ALTHOUGH I do try to fish every month of the year, I am a great believer in the traditional closed seasons—once termed ‘fence months’—because gleeful anticipation lies at the heart of angling and you tend to appreciate something more if there is a certain difficulty in obtaining it.
By the time spring comes to the glen up here, I am usually suffering from a severe case of cabin fever—or ‘the shack nasties’, as they say in Maine. I can tell it’s spring, because when I take our cocker spaniel Pompey for his early-morning constitutional, I no longer cast a moon-shadow onto the frosted lawn. This year, my first vow was to ‘commit more fishing’.
I admit this is a perennial resolution, but I was emboldened by a report from Prof Lee Smith, of Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, which suggests anglers experience lower levels of diagnosed anxiety disorder (16.5%, compared with 26.4% in the wider population). The Prof doesn’t mention that profound and frequent anxiety caused by losing your quarry or your mate catching more than you—but it is now official that fishing is good for you.
Accordingly, my sporting year got off to a sprightly start mid January, when I was invited to perform the symbolic First Cast of the salmon season on the Tay, at Meikleour. No shiny fish, but great to have those rods out again. In February, I was down at the splendid Arundell, in Devon, to speak at a gala evening for WildFish, and, next morning, we enjoyed a (rather low-scoring) grayling session, during which my old friend David Pilkington treated me to a masterclass in Euro-nymphing. This duly justified the purchase of yet another rod (I’m almost up to 100 now) and I decided to splash out, as it were, on a spiffy new set of chesties and a couple of fly lines while the going was good.
Denne historien er fra May 10, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra May 10, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
