Life of a Chalkstream

Life of a Chalkstream PDF Author: Simon Cooper
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007547870
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
This delightful book records a year in the life of an essentially English waterscape, one that is home to a vast array of wildlife and natural habitat of the keen angler – the chalkstream.

Life of a Chalkstream

Life of a Chalkstream PDF Author: Simon Cooper
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007547870
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
This delightful book records a year in the life of an essentially English waterscape, one that is home to a vast array of wildlife and natural habitat of the keen angler – the chalkstream.

Halford and the Dry-Fly Revolution

Halford and the Dry-Fly Revolution PDF Author: Tony Hayter
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780709067627
Category : Fishers
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
F.M. Halford and the Dry-Fly Revolution is the first full-length biography of the man who did more that anyone to codify and popularize the doctrine of the dry fly on chalk streams. By the end of his life, with the publication of seven books and over 200 articles, the name of Halford had come to be known in all parts of the world where fly fishing for trout was practised. Today his name is still recognized worldwide as being synonymous with the fishing of the dry fly. Tony Hayter is the only author to have been given access to the family papers, including Halford's angling journals, and has thus been able to produce a work of original research. The book also sets the historical context in which Halford lived, follows him through his unusual career, considers the influence upon him of other major figures of the era such as Marryat, Hall and Sanctuary, and discusses why Halford has often been misunderstood and criticized since his death. This book which contains many previously unseen illustrations makes a substantial contribution to angling history. Packed with anecdote, incident and newly unearthed detail, through which runs a strong narrative thread, F.M. seriously interested in angling.

The Otters’ Tale

The Otters’ Tale PDF Author: Simon Cooper
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0008189722
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Shortlisted for THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2017‘The best popular account of the lives of otters written so far’ Richard Shelton, Times Literary Supplement

Nymph Fishing for Chalk Stream Trout

Nymph Fishing for Chalk Stream Trout PDF Author: George Edward Mackenzie Skues
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Flies, Artificial
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description


A Fly Fisher's Life

A Fly Fisher's Life PDF Author: Charles Ritz
Publisher: Robert Hale
ISBN: 9780709058526
Category : Fly fishing
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this work, Charles Ritz reflects on rods, lines and other tackle as well as his famous method of fly-casting - High Speed, High Line - which is described in detail. The book is enriched with his reminiscences from the finest game-fishing waters of Europe and North America.

Chalk Streams

Chalk Streams PDF Author: Dick Hawkes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781913012267
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
A book of evocative and atmospheric photographs taken by Dick Hawkes to create a representative record of this precious and ecologically unique habitat - before much of it is lost to the many threats it faces. Chalk streams have been described as England's "rainforest". Around 85% of the world's chalk streams are in England. They are beautiful, biologically distinct and amazingly rich in wildlife, but are under threat from man-made issues of abstraction, pollution from chemicals and effluent, development for housing, and climate change. Included in the book are images of typical habitats and species of wildlife found in chalk streams and water meadows, highlighting those that are rare or most under threat.

Keeper

Keeper PDF Author: Martin Donovan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780983385707
Category : Fishing
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
At age fifteen, Martin "Donny" Donovan graduated from Testwood School in Southampton, England and set out on a ten-year odyssey of traveling the world, working odd jobs, and pining for an eventual means of returning home to the chalkstreams where he fished and explored as a child.Through connections and persistence he eventually worked his way into the exclusive niche of riverkeeping and landed a job working the Nursling beats on the famed River Test.Keeper, is Donovan's rollicking account of his antics abroad, and two decades of tending rivers, coddling fish, and guiding anglers. His stories are exceptional, but what ultimately sets them apart is Donovan's wry voice and his bracing departure from the stereotypical English fly-fishing memoir.With equal measures of passion, irreverence, and hilarity, he does a masterful job of salting a traditional setting with an oddball cast of characters, props, and predicaments. He introduces us to gentried English dry-fly purists and mobs of bait soaking carp-catchers. He writes about prominent London attorneys, cantankerous skinheads, redneck clock peddlers, and booze-swilling farmers. While fly-fishing for trout and salmon are Donovan's beloved diversions, he also has an eclectic fixation with derelict motorbikes, chainsaw carpentry, hitchhiking, canned beer, and curry houses.While some angling traditionalists may lament that all of the great stories have long-since been written about the English chalkstreams, we are proud to present an engaging addendum and a fresh new voice from the birthplace of fly fishing.

Silt Road

Silt Road PDF Author: Charles Rangeley-Wilson
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448182107
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
At the foot of a chalk hill a stream rises in a silent copse, and is soon lost under the car parks and streets of the town its waters once gave life to. Captivated by the fate of this forgotten stream Charles Rangeley-Wilson sets out one winter’s day to uncover its story. Distilled into the timeless passage of the river’s flow, buried under the pavements that cover meadow, marsh and hill he finds dreamers and visionaries, a chronicle of paradises lost or never found, men who shaped the land and its history.

G.E.M. Skues

G.E.M. Skues PDF Author: Tony Hayter
Publisher: Robert Hale
ISBN: 9780719810589
Category : Fishers
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A magisterial biography of the man widely regarded as the most interesting and innovative fly fisherman of the 20th century, based on research into primary sources The most innovative fly-fishing angler of modern times, G. E. M. Skues spearheaded and near-singlehandedly developed the technique of below-surface fly-fishing for trout with nymphs. His pioneering example is now followed by anglers worldwide. During the six years of research and writing for this volume, Tony Hayter traveled widely in Europe and the U.S. to unearth a treasure trove of original and hitherto unpublished material, which throws new light on the life of this great man. Packed with fascinating detail, the book explores many hitherto unrevealed facets of Skues' life and for the first time sets into proper perspective his early clash with fishing author Frederic Halford, as well as his inevitable collision with the diehard dry-fly purists in 1938. Also detailed for the first time through voluminous unpublished correspondence is the major influence Skues had on anglers in Europe and the U.S., culminating in his election as an honorary life member of the New York Anglers Club in 1927. Vividly illustrated with photographs of people and places long gone and changed forever, this book will long stand as the definitive biography of Skues.

Casting a Spell

Casting a Spell PDF Author: George Black
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0307494365
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Thirty-five million Americans–one in eight–like to go fishing. Fly fishers have always considered themselves the aristocracy of the sport, and a small number of those devotees, a few thousand at most, insist upon using one device in the pursuit of their obsession: a handcrafted split-bamboo fly rod. Meeting this demand for perfection are the inheritors of a splendid art, one that reveres tradition while flouting obvious economic sense and reaches back through time to touch the hands of such figures as Theodore Roosevelt and Henry David Thoreau. In Casting a Spell, George Black introduces readers to rapt artisans and the ultimate talismans of their uncompromising fascination: handmade bamboo fly rods. But this narrative is more than a story of obscure objects of desire. It opens a new vista onto a century and a half of modern American cultural history. With bold strokes and deft touches, Black explains how the ingenuity of craftsmen created a singular implement of leisure–and how geopolitics, economics, technology, and outrageous twists of fortune have all come to focus on the exquisitely crafted bamboo rod. We discover that the pastime of fly-fishing intersects with a mind-boggling variety of cultural trends, including conspicuous consumption, environmentalism, industrialization, and even cold war diplomacy. Black takes us around the world, from the hidden trout streams of western Maine to a remote valley in Guangdong Province, China, where grows the singular species of bamboo known as tea stick–the very stuff of a superior fly rod. He introduces us to the men who created the tools and techniques for crafting exceptional rods and those who continue to carry the torch in the pursuit of the sublime. Never far from the surface are such overarching themes as the tension between mass production and individual excellence, and the evolving ways American society has defined, experienced, and expressed its relationship to the land. Fly-fishing may seem a rarefied pursuit, and making fly rods might be a quixotic occupation, but this rich, fascinating narrative exposes the soul of an authentic part of America, and the great significance of little things. George Black’s latest expedition into a hidden corner of our culture is an utterly enchanting, illuminating, and enlightening experience.