On Fishing

On Fishing
Brian Clarke

A lifetime’s fishing experiences written by one of the UK’s leading fly fishermen.Brian Clarke is one of Britain's best-known fly-fishermen – and one of the world's most widely-read angling authors. His monthly column for ‘The Times’ has become an institution. His widely-ranging, penetrating and often provocative articles for that newspaper and for ‘The Sunday Times’ have been required reading for serious fishermen for over 30 years.This collection of 71 articles and essays distils the author's lifetime experience. The ground he covers is immense: fish and how they behave, tackle and how to choose and use it, flyfishing tactics and strategies, angling history and literature, issues and personalities, environmental threats and the future. The whole book carries the authority of Brian's pioneering work in the sport – and of his groundbreaking studies of trout behaviour, especially. It is informative, thought-provoking, entertaining and beautifully written. ‘On Fishing’ will help anyone who fishes for anything to understand more, to think more and to catch more. It will draw even non-anglers down into the world under water – and to the fascinations that fishermen find there.

On Fishing

Brian Clarke

SOMETIMES, when sitting out there by the river alone, especially at dusk, I begin to fold into myself and my thoughts. Then even thinking fades away. I seem to liquefy, to melt into the physical world shawled about me, to dissolve into the water’s curlings and slidings, its soft easings and crinklings, its twiddling little vortices and its washes of light. I go, though not consciously, to some other place.

Later, as if unprompted, the world takes form again, sounds separate and become distinct again and I look at my watch. Ten minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour. I do not know where I have been, but it has been somewhere deep down and I suspect far back, perhaps near that place where everything began.

Wherever that place is, I go there gladly. It is somewhere deep-healing and it makes me whole. It is to that place and space that I dedicate this book: to that place where the physical passes through me like ether – and to fishing, which magics me there.

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#ucb998310-a895-53a4-a956-bd5332f0e4a8)

Title Page (#u9738b151-bd6e-513d-8839-030fb46bad17)

Dedication (#u6c218163-eb31-51db-bc4b-e45f6d68131a)

Introduction (#u3956853f-9bac-5bc9-8c41-0219d833a36e)

One Long Morning (#u00f067d7-bf51-5105-afbf-dbca5e512956)

Which Fly, When (#u57f86653-3319-52ec-a9c6-d9b38bad1dbe)

A Second-hand Book (#u46b144d5-8097-5905-9fc1-c3568313e3a5)

A Shattered Dream (#u01b78af1-74ca-561a-94ad-4ec302000058)

Wildlife, the Media and Us (#u5726ac2d-7a0a-592c-ab31-a2d56a16a868)

All You Need to Know (#u1f249e10-aec7-582c-b004-c0f35d048122)

Arthur Ransome (#ucace3026-a792-59ce-94d2-2aef34d23afb)

Coarse Fish on the Move (#u3af72018-8228-5ca1-bc66-c8ff1083cbb5)

Buying Tackle (#uc33d75fb-fa71-5641-a58a-8443b0c012a5)

Dry Fly, Wet Fly, Nymph (#u1ab71b20-d4dd-5422-967b-4cf269cecd1d)

Fun in the Grass (#u8d407883-fd62-514e-ae40-8b55c470e592)

Arthur Oglesby (#u4707dbe8-4fd4-5642-bffc-8f6e44bcc1b9)

The Weakest Link (#ub9ec0a51-7ae5-5b0f-b72e-8fa0b12a0c27)

Always and Never (#u392516b2-d85e-59fc-80f5-c78e689df322)

Barbless Hooks (#u4e851547-8bc3-569d-a519-39f265b3f9f5)

Bernard Venables (#u323d1184-4220-5bf2-a212-ede2c654fed3)

The Power of the Close-up (#litres_trial_promo)

Best Day, Worst Day (#litres_trial_promo)

Big Noreen (#litres_trial_promo)

Brain-boxes on Fins? (#litres_trial_promo)

Frank Sawyer and Oliver Kite (#litres_trial_promo)

The Man Who Dressed as a Tree (#litres_trial_promo)

A Definition of the Impossible (#litres_trial_promo)

The Beatrix Potter Syndrome (#litres_trial_promo)

Fishing at Night (#litres_trial_promo)

Flies, Hooks and Leaders (#litres_trial_promo)

The Lady Gives it a Go (#litres_trial_promo)

Fred Buller (#litres_trial_promo)

Getting Stocking Levels Right (#litres_trial_promo)

Stalking Fish on Lakes (#litres_trial_promo)

Giving Logic a Chance (#litres_trial_promo)

Chub, Dace, Roach, Barbel (#litres_trial_promo)

Halford and the Dry Fly (#litres_trial_promo)

John Goddard (#litres_trial_promo)

Just Going Fishing (#litres_trial_promo)

Life and Death in the Arctic (#litres_trial_promo)

A Perfect Day (#litres_trial_promo)

Making Fishing Too Easy (#litres_trial_promo)