(Jonathan Cape, 1929) I had a hunch that Arthur Ransome might have been an angler as I read Swallows and Amazons for the first time. Amid all that needless sailing and knickerbocker breaking were a few moments of sanity, as the characters did what all normal people do when holidaying beside water, and fished. My […]
Rod & Line by Arthur Ransome Read More »
(The Little Egret Press, 2014) Even the biggest fan of the 1960s television series Prisoner may have missed Number Six’s declaration of what he is going to do once he gains his freedom from the British intelligence agency. “Fishing,” he responded in his characteristic abrupt manner as though the fact the word is interchangeable with
Caught Between Two Worlds by Christoper Cullen Read More »
(A & C Black, 1986) This book was recommended to me by somebody I had never met. A simple email was all it took to open my eyes to the writings of W.M. Hill who has “fished every ‘puddle, pond, lake, drain, pit, canal, stream and ditch’ he came across in the past 35 years.”
Fishing Personally. By W.M. Hill Read More »
(Mainstream Publishing Company, 2005) It is rare that a memoir which is so deeply personal can remain a fishing book at heart, but this book does because it reminds us that the bond of angling can be complicated, special and unparalleled. The fourth child of an Anglo-Irish family, John’s career as a record executive for
For All Those Left Behind. By John Andrews Read More »
(The History Press, 2011). As the title may suggest, there is a darker side to this book. I was at first shaken by the honesty and detail of the author’s life. You are immediately introduced to his failing relationship, a thread that continues for a while, as his sudden infatuation for a forgotten fish-—the ferrox
Beneath the Black Water by Jon Berry Read More »
(The Guild of Reason, 2014) Nowhere in my fishing library is there a book anything like Terminal Chancer. Why exactly? Well, it’s difficult to say, but if part of the purpose of a book is to entertain, then this does it supremely well. It is a memoir that will resonate with a lot of anglers:
Terminal Chancer—Silver Seasons, Atlantic Salmon. By James Gilbraith Read More »
(Pelham Books, 1970) It is the Congo in 1960. A man called Jack Allan dies after being strafed across the chest by machine gun fire. Pearson grips us immediately; guns, mercenaries, Africa, elephant hunting, hard drinking bound together by the thread of fishing, especially for billfish—sailfish, swordfish and marlin—the harsh but thrilling environment of a
Fisherman by Anthony Pearson Read More »
(Old Pond Publishing, 2015) By Theo Pike In these days when all the funky river menders are talking about catchment-scale processes, natural flood management, and even rewilding with beavers, it’s feeling rather rare to find a book that’s just about fish. More to the point, it’s even rarer to find a book that’s just about
River Habitats for Coarse Fish by Mark Everard Read More »
A professional fisheries biologist, conservationist and land management specialist, Mark Walsingham worked for the National Trust for more than 15 years. He now provides land management and fisheries consultancy, specialising in river and lake restoration. He is a lifelong angler who has caught some truly monstrous fish. Well-known in carp circles—he is a regular contributor
Adrian Searle has been writing about art since the mid-1970s, becoming chief art critic of The Guardian in 1996. He has been a regular contributor to El Mundo in Madrid and to many art magazines. Author, broadcaster, former Turner Prize judge and curator of a number of exhibitions in Europe and the USA, he says
Graham Vasey is an artist who specialises in traditional film photography and darkroom printing. Brought up in County Durham, his very first angling experience was fishing with his mum on boating holidays on the canals of Shropshire. This passion was kindled further by trips with this grandfather to the small becks and streams of the
Having spent most of his working life as a press photographer, Super Fly Guy, aka Bruno Vincent turned his back on the profession and began to design and build just about anything, from flying projectors to floatant holders. With a love of angling from his (misin)formative years, fly tying was a natural progression expedited thanks
Andrew Griffiths lives and fishes in the cheap end of the Peak District with occasional forays into the pricey bits. He really should get out more but is drawn again and again to his two rain-fed rivers for just one more go at that tricky fish. It’s usually a midge thing. They are too close
David Profumo (pictured here on the right with Fred Buller) is a novelist and journalist, and fishing correspondent for Country Life magazine. He lives up a Perthshire glen, with a trout loch at the end of the lawn.
Including Chris Yates, David Profumo, Dominic Garnett, Kevin Parr, Dexter Petley, Jon Berry, John Andrews, Carlos Baz, Andrew Griffiths, John Stephens, Danny Adcock, The General, Graham Vasey, Maurice Neill, Steve Roberts, Nick Fallowfield-Cooper and Garrett Fallon, it is the definitive list of all articles featured in issue six, in the order in which they appear, with
Vincent was only three years old when he first wet a line, and made his first casts on the canals in and around the centre of Manchester. His love of fishing swiftly blossomed, and he has gone on to catch some fabulous fish of many different species. Vinny writes a weekly blog (www.northwestfisherman.wordpress.com) and has
Vic Gent is a Lincolnshire lad now residing in Norfolk. Taught to fish as a young boy by his father and brother, Vic has never strayed far from the water, spending much of his youth ‘mucking about’ aboard the family boat on the River Nene. Vic makes his Fallon’s angler debut in Issue 5 with
Born in Monmouthshire in 1920, Oliver Kite packed a lot into a tragically short life. He joined the Royal Engineers in 1941 and served in India, Burma, Malaya and Singapore, ultimately attaining the rank of Major. Kite continued to serve abroad after the end of the Second World War. He was married to Norah in
Like most anglers, Fishpool has often benefitted when non-angling relations and acquaintances decide to clear some clutter. Rods, reels, a natty fishing jacket, nets, flies and rod bags have all found their way to me – gratis of course, and largely because the finder knew not what else to do with them. A recent arrival
Anglers’ Annual 1963 Read More »
As Fishpool was nosing through the 1963 edition of the Anglers’ Annual, a familiar name caught his or her eye in the Coarse Fishing Catch Review section. Captor of one of the biggest pike of the year (a fish of 32lb from Hickling Broad) was Dennis Pye. A further glance below at the rudd report
Having been born in the Channel port of Dover, it was perhaps inevitable that Alan Yates would have a lifelong affinity for the Sea. He spent much of his formative fishing days chasing bass from boat and shore before taking an interest in match fishing. He was rather good at it. Alan’s match fishing success
Widely regarded as one of the finest angling writers of the 21st Century, for his third book Jon Berry also explored another great love – that of History. Having previously written of barbel and ferox (in A Can of Worms and Beneath the Blackwater respectively), in A Train to Catch Jon takes a very different
Born in Devon during the Second World War, it was, perhaps, inevitable that Mike Winter would become an angler. After all, his father worked with none other than Richard Walker, one of the most influential anglers of his (or any other) generation. Mike caught his first fish at the age of five – a small
Angling, and carp fishing in particular, lost another advocate shortly before Christmas. Peter Mohan was born in Berkshire in 1930 before growing up on the Channel coast at Bogner Regis. He began fishing at the age of twelve, and, at a time when the species was deemed by many to be uncatchable, developed a special
Written by Niall Fallon My biggest brown trout, which as I write stands nobly mounted in a case on my study wall, as stately and plump as any Buck Mulligan, was taken in total darkness on a mid-September evening on a small limestone lake. A day of wild wind and rain had been succeeded by
Out of the darkness: my biggest brown trout Read More »
Anyone who is a regular viewer of fishing programmes on the satellite channels will know Matt Hayes almost as well as they know themselves. Having appeared in over 200 television programmes, Matt has recently become a familiar face on terrestrial television too – acting as a judge on BBC2’s Earth’s Wildest Waters – The Big
Anyone who is a regular viewer of fishing programmes on the satellite channels will know Mick Brown almost as well as they know Matt Hayes. Mick has appeared in more than 80 television programmes – the vast majority alongside Matt. As a duo, they brought us The Great (and Greater) Rod Race, Wet Nets, and
Widely regarded as one of the finest angling writers of his generation, Dominic Garnett must have felt a little directionless of late. The publication of Fallon’s Angler Issue 5 sees Garnett reaching the pinnacle of his career. As contributor to five consecutive issues of Mighty Mr Fallon’s meteoric manuscripts (Fishpool is still angling for that
William Wyatt has fished for longer than he can remember. He grew up in East London, where he was driven to distraction by the wily chub of his local rivers the Lea and Roding. He had more success with crucians in the ponds of Epping Forest, and he still has an affinity for the species
Anyone fortunate enough, and sensible enough, to be a regular reader of Fallon’s Angler will be familiar with the brilliantly left-field scribblings of Dexter Petley. This is a man who writes quite unlike any other, and he is clearly inspired by those who also follow literary paths of their own. In 2009, The Raven Press
Born in Kent in 1937, Martin James was just 4 years old when he caught his first fish – a stunted rudd from a local pool which he hooked during a German Air Raid. He subsequently developed a love for all forms of fishing, with a particular love of fishing overseas. A favourite venue is
Born in Manchester, John Bailey’s early years were dominated by fishing and football. He was rather useful at both, and came close to a career in professional football before academic pressures nudged him off that path. A family move to East Anglia allowed John to focus more deeply as an angler, and as he embarked
Despite spending his first ever fishing trip trying in vain to tempt a sunken branch with a worm, Mike Pope persevered, and having caught his first roach from Roath Park Lake he spent the 1970’s exploring other waters around the Vale of Glamorgan. Having caught a 3lb 8oz bream and a 6lb 6oz carp in
I was introduced to Dominic Garnett in the middle of 2014, courtesy of my friend and fellow angling writer Theo Pike, when I was gathering contributors to appear in the first issue of Fallon’s Angler. I visited his website first, and devoured his material. There was something different about his work, something I hadn’t encountered very often
Good times for Crooked lines Read More »
Born in Altrincham, Cheshire in 1925, William Hamilton Canaway schooled locally and having attended University in Bangor, North Wales, served in the latter stages of Second World War. Canaway was an avid writer, and having returned to Education after his Military Service, then decided to focus full time upon his pen. His first novel, The
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s second largest city, is famed for its Steel manufacture, its sports teams – The Steelers, The Pirates and The Penguins – and for bringing us such famous names as Gene Kelly, Dean Martin and ron P. swegman. Ron’s literary career began during his time at Penn State University where he wrote for and
Born in 1938, Barrie Rickards took to angling at an early age, and learned to fish in the waters around his childhood homes in Leeds and Goole. The rivers Ouse and Derwent were favourite venues though he also had a love of Stillwater fishing, particularly for tench. Barrie was renowned internationally as a Palaeontologist and
Professor Richard Barrie Rickards Read More »
Having grown up in an environment influenced by the rigours of religion and army-life, John Andrews’ subsequent career in the music industry must have made for quite a contrast. As marketing manager for Creation Records, John lived life at 1000mph – his daily dealings involving bands such as Oasis and Primal Scream. His was a
Were there to exist a list of the Most Influential Anglers of the 20th Century, somewhere very near the top would sit Fred J Taylor. Along with brother Ken and cousin Joe, Fred caught some extraordinary fish and wrote extensively of his exploits, and all the while he did so with a wry smile and
Having grown up in East London, Matthew Minter escaped the fug of the city and today enjoys the bracing air of the Kent Coast where he lives with wife Alison and son Jacob. Though he makes an occasional local cast into the North Sea, Matthew’s fishing interest spreads across a variety of disciplines and methods,
ron P. swegman is the author and illustrator of Philadelphia on the Fly: Tales of an Urban Angler and Small Fry: The Lure of the Little. Tenkara fly fishing, fly tying, and cross country running to the water take up his time when he’s not at the front counter of the Urban Angler fly shop
Teacher, writer and, for nearly 25 years, a sea angler, Simon Smith is unsure exactly how to categorise himself. The author of a sea angling book, Running with the Tide, Simon lives with his wife and daughter on the south Wales coast, spending what little spare time he has writing, too much time working, far
William Wyatt is an angler in exile having bailed out of East London over a decade ago. An excuse to write about his fishing presented itself since contributing to Dexter Petley’s outrageously avant-garde Powerlines. He helped Peter Rolfe with his acclaimed book on the crucian carp Crock of Gold. Currently he is teaching English when
Mike Pope started to fish aged 11. During his time in higher education, he wrote for the student magazine about his friends’ fishing trips in and around Oxford. By now, he was also fly fishing for grayling and trout. On graduating, he worked in insurance before re-training as a secondary school teacher. He now teaches
John Andrews has been writing in various forms since his memoir For All Those Left Behind was published in 2002. He currently writes for a number of publications but most regularly for Caught by the River, Classic Angling and on his own blog: www.andrewsofarcadiascrapbook.blogspot.com. He may occasionally be seen and heard reading aloud in public
Luke Jennings is an author and the dance critic for The Observer. Having grown up in Sussex, he trained at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance (established by Marie Rambert in 1920) and worked for ten years as a dancer and choreographer before a back injury forced him to look elsewhere for a
Overlooking the River Torridge in North Devon is the small market town of Great Torrington. This was the final stronghold in the West Country for the Royalist army during the Civil War and home, since 1967, to the skilled glass-blowers of Dartington Crystal. A mile or two to the north you will find Great Darracott,
Not content with the running of one of Britain’s premier angling bookshops River Reads, in 2009 Sandra Armishaw launched Angling Heritage – a not-for-profit charitable trust created to preserve angling literature, sound recordings, imagery and letters. With fishing writer and historian Fred Buller MBE as Patron, and Chris Yates, Des Taylor and Reg Talbot active
There was a time – a dark, dark, time – when Fishpool was merely a leaf floating on the breeze and Mr Fallon, our hallowed master, was forced to conjure up Bits and Pieces for himself. One of the first entries in ‘Things we Like’ was The Domesday Book of Mammoth Pike – and Fishpool
Formerly a teacher, Charles Rangeley-Wilson’s love of travel, fishing and writing inevitably converged with the publication in 2004 of Somewhere Else. He has since written extensively, and contributes to Gray’s Sporting Journal and is Angling Correspondent to The Field, though he is familiar to many as The Accidental Angler. Rangeley-Wilson is a keen conservationist, with
Charles Rangeley-Wilson Read More »
It is tough to get a fishing programme commissioned on terrestrial television – particularly the BBC. Just ask Hugh Miles, (see Bits and Pieces Issue 15), who, despite the millions who tuned in to watch A Passion for Angling, could not persuade the BBC to take a chance on a follow-up (Their loss was Channel
The Accidental Angler Read More »
Back near the beginning of all things, soon after the esteemed editor of Fallon’s angler, Garrett himself, realised the folly of tackling Bits and Pieces by himself, his saviour, Fishpool, highlighted the life of ‘BB’ – one of our most loved and lyrical angling writers. Of course, ‘BB’ was but a pen name for Denys
Sir Edward Grey, Viscount Grey of Fallodon, holds the record for the longest serving Foreign Secretary in British Political History. Keeping office from 1905 to 1916, Grey was part of the Liberal Government that was in power at the outbreak of the First World War – making the statement by which he is often remembered,
It is an oft quoted suggestion from non-anglers that fishermen and women are wholly reliant upon luck. While it is undeniable that some of us seem to benefit from luck more than others, it may also be said that there are very few able to cultivate their luck quite as well as Martin Bowler. Martin
Hugh Tempest Sheringham was, quite simply, one of the greatest angling writers to have ever put pen to paper. Born in Tewkesbury in 1879, on the confluence of the River Severn and Warwickshire Avon, most of Sheringham’s casts were actually made further to the south-east in the Kennet valley. Here he developed an attitude that
Who could forget those wonderful moments in the Passion for Angling series? Quotes from the likes of Sheringham and Ted Hughes read so perfectly by the silky-voiced Chris Sandford. Sandford spent many years as an actor before realising that his voice was his meal ticket. Stage performances and a two year stint on Coronation Street
Who could forget Beefy Botham striding out to bat? His arms windmilling that enormous bat as if it were made from balsa. The bars would rapidly empty and the buzz of expectation would resonate. Few cricketers have had such an impact upon the sport, and even after this dramatic Ashes summer, still people hark back
There are few anglers who have ever cast that can match the ability of Terry Lampard. Having cut his teeth catching small brown trout from the Itchen and its carriers around his Winchester home, Lampard was taken fishing by a local carp angler and an obsession grew. Having moved to Dorset, Lampard began to explore
It is nearly thirty years since this Norfolk tackle dealer was catapulted into our lives. Go Fishing would help to make John Wilson a household name, but he drove an interesting road to get there. A former hairdresser and Merchant seaman, Wilson was born in Enfield and first wet a line in the River Lea.
Born in 1844, Frederic Halford’s first forays into angling were made in the parks of London where his family moved while he was a young boy. When in his early twenties, Halford was offered a chance to fish the River Wandle in South London, and here he began to learn the art of fly fishing. He
Born on St Valentine’s Day 1907, in Catford, south-east London, Bernard Venables was just 6 when he began fishing. His first forays were made on the network of drains and ditches on Romney Marsh, though his early career formed around his other great passion, art. Having studied at Croydon School of Art, Venables subsequently worked
Bernard Venables MBE Read More »
In 1946 the Daily Mirror signed to its ranks an artist by the name of Bernard Venables (see People we Like), who created a gardening cartoon featuring ‘Mr Crabtree’. OF course, as any sensible person knows, angling is a far more productive use of time than gardening, and within a year Mr Crabtree was going
Mr Crabtree Goes Fishing Read More »
Born Edward James in 1930, Ted Hughes is regarded as one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century. He was raised in the West Riding of Yorkshire, among the folds of farmland that make up the Calder Valley and beneath the moors of the southern Pennines. Here he learned to hunt and to fish,
Back in the beginning (of Fallon’s Angler) there came an apology to Izaak Walton. In the chaos of production the first issue went to press with a spelling mistake. I’m sure he won’t mind. To many he is the forefather of angling – and to some he altogether transcends this great passion of ours. With
Even those who haven’t read Moby Dick, are likely to be familiar with the story or, at the very least, the great eponymous whale himself. The author of the novel, Herman Melville, was a man with great interest in the natural world. Though his knowledge of whaling came from first hand experience, Melville respected the
It is fair to say that Hugh Falkus lived a fairly incident packed life. By the age of 6 he was already shooting and fishing, and soon after learned to sail and fly. He married his first wife in 1939, but a year later was shot down over France (reputedly flying his Spitfire in his
In 1951, beside a lake deep in the Lincolnshire Wolds, three anglers finding themselves hopelessly addicted to carp, decided it was time to further their obsession. The Carp Catcher’s Club was born, and those three anglers went on to become some of the most influential fishermen of the 20th Century. Together with Richard Walker and
There are few, if any, anglers who will be remembered as fondly as Bernard Venables. His very name conjures a sense of warmth and a source of considered, patient instruction. For many, Venables was Mr Crabtree. The man and the character he created smudging as one. Mr Crabtree Goes Fishing was published in 1949 with
Shortly after the publication of The Compleat Angler, Izaak Walton met fellow brother of the angle, Charles Cotton. Cotton had grown up in the Peak District, where he tested himself against the trout and grayling of the River Dove. He and Walton had enormous respect for one another, and a deep bond of friendship rapidly
