Hoylake Flyfishers Club is a small, busy club based in the Wirral but with most of its fishing in the North Wales area.   In addition to having access to some excellent waters, they have a full calendar of events that includes regular club competitions, group outings and tackle auctions.   Tonight was the annual…

Whilst visiting a convalescing friend recently, he remarked on how easy it is to take good health for granted. He also mentioned how much he was missing getting out and about.   Human beings need to connect with nature. Some do it via their gardens, for others it can be as challenging as climbing a…

To paraphrase the popular idiom, One mans rubbish is another mans gold. Whilst the current conditions were rubbish for Salmon fishing, they provided us with a golden opportunity to fish some very special beats which would otherwise have been off limits to us.   Day 3 was a similar story. This time we were fishing…

Back at the hotel I bemoaned our predicament to our host Nigel and told him we were planning to head downstream to Lazonby where apparently, the water levels would be better.   After much whining from me and a good deal of deliberation from him, he eventually offered something. “I know a very special place…

A fishing trip up to Cumbria is always eventful. My three blog followers may remember that I was trapped at the Tufton Arms hotel in the floods of 2015 and since then, every subsequent trip has coincided with heavy rainfall, albeit thankfully not on the same scale. The net result though has been poor fishing…

I recently congratulated a client on how quickly he appeared to have mastered the art of ‘The Fishing Excuse’. He’d just returned from a less than fruitful trip and was citing water temperature as a contributing factor, which of course it is.   He was both consoled and commended. I went on to explain that…

The recent good weather was set to break at around 2pm today so I thought I’d head to the river Goyt for a first go at it’s resident Brown Trout.   The river was running a little high and was slightly coloured but it was the best it’s been for some time. There were no…

On Saturday, I finally got my first chance of the season to target the Brown Trout of the river Dee. I was again indebted to the chauffeur and to show my respect and appreciation, I sat in the front and told her that today she could dispense with the cap and gloves.   A bright,…

Fishing and guiding have been pretty thin on the ground recently. A combination of ill health and less than ideal conditions have conspired to keep both me and my fly fishing gear bone dry. So when a friend asked if I’d like two days guiding work on the river Eden, I leapt at the chance….

There is little doubt that membership of the EU has held us more accountable for pollution at an industrial level. Sadly, that responsibility hasn’t filtered down to all of the individuals in our society.   This stretch of one of Yorkshire’s industrial rivers is up against it. It runs through the city centre and is…