Trout only live in beautiful places

Nether Wallop Mill, Hampshire, England Thursday July 2nd 2014

Trout only live in beautiful places 

I said that once to myself as much as to my guide as we floated down a Wyoming river, with unspoilt forest, snow peaked mountains and moose for company. I guess he must have heard me clearly enough because he shot back a withering glance that said without the trouble of using words:  Have you only just worked that out? Doh! I suspect that by return he must have seen some expression on my face that bridled at his dismissal of a remark I thought profound as a little while later between expelling that vile chewing tobacco beloved of back country guides he relented.

  

'You are right', he conceded, 'but I prefer what Arnold Gingrich, an avid angler who also happened to found Esquire magazine said', "A trout is a moment of beauty known only to those who seek it." That's fishing guides for you: well read but always putting fishing ahead of founding an iconic magazine.

  

The truth is that us fly fishers are lucky people. The kit we use, the places we go and the prey we seek are all beautiful. We carry those memories around in our head, but sometimes there are photographers that capture the essence of what we do reminding us of places we have been and places we would like to go. 

That  brings me in a roundabout (yes, you wondered where this was going ....) way to Flymage. I have been dipping into the stunning Flymage fly fishing and photography magazine for a few years now. However until I was asked to write an article for the quarterly publication I had no idea that it was solely run for pleasure by José Weigand and his friends. Every issue, like the subject it covers, is a thing of great beauty. 

I hope you enjoy its arrival to your Inbox as much as I do. Below is the article Dry fly fishing in the footsteps of the father I wrote (p. 45-61) and here is the link to the latest edition.

   

Dry fly fishing in the footsteps of the father 

   

Mottisfont Abbey - River Test

If you are out anytime this season peering into your fly box to pick a pattern for a fish you have just spotted rising, pause for a moment. Then cast your eyes up to the heavens to offer a small prayer of thanks to Frederic Halford for this year is the 100th anniversary of his death and if any man can claim the mantle 'the father of dry fly fishing', it is Halford.

  

F M Halford, a successful businessman of the Victorian era, dedicated his life from middle age to his death at 69 to the pursuit of brown trout on the chalkstreams of southern England with the dry fly. To say he invented this style of fishing would be wrong (the Macedonians were doing it before the birth of Christ) but what he did do was draw together a disparate variety of practices and beliefs to codify the art of fishing to rising fish with imitative patterns in his book Floating Flies and How to Dress Them published in 1886.

  

Much has been written about Halford's life and fishing practices; high on the list is his apparent dislike of his contemporary, GEM Skues who invented nymph fishing. Actually this is probably more legend than fact as the two met occasionally and there is no record of any rancour.  One of those places they communed was the Oakley Hut on the River Test at Mottisfont Abbey, where Halford fished for many years and made his last ever cast to a trout. As a place for fishing it is a remarkable spot; as a reminder of a fly fishing great it is awe inspiring.

  

The Oakley Stream, as we call Halford's section of the famous River Test, is the perfect vision of an English chalkstream, where the reed-thatched hut he built still stands on the river bank today. The water is clear, fast flowing without being a torrent. In most sections the depth is no more than three feet, the river bed lined with bright golden gravel from which grows rafts of green ranunculus river weed that gently wafts with the flow.  If you have a chance to get into the water run your fingers through the tendrils of the weed like you might your hair, then open the palm of your hand. Wriggling in your cupped hand will be a mass of river life. Pale shrimps, light green olives and tiny snails to name but three. Bend down to turn over any large stone on the river bed and you will see sedge cases, mayfly nymphs and bloodworms. It is this super-abundance of entomological life that attracts the trout and in turn us fly fishermen.

Halford had a particular way of fly fishing; not for him was speculative casting with a fly that may or may not work. For him it was all about observation, imitation and execution. Observe a rising fish, identify the fly it was feeding on, tie on an accurate imitation and then, as my old casting instructor once told me, make your first cast your best cast. For Halford the perfect day was to spot four rising fish rising to four different naturals and catch them on four different patterns. Why four you might ask? Well back then gentlemen fly fishers were encouraged to catch and kill just four fish each day; catch and release was frowned upon.

  

The chalkstreams were then, and are now, particularly suited to Halford's style of dry fly fishing because there are so many types of hatches and the fish are prone to being highly selective - that is what makes the challenge man vs. fish so fascinating. Somehow amongst that array of insects you have to pick the one the trout wants at any given moment. Some days, like at the height of the Mayfly ephemera danica hatch that lasts for three weeks from late May to early June when the huge duns are gulped down left, right and centre, it is plainly obvious. But in the fading light of dusk on a sultry summer evening when a myriad of tiny dark specks litter the surface to match the hatch whilst the fish feed in a frenzy all about you can be altogether harder.

  

Those are, of course, the two extremes of the chalkstream dry fly fishing but the magic of these special rivers is that hatches happen every day of the year, regardless of the season. I have been out on Christmas Day in the snow to see wild trout pecking away at a hatch of tiny olives and at the other end of the scale hidden myself under the shade of a tree away from the blazing heat of August to watch a big, fat lazy trout suck caddis off the reeds as they emerge from the water.

It is a remarkable thing that nearly a hundred and fifty years on since Halford first trod the banks of the River Test his principles still guide us today. Yes, the tackle has changed but we all still crave that moment when a fish rises to the fly we have so delicately cast. In that fraction of a millisecond, hours or days of frustration melt away into joy. It will always be a magical moment and for that we must thank Frederic Halford.

 

The full edition of this article with many more photographs is in the summer edition of Flymage Fly Fishing and Photography magazine.

Trout only live in beautiful places 

I said that once to myself as much as to my guide as we floated down a Wyoming river, with unspoilt forest, snow peaked mountains and moose for company. I guess he must have heard me clearly enough because he shot back a withering glance that said without the trouble of using words:  Have you only just worked that out? Doh! I suspect that by return he must have seen some expression on my face that bridled at his dismissal of a remark I thought profound as a little while later between expelling that vile chewing tobacco beloved of back country guides he relented.

  

'You are right', he conceded, 'but I prefer what Arnold Gingrich, an avid angler who also happened to found Esquire magazine said', "A trout is a moment of beauty known only to those who seek it." That's fishing guides for you: well read but always putting fishing ahead of founding an iconic magazine.

  

The truth is that us fly fishers are lucky people. The kit we use, the places we go and the prey we seek are all beautiful. We carry those memories around in our head, but sometimes there are photographers that capture the essence of what we do reminding us of places we have been and places we would like to go. That  brings me in a roundabout (yes, you wondered where this was going ....) way to Flymage.

  

I have been dipping into the stunning Flymage fly fishing and photography magazinefor a few years now. However until I was asked to write an article for the quarterly publication I had no idea that it was solely run for pleasure by José Weigand and his friends. Every issue, like the subject it covers, is a thing of great beauty. I hope you enjoy its arrival to your Inbox as much as I do. Below is the article Dry fly fishing in the footsteps of the father I wrote (p 45-61) and here is the link to the latest edition.

  

Dry fly fishing in the footsteps   

If you are out anytime this season peering into your fly box to pick a pattern for a fish you have just spotted rising, pause for a moment. Then cast your eyes up to the heavens to offer a small prayer of thanks to Frederic Halford for this year is the 100th anniversary of his death and if any man can claim the mantle 'the father of dry fly fishing', it is Halford.

  

F M Halford, a successful businessman of the Victorian era, dedicated his life from middle age to his death at 69 to the pursuit of brown trout on the chalkstreams of southern England with the dry fly. To say he invented this style of fishing would be wrong (the Macedonians were doing it long before the birth of Christ) but what he did do was draw together a disparate variety of practices and beliefs to codify the art of fishing to rising fish with imitative patterns in his book Floating Flies and How to Dress Them published in 1886.

  

Much has been written about Halford's life and fishing practices; high on the list is his apparent dislike of his contemporary, GEM Skues who invented nymph fishing. Actually this is probably more legend than fact as the two met occasionally and there is no record of any rancour.  One of those places they communed was the Oakley Hut on the River Test at Mottisfont Abbey, where Halford fished for many years and made his last ever cast to a trout. As a place for fishing it is a remarkable spot; as a reminder of a fly fishing great it is awe inspiring.

  

The Oakley Stream, as we call Halford's section of the famous River Test, is the perfect vision of an English chalkstream, where the reed-thatched hut he built still stands on the river bank today. The water is clear, fast flowing without being a torrent. In most sections the depth is no more than three feet, the river bed lined with bright golden gravel from which grows rafts of green ranunculus river weed that gently wafts with the flow.  If you have a chance to get into the water run your fingers through the tendrils of the weed like you might your hair, then open the palm of your hand. Wriggling in your cupped hand will be a mass of river life. Pale shrimps, light green olives and tiny snails to name but three. Bend down to turn over any large stone on the river bed and you will see sedge cases, mayfly nymphs and bloodworms. It is this super-abundance of entomological life that attracts the trout and in turn us fly fishermen.

Halford had a particular way of fly fishing; not for him was speculative casting with a fly that may or may not work. For him it was all about observation, imitation and execution. Observe a rising fish, indentify the fly it was feeding on, tie on an accurate imitation and then, as my old casting instructor once told me, make your first cast your best cast. For Halford the perfect day was to spot four rising fish rising to four different naturals and catch them on four different patterns. Why four you might ask? Well back then gentlemen fly fishers were encouraged to catch and kill just four fish each day; catch and release was frowned upon.

  

The chalkstreams were then, and are now, particularly suited to Halford's style of dry fly fishing because there are so many types of hatches and the fish are prone to being highly selective - that is what makes the challenge man vs. fish so fascinating. Somehow amongst that array of insects you have to pick the one the trout wants at any given moment. Some days, like at the height of the Mayfly ephemera danica hatch that lasts for three weeks from late May to early June when the huge duns are gulped down left, right and centre, it is plainly obvious. But in the fading light of dusk on a sultry summer evening when a myriad of tiny dark specks litter the surface to match the hatch whilst the fish feed in a frenzy all about you can be altogether harder.

  

Those are, of course, the two extremes of the chalkstream dry fly fishing but the magic of these special rivers is that hatches happen every day of the year, regardless of the season. I have been out on Christmas Day in the snow to see wild trout pecking away at a hatch of tiny olives and at the other end of the scale hidden myself under the shade of a tree away from the blazing heat of August to watch a big, fat lazy trout suck caddis off the reeds as they emerge from the water.

It is a remarkable thing that nearly a hundred and fifty years on since Halford first trod the banks of the River Test his principles still guide us today. Yes, the tackle has changed but we all still crave that moment when a fish rises to the fly we have so delicately cast. In that fraction of a millisecond, hours or days of frustration melt away into joy. It will always be a magical moment and for that we must thank Frederic Halford.

 

The full edition of this article with many more photographs is in the summer edition of Flymage Fly Fishing and Photography magazine.