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I have fished for as long as I can remember, certainly since the 1960s, when I used to wait for the incoming tide each day off the Barra lighthouse in Salvador, Brazil, with prawn baited hooks on a length of mono, or a baited crab net. These days I am to be found in the hills of Northern Wales with a fly rod and a small tin of scruffy flies trying to tempt a wild trout.
I have fly fished in Canada, Norway, Spain, Ireland and Scotland but am as happy on my local rain-fed stream in the driving wind and rain. I enjoy all fly fishing methods but find upstream wet-fly particularly satisfying. My fly-tying leaves much to be desired but my small Tummel and Clyde-style flies seem to work. A few years ago I fell into the trap and expense of collecting new gear, but have found this to be an encumbrance. My philosophy is "leave the gear behind and spend time on observation and melding in". 
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Sunday
Jul312011

A poem from the late Tang dynasty

DateSunday, July 31, 2011 at 9:32AM

Sadness at the hairs in the mirror is no longer new,

The stains on my coat are harder to brush away.

I waste my hopes by rivers and lakes, a fishing rod in the hand

Which screens me from Western sunlight as I look towards Ch'ang-an. 

 

Written by Tu Mu (803-52), a wandering poet of the Yangtse region, China. The sense I get from this poem is that fishing was a pastime in China 1200 years ago!

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