of the S&TA is a serious blow and no amount of warm words at the Game Fair can disguise that.

Always take the weather

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:32:00 +0000

There's a bit of a kerfuffle in the Daily Telegraph today where Devon tourism managers are criticising weather forecasters for undue pessimism (that is forecasting heavy rain when there won't be much. I'm aware that anglers often want some rain). I think there is something in this.

Just before going up to the Oykel - a spate river - I looked at the weather outlook in the Telegraph funnily enough.

There were black clouds over the area, some of them with rain underneath, on every day of the coming week. I was rubbing my hands in anticipation.

In the event we had blistering sunshine the whole week. I couldn't have changed my fishing dates in this instance - besides, as the report said, the fishing was pretty good from the previous week's spate - but suppose I had been going to Scotland on spec, in the hope of catching some good spate conditions towards the end of the week? The forecasters should own up to the imperfections of forecasting beyond a day or two and admit to the imprecisions of their science.

Saturday: looking at the weather today the Telegraph map is again dominated by rainclouds with showers, only you can also see a few little suns poking from behind the clouds. At a glance you would think it would be pouring down everywhere. In reality there has been the odd light shower on a dull day - no sun. I think the problem lies with the symbols - they give the impression of heavy rain when it simply isn't happening.

N.B. If you are at all interested in weather lore you might be interested in some additions I have made to my archive, covering notes on Bill Foggitt, the Thirsk weather sage.

The Salmon King

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:06:00 +0000

As an antidote to the same old stuff they were pedalling at the game fair this year (see previous note) I would recommend Crawford Little's article on Colin Leslie, the retired Tay ghillie, featured in the August issue of Trout and Salmon Magazine.

Fishing magazines are often criticised for running similar material year after year but, when you think about it, the way we fish has not changed radically over time. Neither have the fish. That great new pattern promoted as this year's "wonder fly" may well resemble those that have gone before.

Leslie makes the point in the article with a swipe at Alistair Gowans who created the Ally's Shrimp (if you read that article, incidentally, I can tell you that I am not impressed by wobblers and other fancy attachments.

The T&S article doesn't name Gowans (did they think he might sue?)but Leslie, quite rightly, points out that the Ally's Shrimp is simply a hybrid of the General Practitioner. "I fished those flies before he was born," says Leslie.

I love the article because it gives a flavour of the banter and rivalry between ghillies. Indeed some of the current Tay ghillies were scoffing at Leslie's book title, "Scotland's Salmon King" when I met them in the spring. "Aye ye'll be wantin' to meet the sage o' Cargill," said one of them, stifling a giggle.

What Leslie doesn't point out in the article is that the vast majority of spring salmon caught on his ghillied beat, Cargill, would have fallen to the Kynoch killer - a plastic fish lure harled from the back of the boat.

He is pretty scathing too about the Spey cast. But I think a well executed Spey cast is still worth learning and vital for rivers where no back cast is possible.

Like many other Tay ghillies he swears by high strength Maxima line and I think he has a point as I discussed in my Oykel blog here.

His memories of fishing shrimp - he says he introduced the method to the Tay - brought back memories of my own. When I first went up to the Tay in the late 70s, part of the tackle were jars of dyed prawns and buckets of worms. Those days certainly have gone on the Tay and will not return.

There is some great advice about how to fish a fly and a spinner - he is a strong advocate of the sinking tip, even in summer (but then the Tay is a big deep river). he also worries that anglers can sometimes fish too small and I would agree with that.

Lelsie caught a number of big salmon in the 40 lbs class and one of 56lbs which was such a poor specimen, he said, he fed it to the chickens. This fish, I notice, has not made it into Fred Buller's Domesday Book of Giant Salmon (mentioned here).

I'm not saying that everything about a ghillie's job is perfect but spending your life by the river, catching big salmon, drinking whisky and chatting with interesting people, knowing that you're the expert who they must respect, well there are worse ways to make a living.

I haven't read Scotland's Salmon King (Melrose books) yet but it's on my list.

CLA Game Fair 2008

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:17:00 +0000

The long drive back from Scotland was hard going and we were both pretty frazzled on Sunday when we called at the Country Land & Business Association Game Fair, held at Blenheim Palace this year after last year's washout at Harewood House.

Was it the sun or the heat or did I think that something was missing this year? There was no shortage of people and no shortage of trade but when you have been to a few Game Fairs they all begin to look the same.

The same old faces were chairing the debates and hogging the panels. After hearing John Wilson demand a cormorant cull for the umpteenth time, it all begins to get a bit tiring.

The demonstrations I saw were OK but hardly eye-popping. Henry Gilbey is a fine fishing photographer but seeing him chucking a bass lure on a lily pond is not the most entertaining spectacle in the calendar.

Then there are the crowds. One thing I've noticed about hunting, fishing and shooting - it attracts all sorts, from Dukes to dossers. It was seriously hot on Sunday and still people brought their dogs. But at least the dogs looked better turned out than some of the owners.

Perhaps it was the temperatures making me feel crabby. But all those stands were just too much, leaving us grossed out on tweed and wellies. I couldn't help thinking I'd have rather been fishing.

Salmon fishing on the River Oykel

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:05:00 +0000

Monday morning on the river Oykel. The water was perfect and the fish were running in numbers. You dream about days like this.

Gill and I were sharing a rod as guests of Andrew Pindar, chairman of the Pindar printing group, on the lower Oykel beats. The four beats are run by a consortium fronted by Mohamed Al-Fayed whose kilted waxwork dummy can be found in the shop at the nearby Falls of Shin.

They like Al-Fayed around these parts. He has donated computers to the local schools among other things. That kind of generosity can buy you a lot of tolerance for your kilted vanity. Who cares if there is not, as yet, an Al-Fayed clan tartan?

Osprey nests

So where is the Oykel? I had to ask this myself as I had never been so far north on the east coast. You drive (or fly) to Inverness at the head of the Caledonian Canal and just keep on going another hour, not far from Bonar Bridge.

The lodge, overlooking the river, had magnificent views of the hills where we often spotted golden eagles and ospreys on hunting forays. There are two osprey nests in the area and we spent the best part of an afternoon watching a pair with their fledglings.

That was after the spate when the river was shrinking to its bare bones. The spate itself had been running the previous week when the 12 rods on the four lower beats had caught 145 salmon and grilse.

Snapped line

So Monday was the tail end of the spate and we had to make the most of it. But it's hard to do your best when you reach a new river. We rose before breakfast and went to one of the best pools where Gill lost a fish. We should have skipped breakfast altogether but there was the morning organising to do - the allocation of rods and fishing spots. There is etiquette to observe as a guest and the first day on a new river is always strange for the newcomer.

The gillie took us back to the the same beat and with my second or third cast I felt a pull on the line. The next cast - a long one across the neck of the pool - produced a strong take and a thrashing fish. But after less than a minute it was away - with the hook.

Yes it took the hook. That shouldn't happen. Nothing wrong with the knot. The line had snapped. "Fluorocarbon? Bin it. It's a load of crap," said the ghillie. I tied on a new fly, pulled the line to test it and it snapped again.

This is not the first time I have heard a ghillie decrying fluorocarbon. Jimmy Barrett, who has a lifetime of fishing experience on the Tay where he ghillied on the Upper Scone beat, believes that fluorocarbon can be brittle and prone to nicking. Certainly it does not have the same give or stretch as nylon.

So I changed leaders. With almost the next cast I had a fish on again - a healthy 11 lb hen fish which put up a real fight and needed no revival as it was released. I handed the rod to Gill and within 10 minutes she was playing a grilse to the bank where she released it.

Trusted patterns

The lower Oykel fishings impose a 6-fish limit with no fish to be taken that are longer than 25 ins (about 7 lbs).

Without the breakage, without breakfast, we would have had more, really should have had more, but two fish in a morning isn't bad. Later in the afternoon I had another that came to a small plastic tube fly - stoats tail and silver. The others took either cascade or stoats tail and silver patterns, either size 10 or eight.

There is no need to fish too small when there's a good flow and there are fresh taking fish. Nor is there any need to be too choosy about fly patterns or methods. We simply used trusted patterns with double hooks on a straight cast.

Andrew Pindar hooks in to a grilse.

But when the fish stop running and you're trying for the "residents" in blazing sunshine the fishing gets a whole lot more difficult. We raised one or two on bombers and sunray shadows but couldn't get a take. Had it not been for the bright sunshine I think we might have had a few more fish. As it was we had seven fish to the three rods in the week and everyone who started the week had a fish.

I kept my second fish, a lovely 7-pounder and the first salmon I have killed for some years.

It seems churlish, however, to talk numbers on a river like the Oykel. It's a privilege enough simply to be there. Yes, in purely fishing terms, we are talking about feast and famine. But for variety and scenery it's hard to beat. I loved fishing the small pools above the Oykel Bridge where we could watch the fish leaping the falls. I probably spent as much time with the camera that morning as I did with the rod.

Hot and sunny

Rod-sharing was also fun, allowing time to think about the next session or read a book if the fishing is quiet. It's not often that you catch fish and improve on your tan in the same week. Those who holiday for the sunshine would never understand the game fishing mentality that greets a damp overcast morning with a sense of joy.

"Did you have good weather?" asked a neighbour when we returned.

"Terrible," I said with a shake of the head. "Hot and sunny every day."

Salmon Survival Game

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:33:00 +0000

Rob Donkin, one of my sons, is enjoying his break from university but I have not been able to get him out fishing. Instead he is building computer games. So I was chatting to him about salmon migrations and how tough it was for the fish to get back up the river. How do they avoid all those anglers?

Inspired, he came up with this Salmon Survival game. Why not try it? It's easy to learn but not so easy to avoid those anglers and their fishing flies. My fish keep getting caught on the lower beats. The river narrows the further you get. I also notice that the most successful anglers are the ones that keep their flies moving in the water. Just like real life then.

Carping on

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:48:00 +0000

Looking at the magazine racks of WH Smith today I was struck, not for the first time, at the number of carp magazines. There was Carp World, Carp Talk,Total Carp, Advanced Carp Fishing, Carpology, Crafty Carper, Big Carp Magazine and UK Angling Times Carp.

The front covers of seven of these eight magazines featured a man holding up a big carp. The eighth magazine had two men, each holding up a big carp. I can imagine the monthly editorial picture desk meetings of these magazines:

Editor: "What do we have for the front cover this month?"

Picture editor: "You're going to like this one. It's a bloke holding a carp."

Editor: "Hmm... Anything else?"

Picture editor producing another picture of a man with a carp: "What about this one?"

Editor: "I can't help thinking it's rather similar."

Picture editor: "Totally different."

Editor: "How?"

Picture editor: "He's not wearing a hat."

Those carp editors need to be looking at the rest of the angling press for ideas. Pike and Predator, for example, featured a man holding a perch. The tench special of Course Fisherman had a man holding - yes you guessed it - a tench, while Boat Fish used a picture of a man holding a big turbot.

You have to feel sorry for Fly Fishing and Fly Tying magazine. I picked up a random cover from the pile besides my desk and there was the familiar format, a man dressed in fishing gear holding.....well I can't actually see, but I think it must be a fly.

Heavy metal, light response

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:19:00 +0000

One of the happier by-products of industrial decline in the UK has been the recovery of many of our most polluted rivers. The Tyne in Northumberland, the upper reaches of the Calder in Yorkshire, the river Don at Penistone and many more have benefited from the restoration of natural fish stocks.

The problem is that some of the historic threats still remain. Industrial properties - or their remains - continue to line the river banks in many places and pollution incidents still occur. An escape of cleaning fluid wrecked a stretch of the River Wandle last year. In that case the company involved, Thames Water, is heavily committed to restoration work.

But in another serious incident, this time on the River Derwent in Derbyshire, the subsequent interventions appear to have been woefully inadequate and inexcusably slow in happening.

The River Derwent, some 50 miles long,is the largest river in the Peak District, joining the River Trent just south of Derby.

In January 2007, a settlement lagoon owned by Glebe Mines burst, discharging large volumes of sediment into the Derwent via one of its tributaries, the Stoke Brook. The sediment was contaminated with mine tailings - fine waste material - which included arsenic, cadmium, lead and other metals.

Now dredging work has started on the riverbed in an attempt to get rid of the poisonous sediment after a scientific report, commissioned by the Anglers’ Conservation Association (ACA), found that heavy metals had begun to accumulate in the food chain in parts of the river.

The report found elevated lead levels in insects from the effected area leading to a risk that lead levels in fish could rise as a result. Over time, warns the ACA, the range of elevated metals could pose a threat to the ecosystem and to people who might eat contaminated fish. Concentrations of heavy metals are known to suppress the immune system in animals and humans.

The ACA says the Environment Agency responded inadequately with limited sampling after it had recognised the need to act swiftly.

The lagoon burst in January 2007 and EA fisheries officers were measuring sediment depths in early February. By March EA scientists were aware of "acute damage" to a significant stretch of the stream and recommended the removal of sediments. In June 2007 the EA said that removing the silt was likely to start within two weeks. That was over a year ago. In the interim further pollution has occurred. Only now has the work started.

The ACA has chartered what I can only describe as a classic story of bureaucratic delay when it was clear from the start what needed to be done: get the clean up underway and deal with the "who pays?" argument later. The Environment Agency should hang its head in shame. Anglers deserve better.

From Russia with just a touch of smugness

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:43:00 +0000

Here's a report I just received from Roxtons, providers of fishing and shooting holidays (at a price).

CHARLIE WHITE REPORTS FROM LOWER VARZUGA:

"We are now into the second week of the season and summer has started to arrive. Bright sunshine and warm temperatures are melting the remaining snow and ice and the water levels are rising. The water is currently 5 degrees C and warming all the time but sinking lines are the best choice at present - we may well be into sink tips and intermediates by next week.

Last week the ten rods at Lower Varzuga landed 279 fish with an excellent average size. The rods also caught a number of sea trout - something we sometimes experience in the early weeks. The first three days of this week Michael Evans and party have taken 142 fish, with Chris Davis taking his first salmon on a fly. Alex Fenton and John Millar have each had two fish of 16lbs and a number of fish above 12lbs.

Kitza opened this week with a very encouraging start. The ten rods who are all, bar one, new to the river had 108 mint fresh fish for their three days with four of the rods landing their first ever salmon. The fish have been mostly caught below camp but as the river warms up it will not be long before the fish are spread all over the beat.

Middle Varzuga's first week saw the ten rods landing 211 fish with many new rods to the beat. This week the eleven rods, the majority of who know the river exceptionally well, have so far taken 277 fish. With the number of fish running the river here at Lower, I expect Middle's numbers to be somewhat different by the end of the week!

The river is looking superb at the moment, my only caveat being that we might get a day or two of high dirty water later this week as the warm weather melts the last of the snow."

Well bully for you Charlie. I'm sure we'd all catch salmon if the rivers were teeming with them. Let's be clear about this: this is fishing for the well heeled. It is also fishing for those obsessed with catching fish.

Would I go? With averages of 36 fish per rod per week in the Kola peninsula, you bet your bottom dollar I would. But I'm not sure I would pay the £5,000 minimum I would need to fork out to get there and fish. I'm told the cooking and residential facilities are excellent these days - better than the old days when everything was a bit rough and ready. But it's still Russia and the scenery is desolate.

But you go for the fishing don't you? Well not entirely. I want more than that. I want scenery, I want to stand around a bit and check out my surroundings. I want to chew the fat with my chums and sometimes - horror of horrors - I want to sit down and do nothing. Yes that's called "not fishing."

But when you're bringing back your tally to share with your party you're in a numbers game my friends. There's pressure to fish - all of the time. It becomes obsessive, manic and just a little bit unhealthy.

Am I embittered that I have spent most of my lifetime flogging away for salmon in Scottish rivers for extremely thin returns while novice anglers are filling their boots on the Kola? Not in the slightest (cough!). Blank days maketh the angler, someone once said (yes you guessed, that's a little bit of my home-spun twaddle but I'll hold to it, nevertheless).

So is my envy at these catches as green as the sour grapes? Too right it is. I would love a trip to the Kola rivers, if only to know what it is to see Atlantic spring salmon running in such prodigious numbers. Would I swap that for my summer week on the River Dee? Never. You can buy great fishing with a flourish of your cheque book, but some things in life are priceless.

OK then, would I swap my office-based existence, writing about work all day, for Charlie White's job as Roxton's director of fishing? Hmmm, let me think. Roxtons, you have my number.

Blobs and bling - fishing or rapping?

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 09:40:00 +0000

The bright yellow sparkly blob, commonly used in reservoir fly fishing has become a controversial lure of choice according to this report in the Sunday Telegraph.

Well what did we expect? Rainbow trout, in particular, will go for bright yellow attractors pulled swiftly through the water. Indeed I was advised to try something bright yellow when fishing in the recent One Fly competition on the River Test where the beat had been stocked with rainbows.

Blobs on a prime chalk stream? Sorry if you've spilled your tea all over your trousers but that's what a competition mentality does to people. I wonder what Halford would have made of the blob?

Egg patterns

Matching the hatch? Not quite, but it could be argued that blobs look a little bit like eggs, albeit fast moving eggs if they are retrieved at speed.

Are we not doing something similar when using bright yellow and orange lures fished fast to attract salmon? In this case trying to imitate the local insect life isn't going to do much good because the salmon isn't feeding anyway.

But the trout is looking for food and what we like most, I think, if you will pardon this generalisation, is to aim our fly at a surface feeding trout and see it taking our little fly in the belief that it is eating something just like the flies it has been feeding on for the past hour or two. That, fundamentally, is the difference in fly fishing aesthetics.

In a less obvious way it divided the chalk stream fishers when G E M Skues began to use nymphs. Unlike a fast retrieved blob there is some real skill in imparting life in to a nymph fished at the correct depth and discerning the take when it comes. But here again we can "cheat" by using indicators that can double-up as floats.

And if we are float fishing our flies, what is the difference between that and dangling a bunch of maggots (other than that the maggots move of their own accord)?

Better than thou

I don't much care for reservoir fishing, I don't much care for "world champion" tags or fishing qualifications that say "I am better than thou."

Fishing, for me, is something personal. I don't want to feel pressured to fish all the time. I like to stand and stare. The other day I was enjoying watching Mayflies on the water. Some were coming down to the water and landing on spent flies attracted by some unknown smell perhaps, or was it the shape?

Fish weren't rising for them although they may well have been feeding on the nymphs. But that day I was looking for rising fish. I didn't want to fish nymphs.

But it seems a crazy old world when anglers spend their lives thinking of ways to attract fish then, when they succeed beyond their wildest imaginings, find their new method is outlawed because it is too easy.

Behind this newspaper report, however, there is something not very pleasant. There is an implication in the talk of "yobs with blobs" that fly fishing is attracting members of the West Staines Massiv who shouldn't be doing it.

Rainbow rap

Sooner or later, perhaps, we will be singing along to "rainbow rap" and choosing our "flies" from glitzy bling boxes. We could park our spare flies in our ear-piercings. Now that's an idea.

Well if it keeps young people from stabbing and shooting each other I'm all for it. In time they will tire of the easy fishing and begin listening to the old farts (sorry I meant to say "experienced fishermen") who would never - not in a million years - be tempted to use a blob themselves. Goodness me, what are those yellow things in my fly box? Hide them, quickly. As Ali G would say, "Let's keep it real."
Respek.

The People's Front for the Liberation of Fishing

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Sat, 31 May 2008 07:56:00 +0000

Fishing or angling? Debate over the name of the new all-embracing organisation that is going to represent angling interests in England and Wales has swung away from Angling (or Angling Unity) to something around that word “fishing” I can exclusively reveal.

This is my first bit of exclusive revealing, I do believe, since I exclusively revealed that the body would be called Angling Unity (or Angling). I had every confidence in this assertion because here, for the first time, anglers were speaking as one.

That was before some splitter suggested “Fishing” of all things. So the betting has swung now to something like the Fishing Association or simply Fishing although you can get good odds on “Judean Liberation Front.”

Apparently there was a feeling that “Angling” sounded too antiquated, the sort of thing that Isaak Walton would do with a pole and a length of cat gut.

Fishing, on the other hand is bold, simple and to the point. Unless, of course, you use a net. Then there’s the problem with gender neutrality. The beauty of “angler” is that it can refer to either sex while the rarely used “fisher” does not trip off the tongue so easily as “fisherman” which can get us in to so much trouble with the gender police.

Fisherman is the word you associate with so-called fishing humour – the male-oriented birthday cards, mugs and tee-shirts depicting silly men standing in the rain in waders, exaggerating the size of their catch or doing unspeakable things with maggots.

Fishermen refer to their wives (they don’t have partners) as “‘er indoors.” They lie about walking the dog or going shopping when really they’re off to the river. They’re always buying tackle they don’t need to feed their obsession and they eat Marmite sandwiches washed down with flasks of lukewarm instant coffee.

It is for this reason that I have persisted with the concept of the “fisher” in my writing. I think it works particularly well in fly fishing and have absolutely no problem now writing of “fly fishers.” Somehow “fly anglers” just doesn’t work so well for me.

Angling, on the other hand, has survived well over the centuries, which is surprising given its description, not of fishing, but merely the angle of rod and line. But it doesn’t look as if it will survive as the name for the new body.

Instead it seems we are marching in to the bright new dawn as fishers who go fishing. Unless someone decides otherwise and at some future date I can exclusively reveal that the People’s Front for the Liberation of Fishing has prevailed.

What ever happened to the Vosso?

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:32:00 +0000

For some time now I have been curious to know what happened to the salmon runs on Norway's Vosso River that I read so much about in Arthur Oglesby's book, Salmon.

I started a discussion about it here in this fly fishing forums thread. After carrying out some recent work looking at the salmon farming industry I am now convinced that salmon farming was largely to blame.

There is an excellent feature about the river in the Winter 2007 journal of the Flyfishers' Club. The feature, written by Morten Harangen, mentions a recent fishing trip to the river when he failed to catch anything.

He says the record book for 2005 mentions "seven or eight" salmon caught on the river. But were these genetic Vosso salmon? Or were they escaped farm salmon? It does not say.

The catch is pitifully small, even if, as Harangen asserts, "there is no doubt there are still a few forty to fifty pounders out there."

I hope he is right. What will be difficult to discern is their genetic purity. On the other hand there is every reason to believe that something, if not entirely genetically pure, then very close to the original strain, could be restored even if it hails from a salmon farm cage. This is because a significant constituent of the Mowi strain, the first salmon farm fish to emerge in Norway, were salmon taken from a Vosso tributary, the Bolstad.

These large-growing fish are typically four or five sea-winter fish. The more winters that salmon spend at sea, the bigger they get, hence some excitement in the May Tay Salmon news bulletin from the Tay Salmon Fisheries Board, that a good proportion of the Tay's spring fish this year appear to have been bigger three-winter salmon.

All well and good - I'm as delighted as anyone to see evidence of big spring salmon back in the Tay - but the run is still relatively small compared with the 1970s. A few big salmon does not a spring run make.

As for the Vosso, it was closed in 1992 and re-opened in 1998 without any signs of improvement.

So why did the river collapse? Karl Magne Bolstad whose Berga farm overlooks the Bolstad pool, and which has some of the most famous beats on the river, has no doubt that many smolts were killed by sea lice that accumulate in large numbers around salmon farm cages. But there was also a lot of dumping in the river when a road was built. That killed a lot of fish, he says. Moreover a power plant constructed on the river led to significant changes in water temperature, another possible contributory factor.

It's astonishing how human activity in different areas has collectively destroyed one of the world's most precious wild salmon rivers with barely a whimper of protest. Today, hatchery-reared smolts are being transported past the salmon cages but will that work as a conservation effort?

Bolstad does not sound too optimistic of restoring the strain. A once mighty salmon river, its fish the stuff of legends, has been lost to angling and may never return. That's a crying shame.

Saturday's fish is Sunday's dinner

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:42:00 +0000

There are magical chalk streams and there is Sally Merison’s beat of the river Dever just a few minutes away from the busy A303. As a tributary of the River Test, the Dever is smaller than its more famous big sister, but no less pretty.

A small syndicate fishes the stretch that runs past Sally’s house but not at the weekends when she allows family and friends to fish. That’s when she’s not fishing herself. I had a great day fishing here last year with Tim Bonner of the Countryside Alliance.

This last weekend Sally invited us again. It’s not just the fishing either; she spoils us silly with a trencherman’s lunch in the hut. One or two Mayfly were coming off the water but not enough to interest the fish yet.

We started fishing shortly before noon and I soon found a feeding fish in mid-stream on a 15 yard cast. But just to the right and closer there was another larger fish in the shallows under a tree. It’s a difficult cast with a tree behind and a need to slot a sideways cast below a branch and above some bank-side vegetation.

The fish needed the fly just a little in front. It took an interest but not enough. I changed the fly to a small brown spinner imitation. Another cast or two and he went for it. Once the fish was returned I started casting to the farther fish that was feeding midstream a little way up from the bend. The trees allowed a long straight cast and the fish took the fly quickly. With two early fish I was thinking it was going to be a day of easy fishing. Far from it. Most of the fish were sitting deep, sullen looking. But there was still plenty action for the dry fly.

I notice that the trout pigmentation varies quite dramatically on different fish. Sally says the fish take the hue of their surroundings. She thinks it has something to do with visual information passed through the eye. Fish that have spent time in a culvert, she says, are dark coloured, while those that have been sitting on shingle are sandy coloured.

The trout today are quite choosy. There are just a few feeding fish but I’m picking them off as I find them, sometimes with a change of fly, often spending some time on one fish. You know you have a fight with a 3 pounder on same strength tippet fished off a 3 weight line on a light seven foot rod.

I read a lot about matching the hatch but when not much is hatching, what do you do? The fish seem to be taking small flies so I try small grey dusters and klinkhammers. Both work with different fish. I end up with eight for the afternoon, all between one and a half and three and a half pounds.

These would have been caught on perhaps five or six different flies. I kept one fish and had a look at its stomach contents. There were four different insects, two different coloured midges, a Mayfly larva and a cardinal beetle.

The point I would make is that article after article in the fishing magazines will concentrate on fly types, yet if you can present a fly well to a feeding fish and if that fly looks a reasonable approximation to an insect there is a good chance you might get it to take.

I found one fish, almost tempted it, then spooked it and I moved on. Later I came back to the spot and saw it was feeding again. I tried a different fly and it took. All the fish were well hooked and all came to the net. It doesn’t always happen like this.

The fish I kept weighed in at 3 lb. I gutted it on the Saturday evening and rubbed some sea salt on the insides and flanks, wrapping the fish in silver foil. The next day I cut off the head and tail, stuffed the insides with herbs from the garden, propped the flanks open with sticks and laid it belly down on the grill in the smoking tin, leaving it to smoke over wet wood chips on a burner for about forty minutes.

The result was a meaty, lightly smoked and herb flavoured fish great with a bit of lemon, mayonnaise, salad and new potatoes and plenty for four of us.

One Fly, one dace

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:48:00 +0000

I took part in the One Fly competition on the River Test the other week. I plan to have a report in my fishing section soon when the FT gets round to publishing it.

For my own part I found it a little disappointing hauling out(not many)rainbow trout stockies from cloudy water on a fast retrieved nymph. It's not the way I like to fish a chalk stream.

The weather was warm yesterday so I popped down to the River Wey near Elstead only to find that it too was cloudy, like thin cocoa. There was nothing doing but on my way back to the car I saw a fish taking insects from the surface. It was a peculiar swirling rise, not like that you get from a trout or even a grayling.

Anyway I stuck a little black fly on, had it taken, and there was a dace. Just one little fish but it made the trip worthwhile somehow.

Hook removal - a practical demonstration.

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:01:00 +0000

In more than 30 years since picking up a fly rod I have never experienced a barbed hook lodged in my skin - until the last Dee trip.

The night before we fished Mark Crampton Smith was outlining a discomforting but, he assured us, effective method for removing a hook from the head. The idea, he said, was to loop some nylon around the bend in the hook, then push the hook inwards with a thumb while yanking swiftly on the thread.

It sounded a bit grizzly to me but the very next day I had the opportunity to put it to the test. I'm not sure what happened, a mistimed cast perhaps, combined with a gust of wind; all I know is that there was a sharp crack to my sunglasses and a bang on the upper cheek, leaving a large double hook embedded in my skin.

Yes, I know some will be saying that the barbs should have been crimped. Well they weren't. The cheek felt a bit a numb but the hook had to go so I went over to our hook specialist, Mark, who seemed less confident than he had been when discussing the theory.

He did just as he had been told and the hooks were out, almost painlessly, leaving a couple of neat pin pricks in my cheeks.

I must have been so impressed that two days later I drove another hook in to my skin, this time a finger. The point was close to the bone so pushing it through wasn't an option. This time I had Will to do the necessary and he chose forceps, ripping out the hook before I was ready. That one did hurt but, again, it left no more than a neat hole. After that I was much more careful in my casting.

If you don't fish with some kind of eye protection I hope these lessons will be sufficient to convince you of the wisdom of doing so.

Trophy fishing on the Dee

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:26:00 +0000

The spring Dee salmon fishing was as tough as ever this year but our party improved slightly on last year’s performance with seven fish. Two of our goals were achieved when everyone caught a fish and we had a fish on every day of the week.

They were all in the 6 lbs to 10 lbs range, so we didn’t land one of the big Dee springers although Mark Crampton Smith lost a big fish, apparently after mistaking it for a rock. This is not as daft as it sounds.

A big salmon can be pretty stubborn, holding station, refusing to budge, but if there is any “rock or fish” doubt in the mind, it’s better to hold steady rather than yanking hard at the obstruction as Mark did. His rock finally responded by spitting out the hook and shooting off up stream to a more appreciative beat.

First fish

The first fish fell to Bryan Kruse which, in an earlier visit, when we did that sort of thing, would have scooped him the first fish prize money in the sweep.

Mark objected to a sweep, arguing that it was ungentlemanly to despoil our experience with grubby money, so he had to settle for our new trophy, the Carlogie Cup for best all round fishing performance. This included ferreting out a fish from a “secret pool” that also produced a salmon for Will Sadler who had been showing signs of desperation as the only fishless rod midway through the week.

First he blamed his rod, then his line, then his rod and his line until the ghillie loaned him an identical rod which somehow seemed better.

Sluie Saucer

There was a second trophy, the Sluie Saucer, named after another nearby beat that we had rented for the week. This one has less to do with fishing prowess and more to do with general ineptness. After falling in the river three times, hooking myself twice, dropping off in the hut while holding a glass of wine, and losing my wading stick, I suppose I couldn’t complain when the saucer came my way.

Two other goals, a salmon over 15 lbs and a fish at Sluie, both eluded us. Sluie has recorded just two fish for the season to date and the beat owner is more than a little hacked off with spring runs that are a shadow of the old days.

During the 1960s river netting was taking 60,000 salmon a year and 10,000 or more were falling to the rods. Today the annual total of rod caught fish on the Dee in a season is somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 fish with all but a small minority returned. It's difficult to say how many fish are caught more than once but when records were taken of River Carron salmon - all tagged - some 19 per cent of catches were fish that had been caught twice.

Burn Improvement

While burn improvement on the Dee is to be commended, I am less convinced about the wisdom of the Dee Salmon Fishery Board decision to close its hatcheries. If the river was teeming with fish I could appreciate an argument to simply let the fish get on with their own breeding. But the Dee is far from reaching the levels of returning fish it needs to restore and sustain the kind of abundance it enjoyed in the past.

This week the weather warmed up and catches increased. They had 15 fish between four rods at Ballogie, the beat below us. The Carlogie total was six in ideal conditions, so I don’t think we did too badly.

The spring fishing is much improved on the way it was 10 years ago when some believed that the Dee springer could be extinct, but there is still a long way to go.

Angling

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:20:00 +0000

Angling Unity or Angling? These are the two names in the frame for a unified body to represent angling interests in England and Wales that is to be created from an amalgamation of six associations. The new body should be ready for legal registration in July if all goes to plan, becoming fully operational by January next year.

Pulling together six different groups in 15 months since the idea was first mooted by the Angling Conservation Association has been a minor miracle. The various boards who have buried any differences and self-interest for the good sense of having single more powerful voice, are to be congratulated.

The six associations in the move are:

Angling Conservation Association,
National Association of Fisheries and Angling Consultatives,
National Federation of Anglers,
National Federation of Sea Anglers,
Salmon and Trout Association,
Specialist Anglers' Alliance.

Now there is just the question of a name. Unless the group comes up with something it thinks is even better, my preference would be "Angling" so that way its interests would be rolled in to a single descriptive word.

April on the Tay

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:24:00 +0000

The problem with turning up to fish on the River Tay in the spring is that the fishing has been so poor in recent years I find it difficult to raise any sense of optimism and, believe me, I am an optimist.

No matter, it's good to practice my casting. On the Monday morning I had been fishing just 20 minutes at a place they call the "little shot" - an old netting spot - on the Benchill beat of the Upper Scone fishings, when I had the strongest of pulls on the fly.

I had run a Black Frances through the pool on an intermediate line with a fast-sinking tip, and had just changed the fly to a Temple Dog.

I retraced my steps on the bank and, after about three or four casts, hooked in to a salmon. Could it have been the same fish? Unfortunately I lost it after two or three minutes, but it was a reminder that I shouldn't have been so complacent. Fish were running and, although they weren't stopping, there was always the chance of a take.

On the Tuesday it rained heavily, leaving the water coloured for much of Wednesday. On the Thursday I was fishing the Cawnpore pool just opposite Stanley Mills when a fish took my fly just three or four yards from the bank. It was not a big fish, about 8 lbs, but it stripped off a lot of line before I beached it and returned it, having left my landing net at home.

On the Saturday morning I hooked in to another a little further down the same bank but this too, came off after a couple of minutes. I noticed that the landed fish was lightly hooked. These were fast running fish, hitting the fly from behind, not turning on it in the classic take.

Our group had six fish for the week, not great but a hell of a lot better than some recent years when the return has been one or two or none at all. Had all the lost fish held we would have been in double figures.

It was satisfying too, that the bank outfished the harling boats, with four coming from the bank, three on "flying C" spinners. I was the only one fishing fly but it fished just as well as the spinners. In fact I would argue that it fished better because it fishes a little more slowly.

It's too early to be optimistic about the Tay but the spring runs do seem to be improving gradually. It will be interesting to compare this with the Dee in a week's time.

Mill dams, Marmite, tea and cigarettes

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:52:00 +0000

In the alphabet of life, fishing comes somewhere between the boy scouts and girls, or at least that was how it happened for me. Come to think of it, I would have barely enrolled in the cub scouts the first time I cast a hook over the pier at Whitby and hauled out some small silvery "kamikaze" with fins.

Earlier still I was pulling greedy sticklebacks from the park lake that would attach themselves obligingly to the brandling worms I had tied to a piece of string. This method seemed to catch bigger specimens than I could get with my net. The net was made from one of my grandma's stockings tied in a knot, threaded on a piece of wire and attached to a bamboo pole.

I would take the sticklebacks home in a jam jar where they would die within two or three days. I had more success when I put them in a plastic tank outside until a heavy frost entombed them within a block of ice. Perhaps this was when I first began to appreciate the merits of catch-and-release.

Pink underskirt

Once I slipped on a wet leaf by the side of the lake, finding myself fully immersed in the "mucky end" where all the leaves, litter and uneaten breadcrumbs left by the satiated ducks would gather.I must have been about three or four years old. My mother dragged me out, took off my sodden clothes and dressed me for the bus ride home in a pink underskirt she had bought on the market. It was the bus ride from Hell and the associated humiliation most probably scarred me for the rest of my days.

Apart from holiday fishing I did not begin to take the sport seriously until I bought my first fishing licence and joined a coarse-fishing club in my early teens. It was on one of those fishing trips I bought my first and only packet of cigarettes - 20 Embassy - just like the ones smoked by mum and dad.

I had gone with a friend to fish a mill dam just outside Ossett in West Yorkshire. For some reason we thought that our chances were better the earlier we arrived so we were on the bus at first light and on our way before the first of the shift workers.

No sooner were our floats in the water than we were both puffing away on our "lights." Within two or three smokes my face must have gone the colour of the pea-green dam water. I can't recall whether or not I finished the packet but it certainly cured me of the urge to experiment any further with cigarettes, although I did try smoking my dad's pipe with the same unfortunate results.

Marmite sandwiches

These coarse-fishing forays, sustained by Marmite sandwiches and a flask of tea, would usually produce a decent haul of perch and roach, never very big. I might have progressed to bigger things had it not been for adolescence and the intervention of progressive rock, underage drinking and girls.

But the fishing was merely neglected, not abandoned, and during a canal holiday with friends I had what I can only describe as my angling epiphany. I was admiring a fine chub I had taken from the Avon near Tewksbury when a friend challenged my ethics (not that I knew what ethics were at the time).

"What are you going to do with it?" he asked.

"Throw it back," I said.

"Don't you think that's unkind to the fish? Wouldn't it show more respect for the fish if you killed and ate it?" he said.

I thought he had a point, so it was not long after that I acquired my first trout rod. This one was a birthday present from my in-laws-to-be who regarded game fishing as a healthy shared pastime for a soon-to-be-married young couple.

Broon and gold

Soon after our marriage they invited us salmon fishing to Scotland, to the Kinnaird beat of the River Tay. It was early April and there were few springers around but Gill had a lovely 17 lb fish on the Wednesday.

We were spin fishing with "broon and gold" devons bought from Malloch's in Perth. On the Saturday I knew I was in the last chance saloon when I hooked in to something big. When I look back now at the tackle I was using it makes me weep. My rod was a bendy piece of hollow glass fibre, bought from a barber's shop in Batley, and my tatty coarse-fishing reel was falling apart.

The fish kept taking line and I was struggling to get it in. I was tiring after 15 or 20 minutes and thought the fish must be tiring too so I tightened up the tension on the reel, but far too much. The fish ran and parted company with the line. It was just before lunch and it was an understatement to say I was distraught.

Silver springer

Straight after lunch I went back to the very same spot, cast again and had a fish on. It felt like another good one. This time I left the tension well alone. When it came to the gaff (this was the late 70s) it was a superb 23lb silver springer.

A year later, on the same beat in the summer I was casting a salmon fly for the first time and hooked in to a fish of about 12 pounds that was at my feet when it shed the hook.

They still shed the hook now and then today but there has been a lot of water under a lot of bridges since those days. I'll never forget that first springer or indeed those early roach and perch. Fishing is something that gets in to your blood.

The worst form of unlucky

richard.donkin@gmail.com (Richard Donkin) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:58:00 +0000

In my last FT fishing column I mentioned a term used in Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea. The word was salao, meaning "the worst form of unlucky."

Poor Judy Zagorski never had the time to digest the meaning of this word when she was felled and killed by a 75lb spotted eagle ray that leaped in to the boat where she had been enjoying a cruise, knocking her to the deck. But that was salao.

I noticed in the newspaper report that it quoted a local wildlife expert, saying that rays do not attack people. I'm not saying for one moment that this was anything other than a freak accident. But it is not true to say that rays cannot be aggressive.

I was "chased" briefly by a ray very similar in size to the one in that boat when wading on mud flats in Los Roques, Venezuela. My fishing guide was just as anxious to escape although it was like wading through treacle. Fortunately the fish was happy to see us off since we had strayed too close to its territory.

You don't read very often in sea fishing reports of the need to keep an eye out for predators when wading in warmer climbs. Usually there is no problem - and I would not describe a stingray as a predator - but you wouldn't want to stand on one. Nor would you want to hang around if you saw a large shark.

It's not a big problem but it shouldn't be ignored. I'm not sure if there is a word for the best form of lucky, but here's a candidate.